Le Merle

The evening of performance was in full swing, but this time, there were a lot of people in my home that I didn’t recognize. In the audience were two Gutai artists, S and T, who spontaneously decided to perform in response to what was happening around them. H, C, T, S and I recognized that something unexpected and transformative had just happened. Two legendary Japanese artists, along with this new audience, were drawn in by the events of Fait Maison.

In 2005, I began organizing evenings in my home in Gatineau that were, at the same time, a party, a performance laboratory, and a critical discussion. At the time, I was pursuing my Master’s and was planning to continue this project, based on my own artistic practice, after my studies. I favored a light and versatile organizational structure, capable of welcoming potential collaborators. Despite this modest beginning, Fait Maison was able to offer a space to performance artists in Outaouais. My home became a place to gather, create, and share, surrounded by a supportive community.

Fait Maison has changed a lot since those early days. The house on Moussette has now been sold, members of the core group are no longer involved in the daily organization, and the performance events are no longer a regular fixture of the Gatineau art scene. However, the flexible platform has been able to adapt to changes; changing shape without losing its identity.

I have been collaborating with A since 2020. We meet every two weeks, to develop curatorial projects together and work on a book project that will focus on the activities of Fait Maison, the vitality of artists from the Outaouais region, and artforms often overlooked by institutions.

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The elements brought about by the space of the house are the qualities most closely associated with Fait Maison: trust, intimacy, experimentation, collaboration, and care. These are central to all our projects, even as we transport them into the gallery.

I often tell the story of the first time I went to T’s house on Mousette in Gatineau. I went with our MA class, most of whom had never seen live performance art before. In a crowded living room, we were sitting on the couch drinking beer, when suddenly T appeared beside us, naked, reperforming M.A.’s Art must be beautiful, artists must be beautiful In reality, T was not naked, but I think the shock on the faces of our classmates and the proximity of the performance made it seem all the more extreme. The multitude of ways that Fait Maison is remembered is important to us. Bearing witness and building from these kaleidoscopic experiences is central to our approach.

I remember coming to watch some of those early performances where the performances happened in and around the party; or maybe the party happened in and around the performances. The line was often blurred between performer and audience, and this unsettling of the border is one way that performance art, and, Fait Maison specifically, challenged conventional art practices.

By opening my house, I sought to escape the socalled neutrality of places dedicated to art. From the start, the audience seemed to understand how this venue changed their experience of performance. But the practices and habits of the performers were challenged, so it took us some time before we could explore the context and the full creative potential of the house. Examples of performances adapting to this new context are numerous: I am thinking in particular of R inviting the public to follow him through the house; or of M giving S his bath with the help of volunteers from the audience; or C, climbing on stilts, to sit on the fridge in the kitchen at A’s house. In the end, only my son’s room was off limits.

Entering T’s home felt like anything was possible, which opened up a space for different kinds of experimentation, especially because it foregrounded a particular kind of intimacy and trust between the performers and the audience. Attending these events came with a certain responsibility – for the performers, for the house, for the others in the room – being part of the audience meant a commitment to the care of all who were there.

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There were definitely a few times when the audience felt they should intervene in a performance that was particularly intense: during C’s performance where they vomited a fashion magazine, they had just ingested, to make a beauty mask; or when U set his penis on fire, twice, in the low basement. However, this space of openness cultivated a space of trust; trusting the performers to know their own limits; and trusting that the audience was there to support you.

Fait Maison events grew from about twenty-five people in the beginning to over a hundred by 2010. Those parties / labs attracted diverse and unexpected participants; multiplying the connections between the English-speaking and French-speaking population, emerging and established artists, and inspiring new conversations, respect, and trust between us.

Cross-pollination and collaboration were definitely key elements. There are so many examples of artists working together: A performed with V, V with H, H with M, M with M, M with T, T with H, H with G… More consistent collectives also had an impact like V and H with their always surprising and magical short actions; as well as performances that involved the audience like T, or M and Co. with their epic performances involving everyone present.

Commitment from the public peaked when Fait Maison was invited into various homes: N welcomed us to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of D; L offered us an opportunity to broaden our horizons for an event with literature in the spotlight; and V, a Gatineau artist living in Montreal, put us in touch with the next generation of Montrealers.

In 2010, exhausted, I stopped organizing Fait Maison, thus marking the end of the Gatineau-community period. Then on the initiative of E, an old ally, we organized a very festive event at his home to mark our 40th anniversary. What followed was a decade of occasional collaborations, often involving J, with whom I now share my home and my life.

It has been five years since I started working as Fait Maison. It was initially T’s project and so an invitation to work with him was generous and, I hope, generative. We have already produced round tables, podcasts, performance events, a website, and we are working on a book project. The very notion of collaboration has become important for us; to explore how we can develop work that is more nuanced, inclusive, and thoughtful by working together. What does it really mean to collaborate? What does it involve?

Before our residency at Axenéo7, we had never organized anything together. Since then, we have shared a lot about who we are; about what is important to us; on the type of work we believe is meaningful; and on how to translate our values into the activities we offer.

Throughout our varied projects, we strive to maintain the familiarity, the openness, and a more organic structure that was part of the origins of Fait Maison. We have been cultivating this flexible dimension, working more collaboratively, to cultivate new ways of working.

Very early on, the artists-run-centres of the region invited Fait Maison for various collaborations. We then attempted to translate the atmosphere and possibilities of the home to the institution. During the exhibition Not Tonight Honey in 2009 at Galerie 101, for example, we furnished the gallery like a house. We then lived in the space, sharing food, doing housework, hosting a sleepover, organizing a barbecue, and maintaining the temporary garden.

Our recent gallery-projects have led us to deepen our reflection on the movement from private domestic space to public exhibition space. How can we maintain a fluid organization / ambience during our events? And above all, how can we preserve the feeling, the trust, the openness, along with the unique forms of hospitality present at the heart of Fait Maison?

Collaborating takes time, it is not always an easy task, it means exchange, negotiation, compromise and occasionally disagreements. We hope to keep testing our collaborative strategies. We have a three-month exhibition project in Winnipeg at La Maison des artistes visuels francophones ¹ in collaboration with Urban Shaman ² in 2025, and are already beginning to think about best practices for working with the local performance community, as both a form of curating, but also as a practice of care. As we embark on this project we test our abilities in community building. With the help of T, one of the early core members of Fait Maison, who now lives in Winnipeg, we are building a network. From this we will build the event.

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Since its beginnings, Fait Maison has grown a lot. After the house on rue Moussette, a multitude of places have welcomed us, dozens of new collaborators have been involved, and its performance events have extended well beyond the Outaouais. Fait Maison has become a state of being that enables us to bring the atmosphere of the home to our events. As a duo we carry Fait Maison’s name, but every project focuses on the people we bring together.