Mission

Studio Béluga is a collectively run art space established with the goal of facilitating artists and curators, and forming a self-pedagogical creative community. This non-profit organization strives to generate new opportunities and foster collaborations across disciplines through programming that includes exhibitions, thematic and self-directed residencies, and public events.

Exhibitions

Studio Béluga is dedicated to providing its exhibition space and professional support both to resident and guest artists. The selection committee, composed of artists, curators, and art historians, evaluates proposals on the basis of artistic merit, and welcomes submissions from emerging and established artists regardless of experience and background.

The mandate extends to scholars and curators by offering a curatorial playground for experimental projects and ideas, providing the necessary advice and practical support. Studio béluga is interested in accommodating projects that push the boundaries of organizational logistics and challenge traditional gallery models.

Events

Through public events that are carefully organized around its exhibition and residency programs, studio béluga strives to create avenues for artists and intellectuals to interact and remain connected. Talks, presentations, workshops, reading groups, and film screenings are some of the various opportunities proposed to serve as platforms for stimulating new ideas.

About Us

Jessa Alston-O’Connor
j_alsto@live.Concordia.ca

Jessa is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan BA Honours Art History programme and is currently pursuing her MA in Art History at Concordia University. She brings a breadth of experience to Studio Béluga, including four years in didactics and public programming at the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Jessa has a keen interest in post-colonial issues of race, culture and ethnicity in Canada and the ways they are approached by contemporary art practices, specifically the consumption and construction of Asian identity and food culture. Initially from Western Canada, Jessa aims to connect to and work with artists from outside Quebec, providing unique and valuable opportunities to create and exhibit their work in Montréal. At Studio Béluga she works as artist liaison and lends her expertise in photography to exhibition documentation. She has been studying Irish dance for nine years.

Stephanie D’Amico
stephdamico@gmail.com

Stephanie graduated from York University’s BFA programme with a specialist in Philosophy, magna cum laude in 2009. She is now an MA candidate at Concordia University’s Art History programme. While attending York she worked as Senior Arts Editor of Existere, a journal of arts and literature. She now writes for Art Mûr Gallery and is assistant to Sandra Paikowsky in Montreal. Stephanie’s research areas include museology, contemporary art, and American and European Modernism. Her MA thesis project traces the expansion of the concept of “realism” as seen in American verist painting since the 1960s, focusing on how the meaning of “realism” has been shaped by social and technological change. At Studio Béluga, Stephanie oversees administrative and some financial duties, and contributes to curatorial and outreach projects. She has a large but never-seen collection of early and mid-century English teacups.

Anastasia Hare

Anastasia is a writer, curator and creator. She became involved with Studio Béluga in the summer of 2009, co-curating nestling, a four-part series of events about nests and home. Anastasia provides assistance with events, archival projects, curatorial writing and local outreach.  

Natalia Lebedinskaia
le.natalia@gmail.com

Natalia Lebedinskaia is the curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba. She holds an MA in Art History from Concordia University, where she also received her BFA in Art History and Studio Arts. She held curatorial and art administration internships at The Banff Centre for the Arts' residency program and Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff, Alberta. Natalia has also worked independently on projects and publications for Art Mûr, FOFA Gallery, Les Ateliers Jean Brillant, and Centre des arts actuels Skol, in Montréal. Her research interests focus on the ethics of exhibition and display, especially as they relate to negotiations of personal memory in the public sphere. Her curatorial approach aims to build communities, both ephemeral and lasting, through exhibitions and programming.

Lucie Lederhendler
lucie.lederhendler@gmail.com

Lucie holds a BA in Art History from McGill University, where her focus was on contemporary Chinese art and the social subtext of art movements.  Since graduating, she has been investigating the symbiotic relationship between art crime, the market, and production.  As a curator, she is most concerned with audience and narrative. She currently works in educational outreach at a performing arts centre in Montreal.