Art Souterrain: The Underground City's art gallery
Artists from around the world are showcased in the 2025 edition of Montréal’s Art Souterrain festival during which the city’s famed Underground Pedestrian Network is transformed into a six-kilometre-long contemporary art gallery from March 15 to April 6.
Habitat
Founded in 2009, the non-profit Art Souterrain’s mandate is to make contemporary art accessible to the general public. The theme of this year’s 17th edition is “Habitat”: when contemporary societal challenges make us reconsider our environment, way of living and conceiving our surroundings, what defines a habitat?
“What are we looking for in a place we call home?”
Eric Millette
Co-curators Geneviève Thibault and Eric Millette investigate the various aspects of the modern habitat, focusing on its human, social and environmental dimensions. Through photography, video, installation, sculpture, and performance, the featured artists address and contribute to envisioning a future where our habitats reflect the values of creativity, sustainability and inclusivity.
“What are we looking for in a place we call home?” Millette asks. “This reflection becomes important if we aim to one day foster the appropriation of a home for everyone. Art can help us explore the essential qualities that a space must embody to truly be called a home.”
Says Thibault, “Inhabited spaces reveal various forms of accumulation: bodies, materials, possessions, experiences, habits, relationships, responsibilities, and workloads. Also, the accumulation of presences and, above all, absences.”
In addition to its three-week underground exhibitions, the Art Souterrain program includes performances, a round-table discussion, two urban exploratory walks in partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and Architecture Without Borders Québec, and numerous guided tours in French or English.
This year’s edition showcases more than 30 artists, 200 artistic projects, and 15 events and activities along six kilometres of the underground pedestrian city.
Click here for more details about guided tours, here for special events, and here for bios of all the artists.
Livart
MEM
The urban route
In addition to the art works on display in the underground route, this year Art Souterrain also offers festivalgoers an urban route extending possibilities for reflection through the exhibitions of several partner museums, also exploring the theme of Habitat.
Visitors can continue their experience at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (commonly called “ The MAC” by locals), the McCord Stewart Museum, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the MUMAQ – Musée des métiers d’arts du Québec, the MEM - Centre des mémoires montréalaises (commonly called “The MEM” by locals), Livart, the Italian Cultural Institute in Montreal, the Mexican Cultural Institute in Montreal, HANGAR 7826, and the Galerie Shé:kon exhibition space of the Contemporary Native Art Biennial (the Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone, or BACA).
Click here for the full festival program and all related information.
The 2025 edition of the Art Souterrain festival runs from March 15 to April 6.
Richard Burnett
Richard “Bugs” Burnett is a Canadian freelance writer, editor, journalist, blogger and columnist for alt-weeklies, mainstream and LGBTQ+ publications. Bugs also knows Montréal like a drag queen knows a cosmetics counter.