Valérie Cain Bourget is originally form Cap d’Espoir in Gaspésie and now works in Quebec City. She holds a BFA from Université Laval, where she is currently completing her MFA. Her work has received recognition by way of the Prix Tomber dans l’Oeil and the Prix Louise-Viger in 2023.

Caught between narratives of collapse and the potential for reconstruction, Valérie Cain Bourget's work explores the notion of impermanence through sculpture and video. In her videos, she repurposes formal and chromatic aberrations resulting from deliberate errors in digital compression to compose fragmented, contemplative landscapes. She treats these technical anomalies as malleable, active material, opening up a critical space for questioning our relationship with the “poor image,” which stands in opposition to the prevailing pursuit of high-definition images.

In her sculptural work, she creates makeshift devices that mimic the structures of mechanisms used in forest survival contexts, such as traps, shelters or rainwater collectors. Whether it be an insulator produced by the petrochemical industry, a branch or a pebble, the elements are put to use in the same way, acting outside any hierarchy that would establish their value. With an economy of means, she exploits the materiality of construction waste and digital glitches. She and her work take refuge along a thin line separating the cynicism of a collapsing world or its romanticization.

Valérie Cain Bourget has been selected by L’Écart as part of the PRÉSENCES project. Following her residency at Centre SAGAMIE, she will take part in a group exhibition at L’Écart in spring 2025.