Artist Leila Zelli, Winner of the 2019 Impressions Residency
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), in collaboration with the Conseil des arts de Montréal (CAM), is pleased to announce the winner of the 2019 Impressions residency: artist Leila Zelli. Every year since 2013, the Museum has invited an emerging visual artist representing Montreal’s cultural diversity or a First Nations, Inuit or Métis community to produce a research and create a project by taking a unique, original look at the Museum’s collections.
From February to March 2019, the Montreal artist will explore the Museum’s collection of Persian art and its objects from Iran, the country where she was born and raised. She is especially interested in the animal patterns that decorate some of these artefacts and hopes to present from a different perspective, in a digital collage resulting from a photographic quest.
The Impressions residency
This residency is aimed at professional artists who have core training and whose abilities have been recognized by their peers. For eight weeks, they create, perform or publish works and are remunerated while they focus themselves to the practice of their art.
About Leila Zelli
Leila Zelli takes a special interest in the state of the world, especially our relationship with the “Other” from “elsewhere,” specifically the Middle East. She creates in situ digital installations using existing media images and videos found on the Internet. The resulting visual and sound experiences create an opportunity to reflect on the state of the world, the relationship with the Other and the actual effect of our actions on humanity.
Zelli has completed a bachelor’s degree and is in her final year of a master’s in visual and media arts at UQAM. She was chosen as the public favourite in the 36th edition of the Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, curated by Sylvie Lacerte on the subject of art and politics. Her first solo exhibition, Terrain de jeux, is currently on display at the Galerie de l’UQAM.
Leila Zelli. Photo Marie-Christiane Mathieu
