The Other Butterfly Effect
Le Autre Effet Papillon
El otro efecto mariposa
2025
Project supported by the Canada Council for the Arts
Interactive and inhabitable installations made from emergency blankets, textiles, rocks, and natural elements
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
The Other Butterfly Effect explores migration, transformation, and interdependence between human and non-human worlds, using the Monarch butterfly as a central figure. The project is inspired by one of my most powerful childhood memories: visiting the Monarch sanctuary in the forests of Michoacán in Mexico, where millions of butterflies gather each winter after migrating from Canada. Now living in Montreal, this species has become for me a living symbol of connection between territories, cultures, and ecosystems, embodying beauty and transformation as well as vulnerability, as it is now threatened by climate change, habitat loss, and human activity.
Developed in dialogue with different communities and the landscape of Baie Saint Paul, The Other Butterfly Effect takes the form of interactive and inhabitable installations made with materials charged with meaning, such as emergency blankets, textiles, and natural elements. These structures evoke cocoons, wings, shelters, and networks of care, inviting the public to move through, inhabit, and activate the work while contributing gestures and reflections that become part of an evolving and sensitive mapping of contemporary migration.
Gravité (Gravity) symbolically evokes and deconstructs the wings of a butterfly in flight. The stones recall territory and belonging: what sustains, but also what can be depleted through extraction and unsustainable practices. The threads stretch through the air, making visible a web of forces that connect and transform us. The nylon stockings, in orange and black, evoke the identity of the monarch butterfly, marked by adaptation and migration. The work unfolds a tension between fragility and strength, territory and displacement, belonging and migration, inviting us to reflect on the transformative power contained in the simple flutter of a butterfly’s wings.
Once upon a time… evokes the forest of oyamel fir trees in Michoacán, central Mexico, covered by millions of monarch butterflies that migrate each autumn from Canada. The installation offers a symbolic experience of passage and transformation. The orange structures, like the butterflies, can be walked through and briefly inhabited, functioning as cocoons: spaces of intimacy, reflection and transformation. Made with emergency blankets, the work refers both to climate crises and to the vulnerability of migrants at the borders. It links the fragility of ecosystems with that of human beings, inviting us to imagine shared forms of care.
Nylon stockings, stones and cord
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Nylon stockings, stones and cord
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Reflective emergency blankets and plastic hoops
Nine pieces of 1 x 2 m. Installation dimensions: variable
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Visitors working on the participatory piece
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Visitors working on the participatory piece
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Installation view
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Deconstructed dress and cardboard boxes
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Deconstructed dress and cardboard boxes
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Deconstructed textile, threads and stones
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Deconstructed textile, threads and stones
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra
Deconstructed textile, threads and stones
Symposium international d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, Canada
Photo: Maria Ezcurra