SIGHTINGS 2025-2027
Decorum
Launched in 2012 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection, the SIGHTINGS satellite exhibition program was conceived as an experimental platform to critically reflect upon the possibilities and limitations of the modernist “white cube.” As part of this program, artists and curators are invited to develop projects for a cubic display unit located in a public space at the university, with the aim of generating new strategies for art dissemination.
The 2025-2027 SIGHTINGS cycle, Decorum, engages with the emancipatory histories of Concordia University’s Henry F. Hall Building. Since its inauguration in 1966, the building has been a key site for student activism—from the 1967 lobby sleep-in protest against high textbook prices, where 150 students camped in the lobby, to the landmark 1969 Sir George Williams Affair, marked by a multi-day occupation of the 9th-floor Computer Centre by students and demonstrators to denounce racist grading practices. Originally conceived as a central hub for the downtown student body, the Hall Building remains a space where students gravitate to exchange ideas, mobilize and make their voices heard. The projects presented in SIGHTINGS build on this legacy, reflecting on the memory of protest embedded in institutions and their architecture.
SIGHTINGS is located on the ground floor of the Hall Building: 1455, blvd. De Maisonneuve West and is accessible weekdays and weekends from 7 am to 11 pm. The program is developed by Julia Eilers Smith.
IDLE
June 16 to September 14, 2025
A project by Alexandre Bouffard
Alexandre Bouffard is a Montreal-based artist and researcher with a background in studio arts, architecture, and civil engineering. His work and research explore the relationship between material systems, environmental modelling, and the role of image and representation in architectural processes. He is currently completing an M.Sc. in Civil Engineering at McGill University. His work was recently presented at Joe Project and at Parc Offsite / Eli Kerr.
IDLE considers, on one hand, the architecture and volume of the cube in relation to the Hall Building’s vicinity; on the other, its role as an object of representation—a medium for display in public space. Its glass facades act as an interface between these two dimensions, rendering the cube both self-contained and open to the outside world, particularly through the ephemeral and ambivalent relationship it seeks to establish with passersby. The installation sets in motion a dynamic of reciprocal gazes—between what looks and what is seen, what captures and what is captured.
Alexandre Bouffard is a Montreal-based artist and researcher with a background in studio arts, architecture, and civil engineering. His work and research explore the relationship between material systems, environmental modelling, and the role of image and representation in architectural processes. He is currently completing an M.Sc. in Civil Engineering at McGill University. His work was recently presented at Joe Project and at Parc Offsite / Eli Kerr.