PHI Centre
Space A
315 Saint-Paul St West
Montreal, Quebec, H2Y 2A3
Doors: 7 pm
Music: 8 pm
General admission: $25
Door: $30
Taxes and fees not included
By proposing a collage of sound textures, the artist brings together two worlds: Europe and Latin America.
Opening act: Chellz
“In Latin America, we have succeeded, after a fashion, in conceiving and creating a world in which values, far from being stifled by the clash of opposites, are given new life through lively communication and recognition of the multicultural reality.”
The reality that Carlos Fuentes describes summarizes perfectly the essence of Sophie Fustec’s project, LA CHICA. It’s this “multicultural reality” between Latin America and France, between Belleville (the Parisian neighbourhood), and Venezuela that gave birth to her compositions, lyrics and style.
La Chica reunites these two worlds through her music by using a collage of textured sounds that she’s taken from her origins and diverse modern influences to break boundaries. Her world revolves around the piano and keyboard, skillfully mixing classical inspirations, like her admiration for Debussy, with the dense intensity of analogue synths. She doesn’t need to hide behind any gimmicks, instead, her basic emotions are conveyed through abstract thoughts and poetic self-reflection.
Sophie Fustec was born in Paris to her Venezuelan mother and French father. She grew up in Belleville, a neighbourhood in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, as well as Merida, in the west of Venezuela where she regularly went to see relatives on her mother’s side. Sophie started playing music at a young age. First the violin, then the piano, which she went on to study for 13 years at the Conservatoire de Paris, a prestigious music and dance college.
La Chica released her debut album CAMBIO—meaning “change”—in 2019. A poignant and raw album without completely moving away from the lucid soul-searching that defined her previous releases. She states without any ambiguity her yearning to change, to even become a new being. Lyrically, she’s been inspired by what’s going on in the real world, particularly the latest crisis in Venezuela. Through her distinct compositions, she’s created an album of contrasts, flipping from joyful war chants to whispering poems.
Chellz is an MC from Montreal, Canada, of Salvadorian descent. His artistic work is mostly in Spanish: conscious and powerful lyrics with freestyle skills soaked in the black and brown urban immigrant culture.
In 2022, Chellz drops his first EP as a solo artist, El Paseo del Alma (via the American label Normandie Records, based out of Los Angeles), after a veteran’s journey inside the Latin urban scene from Montreal that took him on tour around the Americas and in Oceania with the following groups: Amérythmes (with Esmeralda and Monk.e), Heavy Soundz (with Rilabeats and several members of Teke::Teke), and his band; Sonido Pesao.
El Paseo Del Alma (all made during the pandemic) is an ode to all these wandering nights of daydreaming, cruising, listening to good music in old, comfortable cars: Lowrider Oldies, Chicano Rap, Psychodelia, Buffalo Boom Bap, etc. Produced by his good friend Boogát, the songs of El Paseo del Alma are cinematographic storytelling and astonishing poetry that makes witchcraft, delirium, love, drugs and sex, rhyme with rebirth.
Free
The PHI Centre building comes to life with an interactive multimedia installation of a motion-activated river on its four-story windows on Saint-Pierre Street
Collaboration
The PHI Foundation, in collaboration with Onishka Productions and the Centre du Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui (CTD’A), presents the sound walk Marguerite: la pierre
Free
An experimental documentary in three parts, by Nicolas Jenkins, that aims to question the prevailing assimilation of 2SLGBTQIA+ identities
Two immersive Renaissance tableaux for our hyper-mediated digital era, these artworks by Marco Brambilla will engulf you in landscapes of pop-culture iconography
A special selection of award-winning VR works that will draw you into four distinct worlds sharing unique and powerful stories
Free
In celebration of its 15th anniversary, the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art is pleased to present an exhibition by Yayoi Kusama
Free
bleu de lieu is a participatory installation that invites the public to stay, to rest, to meditate and to interact with the different elements found in our Education Room
As part of the Papier 2022 Art Fair programming, the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art presents the panel discussion Making Contradictions Visible: Artistic Practices in the Public Sphere