The Critical Gardening Collective is a collective consisting of members Thierry Bardini, Francois-Joseph Lapointe, Beatriz Herrera, Bastien Gauthier-Soumis, Arnaud Mery and Eva Giard. Each member brings unique experience from the varying fields of Media Theory, Microbiology, Ceramics, and Ecology. The members work between the realms of theory, science, and art-making; building on a fringe tradition of the research-creation laboratory, a space where science, technology, and art intersect under the tenants of Critical Making.
Beatriz Herrera
Beatriz is a Montreal-based, Chilean-born intermedia artist. Initially trained as a Ceramicist, her practice is now centered on the intersections between flesh and machine, beauty and electrical impulses. Two major threads run through her practice: electronic sculptures and drawing. Beatriz Herrera holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Intermedia & Cyberarts 2010) and a Master of Fine Arts (Sculpture 2013) from Concordia University. She has had various solo and collective exhibitions, including at Montreal PRIM (2009), Toronto Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Center (2009), Montreal Ateliers Jean-Brillant (2010), Burlington City Art Center (2014), Montreal Eastern Bloc gallery (2015), Gatineau Daïmon (2015), Îles-de-la-Madeleine artist-run-centre Admare (2015), and at La salle de diffusion de Parc-Extension and le Conseil des Arts de Montréal in 2018.
Thierry Bardini
Thierry is an agronomist (ENSA Montpellier, 1986) and sociologist (Ph.D. Paris X Nanterre, 1991), professor in the department of communication at the Université de Montréal, where he has been teaching since 1993. His research interests concern the contemporary cyberculture, from the production and uses of information and communication technologies to molecular biology. He is the author of Bootstrapping : Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution and the Genesis of Personal Computing (Stanford University Press, 2000), Junkware (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Journey to the End of the Species (in collaboration with Dominique Lestel, Éditions Dis Voir, Paris, 2011) and Viral Forms of Life (forthcoming).
François-Joseph Lapointe
François-Joseph is full Professor in the Department of biological sciences at Université de Montréal. In his scientific research, he is mainly interested in phylogenetic analysis and the application of population genetics for biodiversity conservation purposes. In 2012, he obtained a PhD in the study and practice of in arts (UQAM) and created a new field of research, choreogenetics, by transposing the stochastic processes of genetics for choreographic purposes. He is the author of 120 scientific publications and over 270 conferences and 75 invitational research seminars. He has participated in some fifteen international artistic exhibitions. In 1990, the Governor General of Canada awarded him the Academic Gold Medal for his doctoral work.
Bastien Gauthier-Soumis
Arnaud Mery
Eva Giard