Ice is a universally charged word. For many Americans, it is short for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a harbinger of xenophobia, along with the cold indicator of weather changes, especially as a factor of climate change. The Arctic is losing ice, and other countries find themselves with more of it than they have in decades. In Quebec City, in the transition from winter to spring, this is an abundant, near-neutral endearing factor – the slippery ice that coats the streets, the icicles the full-toothed grin of the neo-French and Chateauskian buildings and the great frozen blocks being pushed downstream by the St. Lawrence. “Briser la glace/Splitting Ice”, the theme of the Quebec Biennale of Manif d’Art (the only winter biennale in North America, held in Quebec City, Lévis, Baie-Saint-Paul and Joliette), has many associations: from performance Dancing into the night (1948) by Françoise Sullivan (now 102 and a matriarch of Quebec art) in the 1940s brings to moments of tension, the separation from the old to the new and multiplicity.
Biennale curator Didier Morelli’s vision depicts the cold season as an active collaborator in the reconfiguration of space and perception, and poses the question: What happens when art uses ice and water to dissolve seemingly permanent boundaries? He brings his perspective as an art historian and historian of performance to the fore. When asked about his starting point for the biennial, he told the Observer: “It was described and put forward as this winter biennale in North America. One of the things I really thought about was, what do we do in the northern regions of North America at the end of February? We go out with our bodies and meet the winter landscape. We transform it by performing these different gestures and actions on it. This is something that has been done for centuries on these lands. And so, there was an idea that really embraces the identity of the biennial and embraces the season and the kind of climate that it has in the city.” “In a world that is solid as ice on the outside but fluid as water,” he adds, “I wanted things to be poetic and political at the same time. All the work, or at least most of it, in my mind, has some kind of politics inscribed in it, even though it may not be a big ‘P’ politics. That’s because I think all art is political and all art is social because it’s inscribed in the world we live in, and it’s important to acknowledge it.” that.”
Splitting Ice connects Quebec’s geopolitics to the world as explored in the works of 60 international artists in 41 locations. In the multi-storey building Espace Quatre Cents, one of the sites of the Biennale, the first artwork I encountered in the lobby was the massive A breathing iceberg (2024) by Jessie Kleiman (Greenlandic Inuit artist based in Denmark) – a literal expression of the subject. Morelli reported a “radical shift” in the meaning of Kleiman’s work, despite his inclusion in the show from the beginning of his idea. He called Kleiman two years ago, before Greenland became a major part of heated international conversations about US and Danish imperialism. The work refers to Kleiman House, the site of a climate catastrophe. “What’s happened over the last couple of months with the United States of America, this work takes on a whole new character. Viewing it or thinking about viewing it and realizing that Greenland has a historical colonial past with indigenous communities with Denmark, but now there’s a whole new empire, a whole new imperial power trying to impose its power and its might on the communities there.”
Politically charged works are juxtaposed with moments of relief, such as Mexico City resident Tania Candiani’s painting. Listen to the moving ice and water. This work, which captures military technology from World War II, is located just outside Espace Quatre Cents as a tube descends into the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. With joy, participants would stand on their tiptoes and cover their ears to listen to the meditative, amplified sound of the ice and river as they moved. This was an essential exercise and an example of the site’s own genius. Putting my ear to the device gave me goosebumps. It reminded me of the conscious life force of the river I grew up swimming, fishing and boating as a child, a little further south of Hale Island, the Thousand Islands.
The Biennale also addresses the ways in which ice and snow can be manufactured or constructed. It was created by Minha Park, a Korean artist who lives between Seoul and Los Angeles The story of the elusive snow (2013). The artist wanders across Hollywood to find and document found objects from movie sets of fake or man-made snow. She guides us in Korean while experiencing these things as an outsider in a dynamic and fascinating contrast to the snow and ice that nature creates in the area.
The work that splits the difference (pun intended) is Bass perdus worms Written by Maria Ezcurra (Argentine-Mexican-Canadian based in Montreal) at Le Lieu, center en art actuel. In a playful maze, the metal plates move with the movement of the viewer who becomes a participant in the choreography of his or her choice. When the artist spoke, she explained that she used an “emergency blanket” often found in safety kits. Her association with this substance was a sign of closure as she saw people in detention centers being given this substance to sleep at night. Abroad, she built a small house from this material to show instability and talk about forced migration due to climate change.
