The Centre VOX, in Montréal, is a space for artistic experimentation, dissemination and research founded in 1985, right in the middle of a decade particularly marked by image-based practices. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, VOX has put together a special exhibition entitled 1985. Image-Worlds, which draws from the Canada Council Art Bank’s vast collection of Canadian contemporary art. It showcases 25 photographs that speak to political tensions, technological transformations and an era dominated by imagery.
Centre VOX executive and artistic director Marie J. Jean recently spoke with us about the 1985. Image-Worlds exhibition and her collaboration with the Art Bank.
Can you tell us about VOX’s background as a centre for contemporary imagery?
VOX is an artist-run centre whose past is little known. Though today it is committed to putting on exhibitions based in targeted issues with a view to advancing research on image-based practices, it was originally founded by a multidisciplinary collective called Vox Populi. As an activist collective determined to defend the cause of young people and increasingly taking an interest in photography, Vox Populi created the Ciel variable magazine.
In 1989, to celebrate the invention of photography, Vox Populi organized the first edition of the Mois de la Photo, in Montréal. The event was instantly successful, and seven biennial editions took take place before it became an independent organization, MOMENTA.
Alain Chagnon, Sophie Bellissent, Danielle Bérard, Cynthia Poirier, Jean-Marc Ravatel working on the first edition of Ciel Variable. Photo: Marcel Blouin, Vox Populi, 1985.
What was its mission and what made it different from other galleries and museums?
Organizing a biennale and editing a magazine didn’t quite make the collective an artist-run centre. But in 1992, the VOX gallery was inaugurated, which enabled the collective to be recognized as one. This social engagement—a milestone for VOX—explains VOX’s present-day outreach work with artists with an aim to improving their social and economic conditions.
VOX is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a special exhibition entitled 1985. Image-Worlds. What themes did you want to explore with this exhibition?
To celebrate our 40th, we chose to take a look back at the decade that shaped us. The 1980s brought in an era dominated by imagery, with the imagery itself being marked by post-modernism, mass media, fashion, design and art.
Forty years later, we must acknowledge that images carry genuine political weight. They don’t only show visual trends—they impact our perceptions and our thoughts, acting as catalysts in the world’s social transformation. We wanted to bring together works and visual references that were emblematic of the 1980s.
The upcoming publication will examine the lasting impact of the 1980s on the current state of affairs, addressing political tensions, the recession, environmental issues, the arts ecosystem and technological transformations, as well as the causes of artists, feminists and the first peoples, and the worldwide AIDS epidemic.
You included 25 works of art from the Art Bank collection in the exhibition. What was your selection process like?
These are photography works made by artists who worked in Quebec in the 1980s. My selection process was inspired by a 1992 experimental essay written by archivist Yvon Lemay that featured a compilation of various quotations on politics-based issues in photography practices, all excerpted from writings published in some 20 Quebec periodicals between 1980 and 1989.
Why did you want them to be part of the exhibition?
Reappropriation and deconstruction, performativity and textuality, visibility and screen-related politics, feminism and ideology are themes that explored the critical potential of photography, analyzed and exhibited by many writers throughout the 1980s.
What did having access to the Art Bank collection mean to your organization?
My research on these practices quickly led me to the Art Bank’s collection, which holds many treasures from the 1980s! The works selected for the exhibition are very representative of the era—even down to the framing on most of them, which is authentic to the period.
Dominique Blain, Earthlings (1985)
Lynne Cohen, War Game (1988)
Claude-Philippe Benoit, Sans titre, de « L’envers de l’écran » / Untitled, from “L’envers de l’écran” (1984)
Showcasing art from Canada
The 1985. Image-Worlds exhibition will be on at the Centre VOX from March 28 to June 21, 2025. Everyone should come and visit the exhibition to see the fascinating works pulled from the Canada Council Art Bank collection. The collection holds more than 17,000 works by more than 3,000 artists from Canada. It is the largest collection of contemporary art from Canada, made up of paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and prints.
The Art Bank is always delighted to collaborate with curators and to support them in their exhibition planning. As a curator, you can contact us at any time to gain access to the Art Bank collection and to get advice that is as practical as it is creative.
About the Curator: Marie J. Jean
Marie J. Jean is the executive and artistic director for VOX, as well as an adjunct professor in art history. She has dedicated the last 30 years to research on image-based and exhibition-related practices. She holds a PhD from McGill University on an alternative history of artist exhibitions. Since the mid-1990s, she has organized more than 200 exhibitions, for which she received the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award in 2013 in recognition of the excellence of her curatorial practice. Photo credit: Klaus Scherübel