For the past 7 years, Eli Kerr has been committed to producing exhibitions through emerging alternative models in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal’s contemporary art scene. After working for a few years as cofounder with Daphné Boxer of VIE D’ANGE, an art space that closed in the midst of aggressive gentrification, in the Fall of 2020 he opened Parc Offsite, a new space with a new philosophy.

Aseman Sabet: Many people in the local art community felt a big loss when VIE D’ANGE closed in 2019. From this point on, and against all odds if we consider the pandemic context that followed, what brought you to open Parc Offsite?

Eli Kerr:   The pandemic has presented a paradigmatic shift in how we constitute or assemble as a public. As it is a social problem, it is very much a curatorial problem, and so this new situation demands that one dive right-in and figure it out.

I’ve had the idea for a project like Parc Offsite for some time; for an exhibition space to exist dually as a curatorial office that can facilitate activities beyond its walls, initiating and fostering new artistic and curatorial projects, while serving a public through ongoing exhibition programming. I don’t live in Mile End anymore, but I know this area well and it feels great to be here every day.

VIE D’ANGE was a very inspiring place to work and to dream with artists, but it presented many challenges as we were caught in a strange loop that didn’t allow our

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