MONTREAL, CANADA.- The CCA is launching a new online interactive program "my tangent e" at www.cca.qc.ca/mytangente today. Intended for ages 12 - 17 and inspired by its exhibition series tangent e, this site enables young people to create original works in response to photographs from CCA Collections. The selection of images of interiors, exteriors, spaces under construction and in transition, foster an understanding of spatial qualities in the urban environment. The works created by young visitors to the site will enrich the CCA’s new virtual collection and will be presented in an online exhibition.

my tangent e permits enquiring visitors and budding artists to access an online selection of images from the CCA collection. In turn, they are invited to use the my tangent e drawing board to create new works based on these images. Developed by the CCA, funded by The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and produced by Xaracom, this program demonstrates some of the possibilities of multimedia in the realm of artistic creation today. Young users of the site will be able to save their work in an online portfolio. Then they may choose to submit their work to the site’s virtual collection and send it to friends.

According to Nicholas Olsberg, Director of the CCA, "my tangent e is a sophisticated creative tool that enables young people to discover photography and architecture through the CCA collection and to develop their artistic talent, all while having a good time!"

my tangent e is based on the exhibition series tangent e, inaugurated this year. The series establishes a dialogue between the CCA Photographs Collection and contemporary artists, as well as explores new ways of seeing and representing urban space. Montreal artist Alain Paiement was the first to be invited to create new works inspired by a selection of images chosen by Hubertus von Amelunxen, consulting curator of the CCA Photographs Collection.

The photography collection of the CCA, founded in the 1970s by Phyllis Lambert and Richard Pare, is devoted to architecture and more specifically to architecture as it appears in photography. Its distinctiveness consists less in the extraordinary quality of its fifty thousand images than in the opportunity it offers of understanding photography as a reflection of architecture in the context of the formation of the historical, topographical, cultural, and social present.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture is an international research centre and museum founded on the conviction that architecture is a public concern. Based on its extensive collections, CCA is a leading voice in advancing knowledge, promoting public understanding, and widening thought and debate on the art of architecture, its history, theory, practice, and role in society today.

The CCA would like to thank The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation for their generous support of this program. The CCA also thanks l’Association Sportive et Communautaire du Centre-Sud for their participation in the press conference. The CCA gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Conseil des arts de Montréal.