Art Souterrain: The Underground City's art gallery
Artists from around the world are showcased in the 2026 edition of Montréal’s Art Souterrain festival being held in downtown spaces from April 25 to May 10, many connected to the city’s famed Underground Pedestrian Network.
What is Art Souterrain?
Founded in 2009, the non-profit Art Souterrain’s mandate is to make contemporary art accessible to the general public. “Duality” is the theme of this year’s 18th edition. Says 2026 curator, renowned artist Ariane Plante, “The artworks examine this concept through different materials that, at first glance, seem opposed: shadow and light, stillness and movement, natural and artificial, analog and digital, disorder and structure. This approach allows us to reveal antagonistic principles and offer a renewed way of understanding and perceiving the world around us, as well as the elements that compose it.”
Festival programming
Mostly based at Place Ville Marie (PVM), this year’s edition showcases more than 20 artists in some 20 performances, workshops, and panels at PVM and other venues. Events and activities include the daily Secret Path, Underground Mission artistic treasure hunt at PVM, with paths developed for children and adults (April 26 to May 10); and Creative Workshop: Transforming the Real with artist Boris Pintado where participants create anthropomorphic characters by manipulating, assembling, and transforming materials (May 2 and 9).
Art Souterrain also offers guided tours in French or English where tour guides will share the stories, artistic processes, and contrasts behind each work on display at PVM (April 26 to May 10).
Consult the program for full details about all events and guided tours, and discover the artists' bios.
The routes
The Art Souterrain Underground Route takes place in PVM. Follow the signs from the underground to the surface to discover all the works by the festival’s featured artists.
The festival also offers an Urban Route developed in collaboration with their Montréal cultural partners – including events at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (a one-hour walking tour of the Comfort and Indifference exhibition on May 2) and the Mexican Cultural Institute in Montreal (an evening with renowned digital artist artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer on April 29) – which provide multidisciplinary explorations of the festival’s “Duality” theme.
General information
The festival’s Welcome Area is located at PVM, open seven days a week. Click here for the full festival program and all related information.
The 2026 edition of the Art Souterrain festival runs from April 25 to May 10.
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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.