Fish Factory

Tara Lynn MacDougall is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, QC. Her practice combines painting, sculpture, printmaking, performance, and lately has included rug hooking, and sewing. Her interest lies in a critical and humourous re-evaluation of the art historical canon, and reconsideration of distinctions between standard labour and artistic production.

My time at Fish Factory involved lots and lots of stitching and a ‘soft’ exploration into finding solidarities with how communities and artists in other places have dealt with issues of post-industrialization and economic decline.

This residency offered me time and an ideal location to focus on issues that are important to my practice, namely the relationship between manual labour and artistic practice and the hierarchical value assigned to each as well as connections between craft-identified and gendered materials, techniques and industrial labour. I was in residence with the best group of artists, perhaps the nature of the residency led to common points of interest and artistic concerns or perhaps it was the summer solstice that brought us all together, either way I hope our paths cross again, and that I have the opportunity to return again to Fish Factory. I’m grateful for and would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.