About
(english)
Victoria Carrasco is a Chilean-Canadian curator of contemporary art and moving image, born in Montréal. From 2008 to 2025, she held curatorial, managerial, and leadership positions at PHI (formerly known as PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art), where she played a key role in shaping the institution’s visitor experience strategy, developing internal professional growth initiatives, curating exhibitions, and expanding audiences by creating new exhibition formats of time-based media and performances programs.
Her curatorial practice is grounded in research and centers on practices in contemporary art, developed through close collaboration with artists. Her institutional experience reinforces an expertise of exhibition-making and the dynamics between artwork, space, and audience—emphasizing accessibility, engagement, and critical reflection. She remains attuned to the social, cultural, and spatial contexts in which art is produced and experienced, and is committed to its critical and transformative potential that lives on after outside of the art gallery setting.
Carrasco curated REMEMBER, PERFORM, FORGET: Binding Space Through Utopia - with Kerstin Honeit, The Society of Affective Archives, and Rodolfo Andaur in 2023, co-curated with Cheryl Sim, the exhibition Larry Achiampong: Relic Traveller in 2022, the performance Dora García: Two Planets Have Been Colliding for Thousands of Years in 2021, and have worked with international, national and local artists in Montreal and organizations on the presentation of screenings and performances, moderated roundtables, and hosted artist talks and podcasts.
Carrasco holds an MA in Performance Curation from the Institute of Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University, a BA in Environmental Design from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), and a BFA with a Concentration in Photography from Concordia University. In 2019, she was awarded the Ford Foundation ICPP Leadership Fellowship by Wesleyan University. She is also co-editor of the bi-annual publication TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation and is on the Board of Directors of VIVA! Art Action and Centre des arts actuels SKOL.
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(french)
Née à Montréal, Victoria Carrasco est une commissaire canadienne d’origine chilienne. De 2008 à 2025, elle a occupé les postes de commissaire, de gestion et leadership à PHI (anciennement Fondation PHI pour l'art contemporain), où elle a joué un rôle clé dans l'élaboration de la stratégie d'expérience des visiteurs de l'institution, la création d'initiatives de développement professionnel interne, le commissariat d'expositions et l'élargissement des publics par le développement de nouveaux formats d'exposition de programmes de médias temporels et performances.
Sa pratique curatoriale est ancrée dans la recherche et se concentre sur les pratiques de l'art contemporain, développées en étroite collaboration avec des artistes. Son expérience institutionnelle renforce son expertise en réalisation d'expositions et la dynamique entre l'œuvre d'art, l'espace et le public, privilégiant l'accessibilité, l'engagement et la réflexion critique. Elle demeure à l'écoute des contextes sociaux, culturels et spatiaux dans lesquels l'art est produit et expérimenté, et s'attache à son potentiel critique et transformateur qui perdure au-delà du cadre des galeries d'art.
Carrasco a été commissaire de SE SOUVENIR, PERFORMER, OUBLIER: relier l’espace par l’utopie - avec Kerstin Honeit, La Société des archives affectives (Fiona Annis and Véronique La Perrière M) et Rodolfo Andaur en 2023, co-commissaire avec Cheryl Sim de l'exposition Larry Achiampong: L’explorateur de reliques en 2022 et de la performance Dora García: Two Planets Have Been Colliding for Thousands of Years en 2021. Elle a également collaboré avec des artistes et des organismes internationaux, nationaux et locaux à Montréal pour la présentation de projections et de performances, animé des tables rondes et animé des conférences et des balados.
Elle est titulaire d’une maîtrise en commissariat de la performance de l’Institute of Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) de l'Université Wesleyan, d’un baccalauréat en design de l’environnement de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) et d’un baccalauréat en beaux-arts avec concentration en photographie de l’Université Concordia. En 2019, l’Université Wesleyan lui a décerné la bourse de Leadership ICPP de la Fondation Ford. Elle est également co-éditrice de la publication semestrielle TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation et siège au conseil d'administration de VIVA! Art Action et du Centre des arts actuels SKOL.
