Swamps Biophony
Tania Bonardo-Pellerin
Residency
March 16 to 28, 2026
Swamps Biophony takes place in a meeting space between nature and artifice, inside and outside, listening and perception. Taking the form of an inhabited sound ecosystem, the installation unfolds a shifting audio landscape, created from an accumulation of analog cassette devices housed inside a container and extending into the public space.
Based on recordings made in the forest — cracking trees, insect and bird songs, flowing water — the work composes a sound environment at the boundary between documentary and expressive. These sounds, transformed by the mechanical wear of the tapes and by processes of splicing and patching, reveal a fragile material, constantly metamorphosing. The audience is first invited to hear before seeing and discovering the sound origin, in a play of movement between perception and recognition.
Handcrafted sound showers, made from various materials (metal, glass, plastic), extend the landscape outside the container. Their wires stretch into the space like vines, drawing an electronic nature that infiltrates the site. These listening points, placed in specific spots — suspended, under trees, elevated — transform a familiar place into a zone of exploration.
The installation evolves continuously, tapes are repaired, recomposed, loops adjusted. This approach, at the boundary of installation, performance, and mediation, highlights the fragility of systems — sound, technical, ecological — and makes wear, care, and transformation forces of creation.
Images: Centre Avatar
Tania Bonardo-Pellerin
“I am a multidisciplinary artist based in Quebec City, originally from Drummondville, working at the intersection of sound, drawing, and installation. My approach oscillates between poetic and critical, exploring the connections between memory, materiality, and territory through immersive, interactive, and electronic devices. My works invite a sensory and reflective experience, where fragility and the passage of time become artistic material.
In 2025, I received a Première Ovation grant for a residency in Namur, Belgium, scheduled for October 2025. In 2024, I was awarded another Première Ovation grant, supported by Avatar and accompanied by mentorship from Philip Gagnon, which allowed me to pursue research in sound art and electronics. This work led to my first solo exhibition, Soundscape Bio-Électronique, presented in May 2025 at La Charpente des Fauves. My journey has also been recognized with the Avatar Prize 2024 and the Louise Viger Prize 2024 during the graduating exhibition of the Bachelor of Visual Arts program.
I have had the opportunity to exhibit my work at the Sound Art Festival of the Abbey (Excentrer, 2024), as well as at the L’Écoute festival, where I participated in the 2022 edition (exhibition section) and 2024 (residency in duo with beatmaker and sound designer Pierre-Gabriel Bussière). My artistic exploration also extended internationally during a residency at the Arte Sumapaz center in Colombia in summer 2023, where my work was showcased as part of the Genèse 2023 festival in Quebec City.
Through my projects, I explore the materiality of sounds and objects, the transformation of electronic devices, and the poetic reappropriation of space. Whether immersive creations, sound or kinetic installations, my work questions memory, fragility, and attention, proposing experiences where perception and sensitivity of the viewers become an integral part of the artwork.”
