Like an open space where there is yet no certainty, an encounter is an expectation; a prudent waiting period where we measure and analyze our first impressions. Sometimes sweet, entertaining and easy-going, sometimes indifferent or passionate, an encounter can also be a shocking or disturbing experience. An encounter may be the starting point of any relationship, but a certain complicity must be established for true dialogue to be enabled. Whether it be for simple tacit agreement or for real collusion, an open mind is a prerequisite to complicity.

To explore the theme of collusion in contemporary art one must first visit other practices to discover new affinities. Genres must be deconstructed to uncover different plastic responses. It also means interlacing techniques, materials, and artistic practices in order to access different ways to experiment and to interpret this world of ours. During this Symposium, we will focus particularly on the removal of the boundaries between the visual arts and other artistic fields, or related cultural trends, while favouring painting as the preferred medium. We will display the vitality and dynamism of a new generation by inviting young artists who evolve at the intersection of different realities of the visual culture, who straddle territories and derive their techniques and/or plastic language from other aesthetic forms such as street art, manga, underground culture, architecture, design in its multiple expressions (industrial, clothing, landscaping), imagery and popular culture...

But most of all, we want to share a wink and a nudge of complicity with the public. Participation, wonderment, confrontation; the visitor to the Symposium, whether expert or novice, is invited to relinquish certainties to see things differently.

GENEVIÈVE PELLETIER, GUEST CURATOR