Sentient | Disobedient: about presence
Collectif B.L.U.S.H., Dédé Chen, Charline Dally, Ralitsa Doncheva, Julia E. Dyck, Lee Ingram, Joyce Joumaa, Rojin Shafiei, Florencia Sosa Rey, Laura Taler.
Video program, March 3-9 2025, PHI Foundation.
Dédé Chen, Papaya, 2022. Production still. Photo: Laurence Ly. Courtesy of the artist
Initially presented at the PHI Foundation in August 2024, Sentient | Disobedient was a screening series that explored art history and practices that have marked feminisms through video. The first part of the program featured works by international legacy artists such as Carolee Schneemann and Ana Mendieta, while the second highlighted works by contemporary artists from Québec. In the latter, the presence of performance and references to legacy artists was significant. While curating the Québec segment of the program, it became apparent that certain voices were missing. In response, an open call for video submissions was launched, shaping the program’s final iteration. In an effort to conclude this broader research project and provide a platform to showcase recent works by local and national artists, the PHI Foundation now presents a selection of works ranging from 2021 to today.
Where are we now? The effects of the pandemic can still be felt strongly in this selection of works: the isolation and the rise of revolutions and conflicts (Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Israel-Palestine War, etc.) have spurred different reactions, with the goal of finding ways to survive and heal. “Being” has found its strength through a greater connection to the self; a desire for community has resulted in the creation of new experiences and spaces, forging a practice of being surrounded by and sharing with others, as well as a collective resilience.
In this video program, feminisms take shape through the act of performing. Performance is present, either individually or collectively, but is based on actions and signalling presence. The meaning of community is people sharing common interests and causes within a larger society. Collectivity within that definition is the quality and strength found in being together. In this selection, the notion of community takes different shapes and provides experiences and spaces for individuals to exist. In In Spite of the Score, Julia E. Dyck gathers a group of artists to listen as an ephemeral queer act of experiencing sound together. Togetherness here is elevated to another state. Traditions like the transmission of rituals, taking care of the land and fallow are found through repetition of gestures and references in the works of Ralitsa Doncheva, Collectif B.L.U.S.H., and Laura Taler.
Rojin Shafiei’s Seams of Resilience - Part 2, where a still life takes place, depicts the hair of Iranian women being processed through a meat grinder. This image shows a violent transformation, as a reference to a community fighting to exist. Though these communities are not explicitly shown, the video underscores their presence. The political and sentient body, whether performing a state of being or as vessel, can also be found in the works of Charline Dally, Lee Ingram, and Florencia Sosa Rey.
In Merging, Dissecting, Collecting, Joyce Joumaa places binoculars in front of us, revealing Istanbul and Tripoli, where the viewer is confronted with the colonial history of these places through the voice of the filmmaker narrating texts. Lastly, in Papaya, Dédé Chen shares a traumatic event from her life while revisiting family archives. These artists deliberately choose what viewers can and cannot see, what images they may gaze at and what they will hear. Ultimately, their choices shape the viewer’s gaze and raise existential questions about what it is to “be,” offering us an imaginative and sometimes personal glimpse into their lives. How privileged are we to have this information shared with us?
This program was conceived and presented by PHI (formerly known as PHI Foundation).
