Volt-Age 2026 Student Exhibition: “Advancing electrification for shared prosperity”
The inaugural 2026 Volt-Age Student Exhibition, featured at our Electrify Society Summit Gala, asks: How can art illuminate the path to a more sustainable and equitable future? It invites artistic creations that engage with the ideas and possibilities of electrification, highlighting the role of creativity in shaping a sustainable and equitable future.
While Volt-Age’s research is heavily focused on science and technology, interdisciplinary work, including the arts, remains fundamental to achieving lasting impacts on Canadian society. Artistic practices are critical not only to promoting and improving community engagement and knowledge mobilization, but also to informing research design and exploring and developing new ways of thinking.
DANCE-THEATRE
Rouge, Oil, Blood
Rouge, oil, blood is a critique on the tradition of oil extraction from the perspective of a human body, which has itself become an oilfield. By speculating on/with the human body, this piece shows how our individual and social lives are contaminated by oil extraction and that green energies are refuges in which we can sooth this exploitation.
INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION
Connectivity Map
Connectivity Map is an interactive and collaborative artwork representing an abstracted map of Canada and its potential electricity distribution grid illuminated on a track of optical fibre attached to two right-handed gloves. Participants are invited to wear the gloves and interact with one another to observe the transformation of the artwork. The spectator can observe what a scaled and optimized electricity system can look like when we collaborate.
SCULPTURE
The Wheel Lamp
The Wheel Lamp is a conceptual piece emerging from the artist’s exploration of the themes of upcycling, repurposing, and readymades. It presents an insight into how lamp designs can spark from found objects. With an interest in conceptual art, the lamp stands between the functional and the conceptual. The thought of transforming discarded bicycle wheels into a luminous object reflects the limitless possibilities of repurposing materials.
PHOTO GALLERY
Inukjuak: A Community in Transition
This photo gallery captures a crucial moment in Inukjuak, an Inuit community in northern Quebec, as it transitions from diesel dependence to community-owned clean energy. Through portraits and landscapes, the series weaves together stories of resilience, leadership, and hope. At its centre is the Innavik Hydroelectric Project, a 7.5-megawatt, Inuit-led initiative that now powers most homes, marking a major step toward energy sovereignty and a net-zero future.
PERFORMANCE
Corps Commun
COHEASIO is an interdisciplinary performance by the Corps Commun collective that uses improvisation as its compositional driver, bringing sound, movement, and visuals together within a shared, ever-evolving space. Through the exchange between three artists and their distinct mediums — acoustic, electronic, and visual — the work weaves a relational web in constant transformation. Rooted in a search for cohesion, the performance creates an immersive environment that invites dialogue, deep listening, and presence. Boundaries between forms gradually dissolve, allowing a fluid experience to emerge, where bodies, images, and sound connect and evolve together in relation to the audience’s attention.