Art Souterrain: The Underground City's art gallery
This article was updated on March 11, 2024.
Artists from around the world are showcased in the 2024 edition of Montréal’s Art Souterrain festival during which the city’s famed Underground Pedestrian Network is transformed into a four-kilometre-long contemporary art gallery from March 16 to April 7.
Environnement Entends-tu?
Founded in 2009, the non-profit Art Souterrain’s mandate is to make contemporary art accessible to the general public. The theme of this year’s 16th edition is “Environnement Entends-tu?” (Environment Do You Hear?).
Co-curators Sonia Robertson and Heather Davis explore the climate crisis via the works of more than 40 artists from around the world, including Austro-Nigerian fine arts photographer David Ụzọchukwu, Montréal-based Two-Spirit / queer visual artist Dayna Danger, Indian interdisciplinary artist and environmental campaigner Ravi Agarwal, and Swiss textile and sound artist Ryth Kesselring.
Click here for bios of all the artists.
Guided tours
Every weekend Art Souterrain offers guided tours either in French or English of the festival’s underground exhibition without the risk of getting lost in the underground labyrinth!
Exhibition tour No. 1 passes through several buildings including the World Trade Center, the Palais des Congrès, Édifice Jacques-Parizeau, as well as the International District.
Exhibition tour No. 2 passes through such buildings as the Eaton Centre, Place Ville Marie and Place Montréal Trust. There is a limit of 25 people per tour.
Click here for info and tickets.
Special events
The festival kicks off with their March 16 launch evening at the Eaton Centre for Underground Art (Métro level) at the festival's headquarters at the downtown Eaton Centre (McGill Métro station). The program includes poetry by Joséphine Bacon at 7 pm, Performing Community Garden with Khadija Baker at 7:30 pm and a circus performance by Acting for Climate Montreal at 8:30 pm. Free admission.
The festival presents the vernissage of Wooden Diamonds by Filippo Ferraro at the Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal (1200 Dr. Penfield) on March 20 from 6 to 9 pm. A photographic reportage in three acts, Wooden Diamonds explores the ties between the population of Salento and its olive groves. Click here for vernissage details. The exhibition runs to April 19. Free admission.
Opening of Mexican sculptor, painter and photographer Irene Zundel’s exhibition The Environment at the Institut culturel du Mexique Montréal (2055 Peel Street) on March 26 from 6 to 9 pm, in the presence of the artist, with live jazz music. Free admission.
Two days later at the same venue, the Instituto Cultural de México on March 28 at 4 pm, the Eco-Art & Eco-Science Roundtable will explore how science has influenced artists and how artists can also influence science. The roundtable will be in Spanish. Click here for panelists and more panel details.
Mauritian-Canadian artist and performer Kama La Mackerel headlines A Drop of Salt on the Skin of an Island: Performance-Ritual for the Memory of Water at the Eaton Centre (Métro level) on April 4 at 12 pm.
Click here for the full festival program.
The 2024 edition of the Art Souterrain festival runs from March 16 to April 7.
Richard Burnett
Richard “Bugs” Burnett is a Canadian freelance writer, editor, journalist, blogger and columnist for alt-weeklies, mainstream and LGBTQ+ publications. Bugs also knows Montréal like a drag queen knows a cosmetics counter.