MONTREAL.- MOMENTA | Biennale de l'image presents, in collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Alinka Echeverr韆: Simulacra. A Quebec premiere, this exhibition features two installations by the Mexican-British artist Alinka Echeverr韆 that take a critical look at issues related to the representation of women in the field of photography.

An artist and social anthropologist, Alinka Echeverr韆 focuses on the philosophical, psychological and sociocultural relationships between image and belief by exploring the representational codes of our societies. With Simulacra, Echeverr韆 revisits her Nicephora project, developed as part of the BMW research residency at the Nic閜hore Ni閜ce Museum (Chalon-sur-Sa鬾e, France) in 2015.

Based on the colonial archives of the French museum, Fieldnotes for Nicephora reframes the male white legacy of the pioneering photographer Nic閜hore Ni閜ce (1765-1833) from a feminist point of view. Composed of images of women, this corpus revisits the male colonialist gazes that shaped history and reveals the illusion or fantasy conveyed by the images.

Precession of the Feminine – 10 Simulacra presents three-dimensional simulations of vases with images of women enlarged to the point of being illegible and printed on glass plates. The references to the body are thus perceptible in the shape of the vase. Examining the relationship between ceramics and photography, two utilitarian mediums that have become cultural vehicles, Echeverr韆 creates tension between the ways in which women are represented.

"The object becomes infused with a metaphorical dimension that evokes the feminine through its form and use. It also has a critical edge creating tension between the various roles of pottery, (container, commercial exchange currency, etc.) and the ways in which women are objectified," explains Mar韆 Wills Londo駉, Guest Curator of the 16th edition of MOMENTA

"The MMFA has had the great pleasure of collaborating with MOMENTA for several years. The themes presented are always rich and thought provoking, and the one chosen for this year’s edition, The Life of Things, is no exception. Alinka Echeverr韆's still and moving images clearly illustrate the complexity of our relationships with objects," adds Diane Charbonneau, Photography Guest Curator, MMFA.

Alinka Echeverr韆 (b. in 1981) is a Mexican British artist. Her projects have been presented in various venues and biennales across the globe, such as the Benaki Museum, Athens; Preus Museum, Horten, Norway; Mus閑 de l’蒷ys閑, Lausanne; Foam Museum, Amsterdam; and Les Rencontres d’Arles. She is a grantee of the MAST Foundation, Bologna, where she will have an exhibition in 2020. A finalist of the Prix 蒷ys閑 (2018) and Aesthetica Art Prize (2017), her honours include: the Foam Talent (2017), BMW Residency (2015), Lucie Foundation’s International Photographer of the Year (2012), and Prix HSBC pour la photographie (2011).