PLACE Program

Marie-Michele Jasmin-Belisle

Morphic Resonance

Morphic resonance is a theory advanced by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake wherein ideas of collective memory, a memory inherent in nature, and location-specific resonance of the past are explored. One might consider the phenomena of the monarch butterflies migrating annually from Canada to Mexico and stopping invariably at the same tree, year after year, during the course of their journey. As a butterfly’s life span is too short to make the trip twice, scientists are puzzled by the apparently innate ability of these butterflies to be able to find the same tree generation after generation. The morphic resonance hypothesis could well provide an answer to such an enigma. The exhibit, partly funded by PLACE’s Relational Artist in Residence grant, will be opening in late 2005, and will comprise three video and sound installations based on Marie-Michele’s latest explorations. For more info, please see her website at www.8h51.com

A BFA (Interdisciplinary Studies/Video Art) graduating student from Concordia University, the Montreal-born Marie-Michele Jasmin-Belisle has, over the past five years, completed a year of study in Southern Australia, earned a degree in Cinema & Communication, and been a featured curator and artist at Montreal’s female-run artist centers, La Centrale Powerhouse and Studio Benim. Through concentrated studies in film, electroacoustics, puppetry, and theatre, Marie-Michele has created a series of short films dealing with the threads that link people, cultures and environments, as well as a series of works (installations, soundscapes and paintings) relating to ideas of the soul, memory and human consciousness. Her most recent work has taken her to New Mexico where she currently resides with the primary intention of completing the first stage of an exhibition project closely linked to her ongoing research into morphic resonance.