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Frédéric Lavoie. Insecta Mundi

Exhibition

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Dates
April 5 to September 28 2025
Hours
All Day Event
Museum
160, chemin Tour-de-l'Isle
Île Sainte-Hélène
Montréal, QC Canada
H3C 4G8

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Public
For all

An exhibition produced by the Biosphère in collaboration with the Insectarium

Have you ever observed the insects around you and wanted to learn more about them?

That's what this immersive exhibition offers, where a microscopic world awaits you!

  • The exhibition highlights biodiversity to understand other ways of being alive.
  • It features a filmed inventory of insects native to Quebec, produced in collaboration with Insectarium specialists.
  • The 44-minute film is somewhere between documentary and experimental cinema.
  • Complementing the documentary work, the exhibition features over thirty fact sheets on the insect species featured in the film.
  • Insecta Mundi brings us into contact with an impressive quantity of direct observations made mainly in the wild and in a few other locations (film studio, Insectarium greenhouse).

Unlike many animal documentaries, which show a world in the process of disappearing, this exhibition reveals a world that is very much alive and fascinating to observe.

One of the film's aims is to remind us of the essential ecological role played by insects, offering us the opportunity to see them in all their virtuosity.

Insects appear in a ballet of encounters with other animals (American toad, garter snake, common raccoon, golden-crowned kinglet...) that cohabit in the same environment. These animals share their perception of insects, making them appear as narrators and allowing us to see insects through their point of view.

  • Insecta Mundi aims to make us feel the interdependence of nature.

  • It invites us to return to our curiosity and to rediscover our first feelings about nature, where wonder is born from the simple observation of free creatures.

The creation of this work was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

Biography

Frédéric Lavoie holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology (Université de Montréal) and a master’s degree in visual and media arts (UQAM). Documentary film is often the basis for his artistic approach, and he then integrates fictional elements to produce narratives, portraits, or thematic analyses.

His research focuses on issues related to listening and observation, the relationship between nature and culture, as well as how humanity impacts the living world.

Major projects include screenings of FunFungi in Quebec and in Hungary (2022, 2024), the feature-length film La nature contre-attaque (125 minutes, 2019), participation in the MOMENTA Biennale (2017), the solo exhibitions The End of the Beginning at the McCord Stewart Museum (2014) and Réécritures (2014) at the Musée régional de Rimouski, as well as De visu (winter 2025), a collection of his most recent work, at the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides.

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