MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program
I am a music composer and interdisciplinary artist. My work includes fiction and poetry, sculpture, installation, drawing and sound. I am inspired by the materiality of language (its sounds, gestures, poetics and graphics) and the mystery of meaning. I explore the operations of art in the unfolding of knowledge, especially art as divergent epistemology; and my philosophical work and doctoral project examines the question of art and consciousness, the relationship between art and spirituality, and the sacred in contemporary culture and contemporary art.
My practice became interdisciplinary when I lost interest in working on mediums per se and began exploring larger themes and states of consciousness instead. A leading thread in my interdisciplinary work has been the Wild in ourselves. I was interested in the limits (and granted, the impossibility) of a quest for the Wild when our identities are so thoroughly constructed by layers of civilization. Les Dimensions sauvages (Dimensions of the Wild) is the title of a long series of visual, performative and literary works seeking signs and voices from a primordial and/or extra-temporal consciousness. The project exists in those liminal spaces in ourselves where meaning has dissolved but language lingers on as gesture and trace.
As a scholar, I have worked to create an understanding of the interdisciplinary phenomenon in the arts that is theoretically sound and applicable in practice. This work puts the artist and her/his creation process (instead of the finished work) at the center. I write, lecture, and act as a consultant for art institutions wishing to become interdisciplinary within their structure and programs, including a number of Quebec universities and the Canada Council for the Arts. I have also published articles on interdisciplinary art in Canada.
I have significant background in world history, new science and religions, and I am passionate about ecology, systems, languages (all kinds of, spoken and written, ancient and contemporary, invented or artistic), education, psychology and politics... I seek to uncover and undermine the lies and biases that sustain the current social order of injustice and destruction, and look for discourses and paradigms able to enhance our personal and collective healing, and bring about societies more respectful of life, diversity, justice and the spirit. I am most concerned about the loss of diversity: biodiversity as well as cultural diversity, the erosion of knowledges and the current culture’s contentment with easy answers and shallow individualism.
Invention, imagination, authenticity, non-conformity, generosity, awareness, deep thinking, hard work and original minds - these are the things I look for. My approach is process-oriented, as I believe that no change, no work of art, no new viewpoint happens overnight. Everything - from Revelation to revolution - is the result of a process.
I live in Rimouski, on the south bank of the Saint-Lawrence river, near the Gaspe Peninsula. My native language is French and I write with an accent. I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Art from the Université Laval.
Educational Background: MFA, Studio Arts (Open Media), Concordia University; MA, Art Theory, Goddard College; Baccalauréat spécialisé en musique (composition), Université de Montréal.
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Danielle Boutet, MA, MFA