PASSAGES INSOLITES in Quebec City celebrates its tenth anniversary

The summer has brought back PASSAGES INSOLITES, a public art event conceived by EXMURO arts publics and the Québec City, held every year since 2014 in the Canadian city’s historic centre. The tenth edition of PASSAGES INSOLITES is much more than the long-awaited return of a popular outdoor public art exhibition circuit; it includes performances, ephemeral installations, and a series of wall paintings and indoor exhibitions. This year’s edition also includes a walk down memory lane, with a "retrospective route" paying tribute to memorable artworks from previous years that have made their mark on the cityscape.
The artists featured this year include Felice Varini, a French Swiss artist known for his large-scale site-specific anamorphic paintings for historic monuments, urban sites of particular importance and museums all over the world. His monumental creation „Double interwoven concentric circles“ is perfectly harmonised with the outlines of Quebec’s iconic Place Royale. Varini allows onlookers to go right into the painting and walk around, observing deconstructed fragments, until one particular point of view resolves the visual enigma and offers a consistent vision of the overall form. 



Large-scale works of art are flanked by small wonders such as the extravagant creations of Swedish collective AnonyMouse. At street level around Place Royale and the Old Harbour, their meticulously created models offer glimpses of an imaginary world in which mice live lives parallel to our own, collecting objects discarded by human civilisation to build their elaborate homes. In Quebec, the anonymous collective proposes a radio station, a tavern, a travel agency and a shelter for homeless rodents.



The outdoor artistic circuit PASSAGE EXTÉRIEUR presents a total of 18 public works of art. A new feature of this tenth anniversary edition is a Retro Circuit featuring photo tributes to iconic artworks from past editions.
PASSAGE INTÉRIEUR’s indoor exhibitions take place in the "epicentre" of PASSAGES INSOLITES at 27 Rue Notre-Dame, where five site-specific installations dialogue with the architecture and heritage of the historic Maison Hazeur in Place Royale.
In the middle of August, the mural circuit PASSAGE MURAL began in a place where graffiti art has been thriving for many years, Îlot Fleurie. Here 13 graffiti artists created artworks on the pillars of the Dufferin-Montmorency overpass. The joint project by Street Art In Action, Québec Nova Murale and EXMURO will continue after the close of PASSAGES INSOLITES 2023 on 9 October to ensure that as many people as possible will have an opportunity to visit it. 



The ephemeral artworks in PASSAGE ÉPHÉMÈRE include pop-up performances by street artists and immersive participatory installations. 
PASSAGES INSOLITES 2023 showcases in particular the talents of indigenous artists, with six Wendat artists and one Atikamekw artist included in the programme, beginning at the opening ceremony in Place Royale on 22 June.
The festival includes plenty of opportunities to get together, including guided tours from 2 to 3 pm every Thursday and Sunday and Happy Hour Talks offering an opportunity to meet the artists behind PASSAGE ÉPHÉMÈRE. The tenth edition of the festival of art and public space is more exciting than ever. Vincent Roy, executive and artistic co-director of EXMURO Arts Publics, sees the festival’s tenth anniversary as a turning point for EXMURO, „a chance to celebrate the many projects that lie ahead for us, and the event’s unlimited, and still untapped, creative potential! In the end, what these ten years have taught us is that locals and visitors in Quebec City crave the surprising and the extraordinary.“
We can’t wait to see what the festival has in store for us next year!

Christiane Bürklein

Passages Insolites
22 June through 9 October 2023,
Ville de Québèc, Canada
organised by EXMURO arts publics and Ville de Québec
Images: Stéphane Bourgeois
List of artworks: