Loly Darcel graduated with an MFA from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) in 1989. Her work features various combinations of photography, writing, video, installations, performance art and ephemeral objects, exploring our relationships with others and the temporal, transitory nature of all things. The sites she chooses become integral aspects of the works themselves, allowing her to evoke personal and collective stories through the very architecture of a space. In 1999-2000, she presented D’elles at Dazibao in Montreal; developed in collaboration with Lorraine Oades, the exhibition sought to demonstrate that our behaviour and perceptions are determined by social and cultural context. Darcel has completed many works of public art, including at the experimental biology pavilion of Laval’s Institut Armand-Frappier (1994). In the athletics centre at UQAM, she created a photographic sculpture entitled Liaison (1996), which symbolizes the evolution of man as he acquires knowledge. Made from panel lights stacked from floor to ceiling in an aluminum frame, the piece occupies one of the structures designed to allow natural light into the largely underground centre, passing through the entrance hall as it runs from pool level below ground to the upper-floor windows looking out at the student residence buildings.
SEE:
« Réflexions et matérialisations identitaires » by Élisabeth Recurt, ESPACE #38, p. 40.
