My artistic work tends to consider architectural process as a form of inquiry and as a material production permeated by temporary experiences, using primarily installation, video, sound and urban intervention. Delving loosely into notions of psychogeography, these investigations deal with urban and social territories as well as the transformations that shape them. Such explorations hold ties with the critical field of spatial practices and engage into post-architectural scenarios, looking especially at urban matter and social contexts that involve adaptation, agency, uses, possibilities for action and some relationships to technology. Very often, in my individual and collective work, attitudes or experiential devices will either act as catalysts for encounter and interaction, introduce some fiction or problematize the use of technological mediation.

My latest proposal, Agency, brought together thought-provoking interviews with key actors in Montréal’s cultural milieu on space as shared, contested and reinvented matter. Issues such as revisited utopias, interstitial practices, precariousness, hidden phenomena, migrating bodies or technological uses were discussed in various urban settings. Two different venues - a gallery space and offices of an art-run center - were brought to life using an arrangement of modules conducive to encounter between people and ideas.

Being involved with SYN-, an urban exploration collective, also deeply informs my practice. SYN- forays into the status of spatiality – from neglected residual space to tightly controlled «junkspace» - that raises many questions in a context where urban environments evolve along lines that are increasingly difficult to grasp. Confronted by such zones of ambiguity, and beyond the degrading or liberating connotations one may give them, SYN-‘s work attempts to capture their conceptual and experiential dimensions in order to inform a proactive practice.

Biography

Jean-Maxime Dufresne is an artist with a training in architecture (McGill University, Montréal / UniAndes, Bogotá) and multimedia studies (UQÀM, Montréal). His individual and collective work, with artist Virginie Laganière or as part of the SYN- urban workshop has been presented in different venues in Canada  (Skol, Optica, Vox, Darling Foundry, L’Oeil de Poisson, Axenéo7, Biennale de Montréal) and abroad (Adaptive Actions / Madrid Abierto, Madrid, Spain ; Temporary Urban Interstices, RDS - ISCRA, aaa, Paris, France ; Actions : What You Can Do With the City, CCA - Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada / Graham Foundation, Chicago, USA ; 1st International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, NL). Since 2007, he has been a board member of Dare-Dare - an artist-run centre operating in the public realm - and been involved with the Educational Programs team at the CCA, both located in Montréal.