Skip to main content

Board of Directors and Committees

President

Éric Desmarais

Éric Desmarais holds a master's degree in visual and media arts from UQAM. Since 2010, he has been the executive director and co-artistic director of Sporobole, an artist-run centre located in Sherbrooke, Quebec (Canada). Founded in 1973, the centre now specializes in technological creation and guides artists from various disciplines at all stages of their creative process through several research, production and dissemination residency programs. In 2014, in an effort to break down disciplines, Sporobole established the Interface: Art/Science program, which brings together artists and researchers in science and engineering for long-term research and co-creation residencies. As a result, the center has enabled collaborations between art and artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, biotechnology, astrophysics, and quantum physics. In 2018, Sporobole created the 0/1 division, a digital hub that offers digital coaching and development services for artists and cultural organizations across Canada. Éric Desmarais was president of the Conseil québécois des arts médiatiques (CQAM), where he served from 2010 to 2021, and is one of the main architects of the founding of REPAIRE, born from the merger with the RAIQ.
Treasurer

Manon Tourigny

Manon Tourigny was born, lives, and works in Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Holding a master's degree in art studies from UQAM, she is a curator and author. Recently awarded a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and in addition to an exhibition at Écart art actuel (Rouyn-Noranda) in June 2022, she is working on a storytelling project that adopts an ecofeminist perspective and questions our way of occupying the territory. She is also interested in video, photography, performance, and artistic practices that engage with public space. Manon has written numerous articles for specialized journals such as Ciné bulles, CV photo, esse arts + opinions, Vies des arts, Espace, and Inter, in addition to writing booklets for various organizations.

For over 15 years, she has been involved in the visual arts community, notably at VIVA! art action, DARE-DARE, RCAAQ, and Centre CLARK, serving as co-general director and artistic director. She currently holds the position of general director at Artexte in Montreal.

Secretary

Léa Boudreau

Léa Boudreau (b. 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal who works with electronics, sounds and places. Her work questions interspecies relationships by considering nonhuman existences (nonhuman animal life, artificial life, the non-living, etc.) as ground for reflections on hierarchies dividing our world. She works following a DIY approach (do it yourself) favouring knowledge sharing and a critique of consumerism.

Among other places, her work has been presented in the Symposium International d'Art Contemporain of Baie St-Paul, FIMAV (Victoriaville), OTTOsonics Festival (Ottensheim, Austria), Akousma Festival (Montréal) and Sonorities Festival (Belfast). She holds a bachelor's degree in Digital music from Université de Montréal and a MFA (Studio Arts, Intermedia) from Concordia University. Over a six-month period, she will be artist-in-residence at the Insectarium of Montréal in 2025 for the creation of a new work inspired by the rich and surprising world of insects.

Photo: Dania Rioux

Administrator

Anne-Marie Lavigne

Anne-Marie Lavigne holds a BA in Political Science from Laval University (international profile at the Université Libre de Bruxelles), DESS studies in Management of Cultural Organizations at HEC Montréal and an MA in Interactive Art from New York University (NYU). She has taught at the Visible Futures Lab and the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, and before moving on to the United States, she worked as a video creative trainer in Maputo (Mozambique) and Johannesburg (South Africa). Anne-Marie has also held several positions in various organizations in Montreal, including Alternatives, the National Film Board of Canada’s interactive studio, RIDM and Mutek. His work has been recognized by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts. The Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn) awarded her the Ruth Schirson Levin Fellowship (2014) for her one-year residency program. She also completed creative residencies at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA), Guttenberg Arts (New Jersey) and the Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale). She has held the position of General and Artistic Director of Atelier Silex in Trois-Rivières since 2018.
Administrator

Gilles Arteau

Along with his associates, Gilles Arteau founded Obscure, a cooperative of multidisciplinary arts workers (1982-97) and Folie/Culture, an alliance of art and mental health. He contributed to the creation of the Regroupement des centers d'artistes autogérés du Québec (RCAAQ) and the Ateliers de la Mezzanine. For a time he directed CKRL-MF and has twice organized the Quinzaine internationale de la radiophonie. A sound poet and performer, he writes for Arbo Cyber, Théâtre (?) and Productions Recto-Verso, two research theater collectives. With BRUIT TTV he has created numerous sound works. With the support of the artistic and community organizations that make up this cooperative, he coordinated and supervised the creation of the cooperative of artistic, cultural and community producers and presenters Méduse in Quebec City (1993). From 2007 to 2014, he became the administrative director of the artist-run center Espace F in Matane. Today, he is president and curator of PHOS, a major event in the region dedicated to the use of the photographic object in the visual, digital/media and multi arts.
Administrator

Gabrielle HB

Gabrielle HB is a sound artist working between the ancestral territories of Tiotià:ke and Nitaskinan. She uses voice, text, synthesizers and in situ recording as the main materials, oscillating between free improvisation and slow constructions. Through her projects, she seeks ways to access more slowness, presence and subtlety. She studied digital music at the Université de Montréal (2018) and holds a master’s degree in sound arts from the London College of Communications (2021). It is half of the Desert Mauve (Charline Dally), which produces soft audiovisual works, and the ensemble Jardin (Florence Garneau), a minimalist ambient music duo.
Administrator

Geneviève Antonius-Boileau

Geneviève Antonius-Boileau is trained in acting, dance, and performance. After ten years of practice in collective creation and theatrical anthropology, she has developed expertise in on-site staging and cultural mediation. She occasionally teaches at the college and university levels while being actively involved in the cultural life of her neighborhood in East Montreal. A tireless traveler and seasoned advocate, she is also an entrepreneur and the mother of two young children.
Administrator

Alicia Turgeon

Alicia Turgeon is a multidisciplinary and neurodivergent artist based in Montreal, Quebec. Active in the field of media arts and three-dimensional practices, Turgeon is primarily interested in cultural ecology through the concepts of accessibility, intergenerational exchange, meshing, radical care and design for appropriation. She recognizes the essential role that alternative approaches play in shared production spaces and explores, through her own creative research, the notion of authorship through Open Design methodology and DIY practices. Alicia is currently a bachelor of fine arts candidate at Concordia University majoring in sculpture, where she recently received various honors including a Sustainability Research Award (2020) and an Experimental Learning Grant (2020-2021) for one of her research-creative projects. As of March 2021, Turgeon is the executive director and co-director of the Eastern Bloc artist-run center, where she worked for several years as artistic and programming coordinator. Turgeon is currently a board member of the Art Matters Festival and a research assistant for the Kinawìnd Public Art Lab under the direction of Nadia Myre (Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts Practice).
Administrator

Danielle Thibault

Danielle Thibault holds a Master’s degree in Theatre from the École Supérieure de Théâtre at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal). She was awarded the Grand Prix d’excellence Georges Laoun 2002–2003 for her play L’Écho du silence, a work later translated into German and read in Berlin at the Maxim Gorki Theater in 2003. She is currently completing her first novel and developing a practice that bridges spoken word, relational art, and interdisciplinary arts (including photography, video, podcasting, and storytelling). She was part of the ethnographic team behind the podcast Les Voix de Bordeaux-Cartierville and is currently working on a new interdisciplinary project titled Escales et collisions, a multi-platform and multi-form text collection.
In parallel with her artistic work, Danielle dedicated over 28 years to the City of Montreal’s cultural services, where she notably served as manager of the Théâtre de Verdure. She has taken part in several international missions and served on numerous juries. Having sat on various nonprofit boards, she has extensive experience in governance and management.
Today, she works as a trainer and consultant, and has twice served as interim Executive Director of the Alliance chorale, as well as briefly interim Executive Director of the Conseil québécois du théâtre (CQT).

Committees

Executive Committee
Éric Desmarais, president
Gilles Arteau, vice president
Léa Boudreau, secretary
Manon Tourigny, treasurer

Strategic Planning Committee
Réjean Perron, consultant
Éric Desmarais, Sporobole, 01 Digital Hub, president
Gilles Arteau, artist, administrator
Sonia Pelletier, executive director

Membership Committee
Éric Desmarais, president
Gilles Arteau, administrator
Danielle Thibault, administrator
Geneviève Antonius-Boileau, administrator
Manon Tourigny, treasurer
Martine Frossard, responsable des communications et services aux membres

Professional Development and Continuing Education Committee
Gauthier Kriaa, Artist
Laurence Beaudoin Morin, Artist
Alicia Turgeon, Artist
Maude Thibault Morin, Continuing Education Coordinator

Financing Committee
Éric Desmarais, Sporobole, 01 Digital Hub, president
Gilles Arteau, artist, administrator
Sonia Pelletier, executive director

Reflection Committee – Digital Project Development
Éric Desmarais, Sporobole, 01 Hub numérique, president
Gilles Arteau, artist, administrator
Mériol Lehmann, artist
Émile Morin, artist
Johann Baron Lantaigne, artist
Sophie Auger, artist, teacher
Elsa Fortant, doctoral student in musicology
Marc Olivier Ducharme, director of development at 01 Digital Hub, consultant at Musubi
Alexis Langevin-Tétrault, Assistant Director
Alexis Trépagnier, Digital Cultural Development Officer
Sonia Pelletier, general manager

Working committee – Law on the professional status of the artist
Gilles Arteau, professional collaborator, artist, head of the committee
Éric Desmarais, president of the board of directors of REPAIRE, representative of Sporobole
Anne-Marie Lavigne, treasurer on the board of directors of REPAIRE, representative of Atelier Silex
Léa Bourdreau, secretary of the board of directors of REPAIRE, Artist
Alicia Turgeon, representative of Eastern Bloc
Sonia Pelletier, general manager

Legal Advisory Committee
Georges Azzaria
Me Maude Choko, DCL
Me Normand Tamaro