MICHAËLLE
SERGILE
Michaëlle Sergile, (b. 1995, Chicago, IL ; lives and works in Montreal, CA) holds a BFA from UQÀM (2018) and an MFA from Concordia University (2023). Her work has been exhibited at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée d’art de Joliette and the Off Biennale de Dakar. Her name was also on the long list of the prestigious Sobey Award for the Arts in 2022. In 2023, she won Visual Artist of the Year at the Gala Dynastie and began a residency at the Darling Foundry. In 2024 she exhibited her work at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Gallery 44 (Toronto), the McCord Stewart Museum (Montreal) and was a finalist for the Pierre-Ayot Award. In 2025 she will be starting a residency at the Lottozero Centre (Italy), the Icelandic Textile Centre (Iceland) and exhibit at the Centre Culturel Canadien de Paris (Paris).
Art Practice
Interested in rewriting history through weaving, Michaëlle Sergile mainly reworks texts and books on postcolonial theories. Frantz Fanon, often cited as one of the most important authors of postcolonial theories, addressed in 1952, in Black skin, white masks, not only the power relations between colonized and colonizers, but also the relations between the person of colour and their "community". It is through this major work that the codification system took shape allowing the artist to weave books and passages thus questioning cultural identity.
The lexicon of weaving is closely linked to questions of identity. When we weave threads that intersect and form intersections, these are, in a way, discourses that take place. They reflect at times, a cultural mix where the fabric becomes a cross between different cultures. While by others, these threads reflect the intersections of an intersectional thought.
She also examines the relationship between the writings of authors such as Frantz Fanon, Mayotte Capécia and Félix Mnthali, the place of black women in these postcolonial narratives and cultural identity, and the notion of the “foreigner” through media such as photography, sculpture, the moving image and sound.
RESIDENCIES
Textile Icelandic Art Centre
October 2025
LOTTOZERO Italy
June 2025
PRAXIS Ohio Residency
April 2024
McCord Stewart Museum Residency
Septembre 2023 - Septembre 2024
Fonderie Darling Residency
July 2023 - September 2023
September 2023 - September 2026
Hugues Charbonneau Residency
June to July, 2022
La Coulée Residency
May to June, 2022
Mission Biennale de Dakar 2020
Sous Moridja Kitenge Banza/ Centre Clark
Politiques + (In)visibles/ Artexte
October to January, 2019
AWARDS
Prix Sobey
Longue liste
May 2022
Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC)
June 2020
Bourse de création ARTCH
June 2019
Prix Jean Pitre et Claude Leclerc
Galerie de l'UQÀM, UQÀM
April 2019
Peter N Thompson Fellowship
Concordia
March 2019
Prix d'excellence en arts visuels
Place des Art, UQÀM
January 2019
Bourse UQÀM
Symposium interuniversitaire
August 2017
CURATION
CORPS : DAILY ACTS REVEAL LARGER STORIES
Art Urbain Montréal
July to October, 2024
DATA THIEVES
Never Apart
January to March, 2021
JE SAIS POURQUOI CHANTE L'OISEAU EN CAGE
Fonderie Darling
Centre culturel Georges-Vanier
Galerie du CDEx
February 6 to 27, 2020
SUBALTERNES
Galerie du CDEx
February 4 to 9, 2019
SOLO EXHIBITIONS + UPCOMING
VOX, Centre de l'image contemporaine
Spring 2026
To All the Unnamed Women
McCord Stewart Museum
Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
RASANBLAJ
Curation by Joséphine Denis
Centre l'Imagier
August 2023
DE NOS ARCHIVES SE CRÉERONT NOS HISTOIRES
Centre Plein Sud
Winter 2023
GESTURE : BODY MOVEMENTS IN POLITICAL DISCOURSES
Maison des arts de Laval
February - April 2023
COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS
Centre Culturel Canadien Paris
June 2025
Gordon Smith Gallery Vancouver
April 1st - June 28 2025
PROOF 30
Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
June 7 - July 6th 2024
LIBERATION IN FOUR MOVEMENTS
Art Museum of the University of Toronto
May 1st - July 27th 2024
A WOMAN, WOMAN, WOMAN'S WORLD
Hausen Gallery, NY
8 march - 8 april 2023
IMAGINAIRES SOUVERAINS
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec
17 november - 15 january 2023
HABITER LE MONDE
Maison des cultures urbaines de Dakar
May 2022
LES ÉNERGIES LATENTES
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec
24 febuary - 1er may 2022
DESSILLER S'OUVRIR AU HORS-CHAMPS
Musée d'art de Joliette
5 febuary - 15 may 2022
LALO COMME MACOUTE
Cube Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery
31 january - 15 may 2022
AF-FLUX : MONDE BOSSALE
Art Mûr
11 september - 11 december 2021
GESTURE : BODY MOVEMENTS IN POLITICAL DISCOURSES
Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain
19 september - 8 november 2020
VOILÀ CE QUI ME SOMME À LES SOMMER
Commissariée par Joséphine Denis
Livart
5 - 29 september 2020
TEXTE, TEXTILE ET IDENTITÉ
Rad Hourani Gallery
September - October 2020
ARTCH ET LE CAM PRÉSENTENT COLAS EKO, MICHAËLLE SERGILE RIHAB ESSAH
Montreal Council of Arts
October 21 to November 21, 2019
ARTCH 2019
Square Dorchester
September 11 to 15, 2019
PASSAGE À DÉCOUVERT
Galerie de l’UQAM
April 26 to May 6, 2019
SUBALTERNES
Galerie du CDEx
February 4 to 9, 2019
PARAMÊTRES XVIII
Places des arts
January 11 to 24, 2019
PEINTURE FRAÎCHE, NOUVELLE CONSTRUCTION
Art Mûr
July 14 to August 25, 2018
REPAIRE VARIABLE
407 De Maisonneuve Ouest
April 17 to 25, 2018
SAANA YANGU
Galerie du CDEx
February 16 to 24, 2018
PARCOMÈTRES
407 De Maisonneuve Ouest
January 2018
TALES OF HUMAN IDENTITY
Aqua Art Fair, (Miami, États-Unis)
December 2017
TALES OF HUMAN IDENTITY
Shim, ArtHelix, Brooklyn, (New York, États-Unis)
June 2017
TRANSFORMATION
Le Livart
June 2017
HUMAN AFTER ALL
Galerie Patrick Mikhaïl
May 20 to June 1st, 2017