Another example of work that has a sense of fun around a strong political subject is Near far By Lebanese-Canadian artist Joyce Jumaa, who brings humor, sarcasm and visitors’ reactions to her video about the 1995 Quebec referendum. The timeless lyrics and melodic ecstasy of “My Heart Will Go On” by Quebec singer Celine Dion, bring to mind the sadness of Rose and Jacques in Titanic When the couple is stranded before Jack plunges into the freezing depths. The song comes from a space in the gallery with a black curtain around it (like a voting booth), but it has a microphone on a stand inside for karaoke, and there’s a projection of images from the referendum on potential annexation and the county’s complex cultural and linguistic politics with a roll of winter scenes. This transcribes the English lyrics of a French-speaking singer on the floor to show this cultural fracture and hybridization.
Likewise focusing on the complexity of language is a text-based neon work by Joy Arcand (a Cree artist born in Saskatchewan but living in Ottawa) applied to the Espace Quatre Cents frieze. Its location in the building confirms its importance. While regional politics focuses on the tension between French and English, talk about signage and recognition of indigenous languages is highlighted. While not in Cree territory, the artist presents this reminder with itihtinWhich means “the way it flows.”
There have been many references to Quebec and Canada’s broader connection to the Global South through allusions to “snowbird” holiday living and the ice that melts and becomes part of our shared waters. There are two works that best illustrate this Your island is here (Signs and video performance of signs by Puerto Rican artist Nepa Pastrana Santiago) and Container series Written by Guiri Minaya (Dominican artist based in New York City). The performance shows the artist swimming underwater as the banner wraps around her and twirls in the pool. The video and signage as displayed on the ground and third floors read as a declarative statement evoking the political geography of Puerto Rico, a US territory. This work is connected to the show because the ice moves into these areas that connect us to each other. In other work, Minaya depicts women in lush Caribbean beach scenes with the kitschy tropical styles they wear as a projection of snowbirds’ desire to go to the Caribbean for vacation.
Separately from the actual biennale, Wendat storyteller Dominique Ste-Marie (who is also a marketing and sales consultant for the Wendack Tourism Board) has discussed that the Wendat were making ladders for the many snakes that call the area home. Most of the creatures that grow and mature in the Windack are female, and they go to the Sargasso Sea off the coast of Bermuda to mate. Disrupting the ease of travel of these mostly female snakes could lead to the collapse of the entire snake population. This exposes global environmental cooperation and interdependence.
Another work that emphasized flexibility but in a more cultural-religious way is Revive it By Ludovic Bony (Wendat artist based in Lévis, Quebec) at the Grand Théâtre de Québec. Set against brutalist concrete walls hewn in the 1980s that have an archaeological feel, with wooden balustrades and carpets, is a new 3D media work that shows a woman sometimes in indigenous regalia and sometimes in a nun’s garb. Projecting onto fast-moving fans with LEDs had a complex flashing or fading effect. The sonic experience was one of chants and drums, creating a truly transcendent experience that honors upholding your cultural traditions alongside those of the settlers.
Instead of fans, Elias Nafi (a Lebanese Canadian living in Montreal and Beirut) marries meaning and form through the medium of glass. During the concert, while immersed in my unique artistic bubble, I learned that the United States had declared war on Iran. I even encountered a protest against American intervention and the genocide committed by the Israeli government. Nafaa’s work seemed particularly timely. The conical rockets stand on a pedestal about two feet high at La Chambre Blanche; He made it to look like ice, and the monochromatic work in the white cube gallery has a sombre effect. His goal with this work is to show how “colonialism and imperialism continued to operate in full force,” according to Morelli. “Nafa’s article, which is about bombs and missiles used in Lebanese and Palestinian territories over a period of about two years, and hearing about this first wave of attacks on Iran, but also then waves of attacks on Lebanon by the United States and Israel. It seemed surreal and devastating, but it also highlighted the importance of having work that talks about these things. That’s the article that I kept thinking about like every day.”
Manif d’Art Biennale du Québec City It continues until April 19, 2026.
More at art fairs, biennials and triennials