The Quebec City Biennial draws its inspiration from the Canadian winter and the sleeping earth to focus on human sleep and the multiple nuances of the waking process. Both sleep and the cold season are times of latency, transition, and pause, of suspended productivity, and of resistance against the exploitation of bodies and resources. It’s fitting to consider the movie theatre as a site for potential slumber, a context in which our attention and our consciousness are transformed, and where our social selves become permeable.
Vigils, mediations, daydreams—these forms of half-sleep replenish our days and give us time to experience our own shifts in understanding, conflicting thoughts, and latent opinions. The movie theatre is an ideal location for this, as is the exhibition space. Artists and filmmakers remind us that these life moments are actually strengths. They expand our ways of living and sharing space on a planet we neither own, nor inhabit alone.
The first part of this program focuses on confinement and withdrawal, with four stories about the city, the myths of modernity, the relationships between those who build their lives there, and finally, a documentary about a man who lives in complete resistance to modern society.
The second part looks at hibernation and retreat, specifically the invisible and uncontrollable forces that dictate the world of plants and soil, and our attempts to inhabit the world and explore its limits.
Ticket sales open in February 2024.