MYRIAM LAMBERT

La dérive

2011 - 2012

The principle of the situational drift was a constant source of inspiration for my Caminos series in 2011 and 2012. The project involved travel to Latin America, whose countries and cities I was unfamiliar with. I journeyed up and down these unknown lands, asking the people I met to name a site of memory that they felt had a key role to play in defining their identity. When I put this question to inhabitants of San Ramón, Costa Rica, they stood open-mouthed. They weren’t wealthy enough to leave their town. The two-dollar bus ride to the nearest city was equal to a day’s wages. Their favourite sites of memory were therefore linked to their daily lives, the streets of their own village, where barbed wire and boarded-up windows proliferated. Presented in the form of an allegorical quest, La dérive stems from my feverish explorations of these streets, and from the emotions they aroused.

Biography

Myriam Lambert obtained a BFA in visual arts from the Université Laval in 2006, and is poised to complete a Master’s degree in the same field. Since 2003, the artist has primarily explored the theme of identity; she intervenes in sites of memory by means of photography, installation, action art and sound art, invariably using the most appropriate medium to mark the sites with an identity imprint. Her work has been supported by numerous institutions, where the artist has either exhibited or undertaken residencies, including ONDARTE in Mexico; ODYSSEYS in Costa Rica; Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero in Argentina; and Laboratoire NT2, Avatar, Productions Recto-Verso, LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE, Regart, Wagon art itinérant, Manif d'art de Québec and L’Écart... Lieu d'art actuel in Canada. Her works have been presented in concentration camps in Argentina, former penitentiaries in Costa Rica, a polling station in Mexico, inside a church and the square in front, as well as at a mine tailings site in Quebec.