In Praise of the Missing Image

Iván Argote

“Through his sculptures, installations, films, and interventions, Iván Argote (born in Bogotá in 1983, lives in Paris) explores our relationships with others, power structures, and belief systems. He develops strategies rooted in tenderness, affection, and humour, creating critical perspectives on dominant historical narratives. His interventions on monuments and large-scale ephemeral and permanent public artworks propose new symbolic and political uses of public space. Argote studied graphic design, photography, and new media at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and holds an MFA from the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. He is represented by Perrotin gallery globally, by Vermelho gallery in São Paulo, and by Albarrán Bourdais gallery in Madrid and Menorca”

Maureen Gruben

“In her multi-media practice, Maureen Gruben incorporates diverse organic and industrial materials many of which are salvaged from her local Arctic environment. She was born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk, where her parents were traditional Inuvialuit knowledge keepers and founders of E. Gruben’s Transport. Gruben holds a BFA from the University of Victoria. Recent exhibitions include MassArt Art Museum, Boston; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Fremantle Arts Centre; Museu de Arte de São Paulo; and Women’s Darkroom + Gallery, New York. Collections include the National Gallery of Canada, Global Affairs Canada, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.”

Joyce Joumaa

“Joyce Joumaa is a visual artist working in Beirut, Montréal, and Amsterdam. After growing up in Tripoli, Lebanon, she studied film at Concordia University. Through documentary and experimental filmmaking, archival research, and photography, she attempts to create narratives that reimagine our relationship with past events, historical figures, or emblematic sites and examines how they continue to act upon us in the present. Joumaa has exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, E-flux screening room, Stewart Hall Art Gallery, the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, the 60th Venice Biennale, and the 35th edition of the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts.”

Niap

“Niap, also known as Nancy Saunders, is an Inuk artist from Kuujjuak, Nunavik. In her multidisciplinary practice—drawing, painting, sculpture, performance—she explores identity, cultural transmission, and representations of her home community’s northern territory. Combining Inuit traditions with contemporary practices, she both preserves and reimagines her ancestors’ heritage. Her attentive, sensitive gaze shows us landscapes that are not easily accessible and affirms her belonging to these territories.

For the series River Water, Niap created abstract watercolour landscape paintings using water from different rivers in Nunavik, gathered during family outings. She found that colours are more saturated, brighter, with this water than with tap water. On the paper, the water guides the pigments’ path, becoming a full collaborator in the process, so that the horizons portrayed also give the sense of rivers seen from the air. Here, land and sea find unusual formal kinship through the fluid’s motion. Each work bears the trace of its origin and is rooted in Niap’s personal history. Reproduced as a mural, the series becomes a gesture of appropriation of the land and the medium—a powerful affirmation of Kuujjuaq culture and a living bond uniting Inuit communities with their environment. The mural is exhibited in the corridor adjacent to the MAC, at Place Ville Marie.”

Lee Shulman + Omar Victor Diop — The Anonymous Project

“Born in London, UK, Lee Shulman graduated from the University of Westminster with a BFA and now lives and works in Paris. In 2017, he founded The Anonymous Project. He invited photographer Omar Victor Diop to collaborate on this project, which resulted in the book Being There (Textuel, 2023). He worked with Martin Parr for the book Déjà View (Textuel, 2021), which was also the subject of a major exhibition at Magnum Gallery (Paris, 2022), and for the film I Am Martin Parr (2025), which Shulman directed. His work has been exhibited widely in major shows in the US, Europe, and Asia, including The House at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2019.

Omar Victor Diop was born in Dakar in 1980. Growing up, he cultivated his vivid imagination through literature and history and honed his talent in photography, collage, creative writing, fashion, and textile design. Since 2011, Diop has created a portfolio of self-portraits in which he embodies historical figures and fictional characters, questioning our relationship with our collective history. Diop’s work is in major institutional collections—Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), the Brooklyn Museum—and has been exhibited at high-profile international events (Paris Photo, Rencontres d’Arles, and Kyotographie [Japan]). As an art director, Diop has been commissioned by major brands and groups, including Lancel, Louis Vuitton, Bernardaud, Pernod Ricard, and Lavazza.”

Sanaz Sohrabi

“Sanaz Sohrabi (born 1988 in Tehran) is a researcher of visual culture and an artist-filmmaker. Her works have been shown widely in exhibitions and film festivals, including Berlinale Forum Expanded, International Film Festival Rotterdam, IndieLisboa, Valdivia International Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, Doclisboa, Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts 2023, Asian Art Biennial 2024, SAVVY Contemporary Berlin, VOX, centre de l’image contemporaine and Centre d’art et de diffusion CLARK, and Carpintarias de São Lázaro. Sohrabi is an alumna of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and RAW Académie. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University.

View here the screening schedule for An Incomplete Calendar.”