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Agence TOPO

Agence TOPO is an artist-run center dedicated to the production, dissemination and distribution of independant multimedia works. Founded in 1993, TOPO provides assistance on a proposal basis for the development of projects presented by its members and other representatives of the artistic community.

Agence TOPO' focus is primarly on the convergence of visual arts and literature with new media. The interest is to mobilize the web as an instrument and a space for the renewal of the narrative genre, and for the presence of artists coming from diverse cultural and artistic practices and backgrounds.

PROJECTS

Since 1998, Agence TOPO has produce various collective web art project with more than 70 artists from Quebec and abroad, presented in some 30 international festivals : Mes/My Contacts (2007), Astres / Stars /Goleuadau (2006), Who is ...? (2005), Post-Audio NetLab (2004), Civilités (2003), Vilanova (2002), FiXions (1999) and Liquidation, une fiction web-radio (1998), produced in collaboration with Radio-Canada.

Agence TOPO also supports the independant multimedia productions with the lauching, in 2001, of an Archive space for visual art projects, and a Showcase for the dissemination, promotion and distribution of art and essay CD-ROM's, DVD-ROM's and DVD-VIDEO's. The showcase presents over fifty titles from Canada, the United States, Australia, Belgium and France.

TOPO also organizes presentation activities through exhibitions, screenings and taking part in international electronic art festivals. In 2006 the organization has also published a case of 2 video dvds, Post-Audio_DVD, a compilation of audiovisual works as a complement to the Web site Post-Audio Net Lab.

HISTORY

Agence TOPO started its activities in 1994 supporting the creation of the plurimedia work Liquidation. TOPO's main mandate in this regard has leaned towards the cultural distribution of the work: web site, photographic exhibition, participation in electronic art festivals.

In 1995, TOPO Agency (in collaboration with the French Community of Belgium and the Tourism Office of St-Pierre-et-Miquelon) has produced and presented St-Pierre-et-Miquelon, a Belgium-Quebec photographic exhibition, as part of the Mois de la Photo in Montreal.

At the same time, TOPO published Portraits/Gossips of Montreal Artists, a French-Spanish artist booklet by the photographer Eva Quintas and the writer Michel Lefebvre.

In 1995-1996, TOPO invited representatives from the fields of cinema, multimedia, visual arts and literature, in order to evaluate the feasability of a Quebec cultural week in French-speaking Europe. A canvassing tour was conducted in Brussels, Paris and Geneva. Finally, over these last years, TOPO Agency has also offered support to artists both in projects writing and development, and in funding strategies and approaches.

With the development of digital technologies, TOPO’s mandate has evolved to include the Web as a territory of creation and dissemination for its projects.

TEAM

General Director
Michel Lefebvre

Artistic Director
Eva Quintas

Development agent
Esther Bourdages

Web designer
Guy Asselin


CONTACT

5455, avenue De Gaspé, # 1001
Montréal (Québec)
Canada H2T 3B3
T (514) 279-8676

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair
Eva Quintas
Artist, photography and media arts

Vice-chair and Treasurer
Michel Lefebvre
Writer and multimedia author

Secretary
Sylvain Aubé
Audio artist and webmaster

Directors
Yannick B. Gélinas
poet and media artist

Ernest Godin
Producer, documentary film

Élène Tremblay
Artist photographer and curator