Pretending for real

Pretending for real explores the undisclosed aspects of public art through an immersive installation combining models, mock-ups, fictional archives, and scripted performances. The exhibition reveals—and allows visitors to experience—the inner workings of a system that is as standardized as it is mysterious: that of model presentations before juries in the context of public art competitions in Quebec.

For nearly ten years, La Famille Plouffe has been designing public artworks integrated into locations and communities throughout Quebec. However, for each work realized, several proposals, often ambitious and intimately linked to their context, remain invisible. This exhibition acts as a living archaeology of these rejected projects: they are reconstructed, remixed, exaggerated—as if to offer them another form of existence, even if only under the spotlight of a “shadow theater.”

In an atmosphere of performative docufiction and augmented vernacular, the exhibition is structured like an enlarged model of a model presentation, with all the ritual elements of the genre: projected 3D models, material samples, printed documents (preamble, inspirations, maintenance estimates, schedule, etc.), physical models, audio excerpts from interviews, and 3D-printed witness characters.

The proposal is based on a speculative project: a public artwork designed for the exterior of the Foreman Art Gallery, but transposed indoors without compromising its scale, overflowing the walls and conventions. The work, fictional or not, is inspired by Rita Tinker, great-grandmother of the children of La Famille Plouffe and member of a snowshoe club in Sherbrooke. It enters into dialogue with the film Les Raquetteurs (Brault and Groulx), a precursor of direct cinema shot in the same city. A fake commission for a real gallery; a real proposal for a work that may not yet exist. A mise en abyme where we no longer know what is staged or sincere, fictional or documentary.

In short, Pretending for real is a sculptural metalepsis: an artistic proposition that makes the process its subject, and pretense a sincere form of engagement. The audience is invited to explore a universe where truth and falsehood merge, where the model becomes the work, and where every detail, even the most absurd, contributes to a generously overplayed staging of art as a collective project.