Program
90 minutes
• In Spite of the Score, Julia E. Dyck, 2022, 14 min 51 s
• Seams of Resilience - Part 2, Rojin Shafiei, 2023, 1 min
• Let The Red Moon Burn, Ralitsa Doncheva, 2024, 6 min 38 s
• Le Gouffre de l’Amaurose, Collectif B.L.U.S.H., 2024, 6 min 45 s
• Papaya, Dédé Chen, 2022, 11 min, French, English subtitles
• on departure, Lee Ingram, 2023, 3 min 20 s, English, English subtitles
• Merging, Dissecting, Collecting, Joyce Joumaa, 2021, 7 min, Lebanese, English subtitles
• HEX: Begin Again, Laura Taler, 2023, 12 min, English, French subtitles
• blue vessel, Charline Dally, 2025, 14 min 50 s
• Failure To Be Received, Florencia Sosa Rey, 2022, 9 min 10 s
Biographies
Collectif B.L.U.S.H.B.L.U.S.H. is a Quebec City-based, feminist, multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists Annie Baillargeon and Isabelle Lapierre, and musician and sound designer Marie-Hélène Blay. Their multimedia approach to action-art has resulted in videos, installations, and audio works. Since 2015, their projects have been presented in a variety of events and exhibitions throughout Québec (including the Musée National des beaux-arts du Québec in 2015 and 2016, TEMPO/Vertical in Laval in 2015, the Biennale d’art performatif in Rouyn-Noranda in 2016, Mieux vaut tard/ Recto-Verso in Quebec City in 2019, le Festival PHO à Matane en 2022), in France (instants Vidéo in 2016 and the Festival Ondes Croisées in 2024) and in Serbia (IMAF, 2015 and 2025). The members of B.L.U.S.H. have long been involved in performance as cofounders (Annie Baillargeon) and members (Isabelle Lapierre, Marie-Hélène Blay) of the collective Les Fermières obsédées.
Dédé ChenBorn in Nanchang in 1995, Dédé Chen lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, and is interested in the performance of filiation. As an anthropologist, she draws on autoethnography as a source of creative inspiration.
Charline DallyCharline Dally is an artist based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, and half of the duo desert mauve. Her practice combines analog video signals, image synthesis, textiles, and glass, which result in films, installations, and performances. Inspired by her research in astromineralogy and hydrofeminism, she creates work that seeks to generate introspective states that heighten our awareness of subtleties. A graduate of Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporain, and of UQAM’s Visual Arts program, Dally presented her first solo exhibition this womb of things to be at Diagonale in May 2024. Her work has been shown in such venues as MOCA Toronto (CA), MAJ (CA), Place des Arts (CA), FNC (CA), FIFA (CA), Festival HTMlles (CA), Curtas Vila do Conde (PT), Ann Arbor FF (USA), VIFF (CA), CTM Festival (DE), Beijing ISFF (CN). She has presented her audiovisual performances at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (CA), the Musée du Bas Saint-Laurent (CA), the SAT (CA), MUTEK (CA, SP, AR), Transart (IT), and Dour (BE).
Julia E. DyckJulia E. Dyck is an artist, hypnotist, and radio producer originally from Treaty One Territory/Winnipeg who currently works and lives between Brussels and Montreal/Tiohtià:ke. Julia’s relational and speculative practice explores the possible connections between the body, (sub)consciousness & technology through performance, composition, installation, and transmission. Trained as a hypnotherapist, Julia creates experiences of collective transformation and somnambulism with a focus on the sonic. Using sound, vibrations, and waves as important levers of healing, Dyck considers real listening, to the environment and to others, a possible anti-normative and queer act.
Dyck’s practice includes her own modes of transmission and dissemination, such as the monthly hypnosis sessions with live sound that she conducts in her Brussels studio with Diana Duta, the lecture-meditations she offers, and the personalised sound prescriptions made up of poetry, sound creations, binaural beats and ASMR that she produces with the Audio Placebo Plaza collective (with Erin Gee and Vivian Li).
Ralitsa DonchevaRalitsa Doncheva is a Bulgarian artist and filmmaker based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. Drawing on experimental analogue film traditions and intuitive, poetic approaches, her Balkan heritage and mythology, her films evoke shimmering worlds on the verge of disappearance. Between 2013-2018, Ralitsa created a series of short films and writings using archives and representations from Eastern Europe. The final project (almost) impossible worlds was exhibited at Dazibao gallery and later presented as a performative lecture during the 2022 Experimental Cinema Symposium at the Cinémathèque Québécoise. Her films and video installations have screened globally in festivals, galleries, and micro-cinemas. In 2016 she received The Eileen Maitland Award at the 54th Ann Arbor Film Festival for her film, Baba Dana Talks To The Wolves. Her recent project Desert Islands, shot with her father, screened at the Festival de Nouveau Cinema and at the Images Film Festival in Toronto, among other festivals. Ralitsa is ardently involved in local film and artistic communities, where she contributes as a director and editor.
