This exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, presents works acquired by the MAC between 2020 and 2025 that, through a wide range of subjects and mediums, examine the notions of comfort and indifference in view of the state of the world. Curated by: Mark Lanctôt
The exhibition’s title comes from Denys Arcand’s critical and lucid documentary, Comfort and Indifference (1981). The film shows the events preceding and following the first referendum on Québec independence in May 1980 and emphasizes the ways in which many Québécois at the time, preoccupied with their own search for material comfort, remained indifferent to their political agency. Today, in the face of global crises, the title takes on new meaning and speaks volumes: What does it take to transform the privilege of apathy, maintained by the consumerism and inaction it creates, into a clear-sighted engagement sustained by a sense of empathy and solidarity? Presenting this selection of works made by twenty-two Québec artists in one exhibition space allows for new perspectives on their subject matter and formal characteristics, while also underscoring the MAC’s involvement in the community of artists who were born or have worked in Québec.

Michèle St-Amand, curator
And so, what if we imagined Indigenous women expressing their sexuality free of taboos or colonial biases? The artists Eruoma Awashish (Atikamekw), Cedar Eve (Anishinaabe), Dayna Danger (Métis-Saulteaux-Polish), Patricia Langevin (Ilnu), Andrée Levesque Sioui (Wendat), Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau (Eeyou), and Cheyenne Rain LeGrande (Cree) were invited to reflect on this idea. With works created for the occasion or never before exhibited, the seven artists embrace themes such as desire, relations, fertility, kink culture, cycles, ceremonies, identity, territory, and oral tradition.

Colonization had a huge impact on the sexuality of Indigenous Peoples. It’s essential to keep denouncing colonial violence and talking about trauma. Oya'wih, “that tastes good” in Wendat, is a collaborative group exhibition that presents a parallel reality in which there was no colonization on Turtle Island (otherwise known as North America). The idea behind the exhibition arose as a response to observations of the ravages wrought by colonization on Indigenous women’s bodies and sexualities.

Uchronia – playing with temporality by changing one aspect of history to create a different reality – is proposed to allow the imagination to travel unfettered by colonial, patriarchal, and heteronormative constraints and to embark on a path to healing, affirmation, and decolonization of sexuality.
In this process, the prefix “de” implies liberation from colonial strictures. Indeed, this exhibition is “for” the sexuality of Indigenous women and we emphasize the prefix “re”: (re)appropriation, (re)eroticization, (re)connection. The idea is to identify paths toward a desired sexuality rather than to struggle against an imposed sexuality.

Indigenous sexuality is too rarely portrayed in all its beauty and fluidity, for everyone. Art is a powerful vector for doing this. And so, the exhibition allows Indigenous eroticism and sexuality to dance with a range of materialities and materials – luminous transparency, organic elements, bright colours, beading and embroidery, and more.

Oya'wih brings together multidisciplinary works by artists from different Nations and of different generations who identify as women, queer women, or Two-Spirit. With their generous participation, they let us contemplate the embodiment of representations of Indigenous women’s sexuality from different perspectives. Giving free rein to their creativity and media, they explored the multiple dimensions of sexuality, knowing they would make magic.

Here, the artists reclaim possession of the narrative in a space of expression, sisterhood, respect, and pleasure. This exhibition is a creative celebration of Indigenous women’s holistic sexuality – a sexuality rooted in Indigenous traditions and values... Oya'wih.