Supervisor: Professor Gavin Parkinson
My research focuses on the French-Canadian Surrealist Mimi Parent, who considered Surrealism as a form of rebellion and a tool for individual and collective liberation, art as a weapon for transforming reality, and eroticism as essential for a radical change. Parent’s approach to Surrealism was distinctly political. Her actions aligned with the anti-dogmatic and decolonial values of the New Left (1960’s and 1970’s).
Specifically, my research will focus on her tableaux-objets. Like magical windows opening onto imaginary realms, floating between dream and reality, her assemblages transport us to unexplored horizons of the unconscious. They evoke the disorienting sensation of living a waking dream while simultaneously dreaming real life. Her boxes are characterized by the use of found objects, which are integrated in miniaturized environments, transforming mundane items into sites of enchantment. Parent used various techniques and media in her compositions. She also incorporated a wide range of materials without assigning them a hierarchy; all were considered noble and worthy to exist in her creations. Once assembled, these objects form an ordered, logical, and coherent whole with a narrative quality. These static scenes represent an instant frozen in time. These moments exist eternally, yet without life. Herein lies the paradox of Parent’s tableaux-objets: her assemblages exist on the boundary between the animate and the inanimate, between life and death. Parent’s works are thus perpetually open portals, creating a fluid and constant flow between worlds and realms.
Education
PhD History of Art
Courtauld Institute of Art (2026-)
MA History of Art
University of Montreal (2020-2024)
Dissertation: Recontextualisation féministe des contributions artistiques et idéologiques de Mimi Parent au surréalisme et à l’histoire de l’art [Feminist Recontextualization of Mimi Parent’s Artistic and Ideological Contributions to Surrealism and Art History].
Scholarship: Marcelle-Ferron Scholarship for graduate students in Art History at the University of Montreal whose academic record is excellent and whose research subject is related to Quebec’s art history.
BA History of Art
University of Montreal (2017-2019)
Publications
To be published: “Mimi Parent: Rebellious Spirit and Revolutionary Poet” in the book commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the International Surrealist Exhibition in Chicago in 1976, Marvelous Freedom, Vigilance of Desire, edited by Abigail Susik and Ron Sakolsky.
To be published November 17, 2027: Mimi Parent. Life and Work. Co-authored with Dr. Maria Rosa Lehmann and commissioned by the Art Canada Institute (ACI).
NIRO, Laurence, “Recension: Andrea Oberhuber (2023). Faire œuvre à deux, Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal”, RACAR, Fall 2024.
[https://www.racar-racar.com/uploads/5/7/7/4/57749791/racar_49_2_zz_niro.pdf]
NIRO, Laurence, “Entre censure et tradition: Araki Nobuyoshi” [Between censorship and tradition: Araki Nobuyoshi], Parallèle 67, September 2020, pp. 32-43. Peer reviewed and published in the second issue of the journal from the Department of Art History and Film Studies at the University of Montreal.
[https://revueparallele67.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/p67_2020pages-1.pdf]
Conferences and Talks
October 24th, 2024 – “Cordialement, Mimi Parent: la correspondance comme mode de communication et transmission d’idées” [Cordialement, Mimi Parent: correspondences as a mean of communicating and transmitting ideas], at the international conference Échappées Belles. Correspondances de femmes surréalistes, organized by Figura, the Research Center on Imaginary Theories and Practices at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM).
February 2023 – “Mimi Parent and Boomtown architecture in conversation”. First episode of the fourth season of the podcast [Annexes], affiliated with the Hypothèses conference cycles. Podcast on art history and museum studies proposing discussions between MA and PhD students in art history and museum studies from four universities in Montreal.
November 2023 and April 2021 – Research presentations as part of the BA Art History course HAR 2650-Révolutions surréalistes [Surrealist Revolutions] at University of Montreal.
Winter 2021 – “Tatouages, pouvoirs, shungas et censure dans l’oeuvre d’Araki Nobuyoshi” [Tattoos, powers, shunga and censorship in the work of Araki Nobuyoshi], about the article “Between censorship and tradition: Araki Nobuyoshi” [Entre censure et tradition: Araki Nobuyoshi] published in Parallèle 67.
Fall 2020 – (Dé)jouer le binaire: Masculin/Féminin (1959) [(Un)playing the binary: Masculin/Féminin (1959)], in a symposium titled Repenser les genres et les sexualités dans les arts, de la Renaissance à aujourd’hui [Rethinking genders and sexualities in the arts, from the Renaissance to today], as part of the MA seminar Genre et sexualités dans les arts [Genders and sexualities in the arts].
Research Interests
- Mimi Parent
- Surrealist Women
- Surrealism
- Modernisms
- Alchemy, Occult, Esotericism, Magic
- Theatricality
- Psychoanalytic concepts: Uncanny, Communicating Vessels, Surrealist Object, Esotericism, Fetichism.
- Feminism
- Gender Studies
- Art and Politics