MONTREAL.- From October 1, 2024, to March 30, 2025, as part of its Digital Canvas, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents ulitsuak | marée montante | rising tide, a video work by multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Glenn Gear. It is the first commission created specifically for the Museum’s outdoor spaces by an Indigenous artist living and working in Montreal.

Projected onto the facade of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion every evening, from dusk to 11 o’clock, ulitsuak | marée montante | rising tide reveals an animated world inspired by Inuit geometric designs and symmetries within a kaleidoscopic space comprising photographs of the artist’s beadwork.

Contemporary Inuit motifs rooted in tattoo traditions, together with the artist’s connections to land, water, stars, and animals, conjure a space at once magical and familiar. The geometric figures follow the lines of the Museum’s architecture, while the animation slowly fills the facade, evoking the rising sea levels, melting ice caps, and the disruption of ecosystems.

“An artist of Inuit and Newfoundland heritage, Glenn Gear explores systems of symmetry and order, aiming to convey the power of water, which has the potential to erase, erode, sustain life, and elicit many emotions. Ulitsuak | marée montante | rising tide invites us to reflect on the complexities and interdependence of those systems by reminding us that natural forces have a direct impact on living beings,” explains Léuli Eshrāghi, Curator of Indigenous Practices at the MMFA.

A spotlight on digital art at the MMFA

Integrating seamlessly with the urban environment, the MMFA’s Digital Canvas brings life to the area surrounding the Museum complex. Its monumental projections draw attention to the Museum’s Sculpture Garden – one of Montreal’s largest public art collections – and to Du Musée Avenue, which is the site of ephemeral art installations and evening festivities every summer. Together, these spaces reinforce the MMFA’s standing as a major cultural hub of Montreal and a destination for artistic discovery and inspiration in the downtown core.

ulitsuak | marée montante | rising tide by Glenn Gear is the fourth Digital Canvas presentation after those of artists Sabrina Ratté (2022), Nalini Malani (2023) and Nathalie Bujold (2023- 2024).The work is being shown in parallel with ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of life, an all- new presentation of the Museum’s Inuit art collection.

Glenn Gear (born in 1970) is originally from Nunatsiavut and Newfoundland, and currently lives and works in Montreal. An animator, filmmaker and visual Indigiqueer artist, Gear finds inspiration by exploring his identity as an urban Inuk with ancestral ties to Nunatsiavut. He frequently creates animated short films related to these explorations. His current work centres on individual and collective history, exchange between Indigenous and settler populations, folklore, gender and archival material.

A graduate of Memorial University and Concordia University, he is known for his work Kablunât (2016) and for his series “Kimutsik” (2019-). His work has notably been presented at the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq, Bonavista Biennale, Nuit Blanche Toronto and Ociciwan Contemporary Art Centre. Gear was shortlisted for both the 2023 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award and the 2021 Sobey Art Award.

Curator: Léuli Eshrāghi, Curator of Indigenous Practices, MMFA