Joint mentorship: Productions Réalisations Indépendantes de Montréal (PRIM)

laura caraballo

Felipe Velasco

Laura Caraballo is an interdisciplinary artist born in Bacatá [Bogotá] and based in Tiohtià:ke [Montréal]. Her work explores the use of technology to reimagine and create interactive and sensorial, physical, and virtual spaces that represent and engage communities in meaningful conversations. She is particularly interested in examining how we shape, and are shaped by, the spaces we inhabit within a temporal context while exploring themes of home, memory and consciousness.

Deeply influenced by her upbringing in Bogotá, Laura infuses satire and grunge into her work as a means of processing emotions and experiences. Her time in Montréal has further shaped her career, encouraging a bold embrace of experimental aesthetics and unconventional narratives.

Laura works with a variety of new media art forms, including 3D sculpting, virtual reality, and mixed-media installations, with experimentation as the cornerstone of her practice. She views new media art as a powerful tool for cultural retrieval, resilience, and preservation, particularly for those in the diaspora, creating accessible spaces for connection and knowledge-sharing.

For the PRIM | MAI residency Laura seeks to develop her next project “Tributo A un Perro Libre” a two-channel two-voice audiovisual installation exploring the dynamic interplay between adhd and courage in the context of immigration.

“Tributo A un Perro Libre” is the story of a dog full of dreams. A dog born into a dog-eat-dog world. But this dog doesn’t bite. This dog has ADHD. Misunderstood. Misplaced. Overflowing with love. Overflowing with fear. But above all else, always a free dog.

gabriela de andrade

Brazilian artist based in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, Gabriela de Andrade explores the intimate narratives of people with singular journeys through her work. Her films often tinged with a confessional dimension, and are interested in themes such as nomadism, borders, dissent, emotional ties, and distance. The voices, especially those of women, are at the heart of her work. Inspired by the transformative power of sound, the artist shapes the visual. The sound installation becomes a powerful narrative instrument, transforming everyday life into a dreamlike and subjective visual exploration.

The MAI + PRIM residency will allow Gabriela to continue her experimentations and develop a more intimate and impactful visual language. His project combines contemporary art and cultural mediation. In close collaboration with Exeko, an organization that works on social inclusion through art and philosophy, the artist offers workshops to create a space for expression to a group of women living or having lived in a homeless or socially precarious situation. It is through the voice of these women, which the artist chooses to amplify, that the creation and exhibition of an immersive multi-screen work presented at MAI will take place during the 2024-2025 season.

tam khoa vu

The PRIM Centre and the MAI have partnered to offer long-term joint support to an artist wishing to experiment, develop their skills and create work in the field of media arts. PRIM provides the artist with filming equipment and facilities for the production of a work in video art, documentary, fiction, and audio art. The selected artist will be offered the opportunity to present their work in the MAI spaces as part of the official program during the 23-24 season.

Tam Khoa Vu is an artist based in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal. His work challenges common representations and depictions of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Canadian identity, while playfully opening up spaces of abundance, possibility, and nuance. Using various visual and digital art forms, his practice explores themes of production, manufacturing, power, representation, and identity by exploring the nuances of the “third space” resulting from the diasporic experience between Vietnam and Canada. Notable presentations of the artist’s works include MAI – Justice Project (2022), Montreal, QC (2022); ARTCH Emerging Artists Exhibition, Montreal, QC (2021), Eastern Bloc, Montreal, QC (2016). He has received grants from funding bodies and institutions such as OBORO (2022), Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (2022, 2021), and the MAI (2022). In 2017, he completed his BFA at Concordia University in Design and Computation Arts.