The Route to Rosa
Alain-Martin Richard
Avatar handled the technological development side of the interactive piece, which was presented in June 2006 in Toronto and then at Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul in fall of the same year.
Alain-Martin Richard was invited in the winter of 2006 by Fado and the DeLeon White Gallery to create the touching urban initiative and interactive installation The Route to Rosa in Toronto’s ethnic communities. The artist set off in search of the cosmopolitan identity of about 50 inhabitants of the large Canadian city by way of a dialogue about hands. Along the way, the project evolved into a sojourn through the human landscape and a slow dialogue with the “other,” the stranger. The installation takes a tender approach to capture and then convey humanity’s path through the violence and poetry of the world.
Alain-Martin Richard
Alain-Martin Richard has developed a multidisciplinary practice based on action art, maneuver, interactive installation, writing, and editing. He has created and organized events such as the Marathon d’écriture (1983), NeoSon(g) Cabaret (1984), Symposium d’Amos (1997), and Symposium de Moncton (1999). A co-editor and writer of Performance in/au Canada,1970–1990, he has also edited the catalogues Territoires nomades (1996) and 3e Symposium en arts visuels de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue (1998). From “dialogue acts” to maneuver, his action art practice is based on “the human landscape,” which is both the material and place of its fleeing presence. He has been a member of the collectives The Nomads, Inter/Le Lieu, and Folie/Culture. The maneuver is his most important field of exploration. His main productions unfold across several planes of reality: L’Atopie textuelle (with Les Causes perdues, 2000), Le chemin pour Rosa (2006), Le bloc que j’habite (2014), Trou de mémoire (2015–2017). Besides working as a solo artist, he remains an active member of Les Causes perdues. He regularly publishes articles in journals such as Jeu, Inter, art actuel, Esse, and Espace.