Lee IngramLee Ingram is a multi/inter-interdisciplinary artist and movement facilitator based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. Lee is a queer Black/mixed-raced womxn of the African-Caribbean Diaspora, exploring the ways their body can contradict expectations of dance, performance, and identity, while also remaining open to the experience of ancient and ancestral ways of moving. Prioritizing observation, listening, improvisation, and experimentation allows the unfolding of time to be present in their performance work. Lee is curious about the subtleties of movement and sound within the body and its environment, as well as the ghosts that haunt, and the nightmares that live. They are attuned to how these themes manifest in the sociopolitical realm, where we must all navigate our desires, fears, and grief about the past, present, and future.
Joyce JoumaaJoyce Joumaa (she/her) is a visual artist working between Beirut, Montréal and Amsterdam. After growing up in Tripoli, Lebanon, she pursued her studies in Film at Concordia University.
Working primarily with video, Joumaa’s work engages with histories shaped by conflict and crisis while specifically investigating the phenomenology of political performance, often rooted in her native Lebanon or diasporic experiences. Through documentary and experimental filmmaking, archival research, and photography, her practice attempts to create narratives that reimagine our relationship to past events, historical figures, or emblematic sites, examining how they continue to act upon us in the present. Joumaa has exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, E-flux screening room, Galerie Stewart Hall, the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, the 60th Venice Biennial, and the 35th edition of Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Plein Sud Centre D’exposition and Eli Kerr Gallery. She is the recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists and the 2023 Plein Sud award.
Rojin ShafieiRojin Shafiei (b.1993) is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist/filmmaker living and working between Toronto and Montréal. In her works, art is a vehicle for the translation of cultural messages and is used to present diverse feminine subjectivities. She presents these themes both through a literal documentary style and as symbols. Rojin received her BFA in Intermedia from Concordia University in 2017 and her MFA in Film Production from York University. She has screened her work internationally in various festivals such as les Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma (Canada), Festival International de Vidéo de Casablanca (Morocco), Limited Access Video Festival (Iran), and Instant Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques (France). In 2019 she was the Venice Arte Laguna Prize candidate in Treviso, Italy, and she won the grand prize of Startupfest/Artupfest section in July 2018 for her piece I wait for the time.
Florencia Sosa ReyFlorencia Sosa Rey works in the visual arts and is based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. Through a multidisciplinary approach rooted in bodily awareness, she uses abstract drawing, performance art, and video to question the socio-cultural history her body has absorbed. Sosa Rey views solidarity and nostalgia as reflexive resources through which to examine hybrid identity, and pays particular attention to the physical and psychic spaces of distance in the transmission of knowledge and interpersonal relationships. Her work has been presented at the Fonderie Darling, the PHI Foundation, Centre Plein Sud, Livart, as well as in Toronto, Sudbury, Iceland, and in Argentina. Sosa Rey has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, ARTCH, and LOJIQ.
Laura TalerRomanian-born Canadian artist Laura Taler began her career as a contemporary dance choreographer before turning her attention to filmmaking and visual art. Throughout her career Taler has explored the links between movement, voice, memory, and history by using cinematic and choreographic devices to articulate how the body is able to carry the past without being oppressed by it. Her work has been praised for its unique combination of emotional resonance, wit, and striking visuals. Awards include a Gold Hugo (Chicago International Film Festival), the Best Experimental Documentary award (Hot Docs!, Toronto), Best of the Festival (Dance on Camera, New York), and the Dennis Tourbin Prize for New Performance (SAW, Ottawa). Her new public art audio work MONAHAN was awarded the 2024 Creative City Network of Canada’s Public Art Legacy Award.