An international virtual flipping event of micro-editions and zines, curated by Marie Samuel Levasseur from the collective Place Courage, in collaboration with hundreds of citizens and an international selection of zinesters.
PROPOSITION
Curated by Marie Samuel, a member of the Montreal-based collective Place Courage, this virtual exhibition reimagines the traditional white cube gallery space within a metaverse environment. The project offers an immersive, interactive experience centered around the art of zine-making, celebrating micro-editions as powerful vessels for storytelling, connection, and social reflection.
At the heart of this initiative lies an international event—a vibrant « flipping festival »—where visitors can explore a virtual gallery filled with clickable images. Each click unveils a video of a zine being carefully flipped through, offering viewers an intimate window into diverse micro-narratives. These zines, co-created over the years by Marie Samuel Levasseur and hundreds of participants across the Americas and Europe, represent a mosaic of voices, identities, and lived experiences. All zines have been meticulously digitized and captured in hundreds of mini-videos, where each page is carefully turned, offering a tactile and visual experience.
The exhibition will feature contributions from notable collaborators, including the Fanzinothèque de Poitiers (to confim), Artexte (to confirm), and independent zine libraries and artists from Canada, the United States, and Europe. Through these partnerships, the project aims to create a dynamic and inclusive digital archive that transcends physical borders.
Marie Samuel Levasseur brings to this project a decade of experience in cultural institutions, including the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Theatre School of Canada. Her approach emphasizes collaborative storytelling, community dialogue, and a methodology she calls ‘conversational creation’. This methodology invites participants to step away from traditional power dynamics between artist and audience, fostering shared ownership of the creative process.
The virtual exhibition is not just a gallery—it is an event, a gathering space, and a living archive. It offers participants and viewers an opportunity to pause, connect, and reflect through the intimate act of flipping through pages. An immersive soundscape, composed of excerpts from the zines read aloud by diverse voices, enriches the environment, adding an auditory layer to the experience. Additionally, visitors will have access to free, downloadable PDF templates, allowing them to create their own virtual or printed zines at home.
By merging technology, storytelling, and the handmade aesthetics of zines, this project creates a bridge between digital and physical realities. Ultimately, this virtual zine experience is an ode to the power of small stories told through small books—a celebration of collective creation, community dialogue, and the enduring relevance of zines as tools for self-expression and social change.
PROJECT GENESIS
Since 2020, Marie Samuel has been initiating participatory exhibitions and co-creation circles in micro-edition. She has participated in several conferences as a lecturer on the zine in creative research. She has given workshops at the Université du Québec à Montréal and in public places, including homes for the elderly.
Marie has accumulated several hundred zines.
In 2023, she completed a creative residency at the DAÏMON Art Centre over a six-month period. The idea was to transpose the zine co-creation sessions into an intangible heritage of small-talk.
» In this residency, I explored the notion of intangible heritage, using an audio approach to storytelling supported by multiplicity and micro-storytelling. Having accumulated more than 800 zines created during these sessions, I plan to explore these narratives in audio, but also to spatialize sound recordings in web and installation form. At the end of this residency, this transposition should take place in a virtual space and in a real space, both of which allow the public to wander around and become active witnesses. »
Marie Samuel Levasseur pursues a multidisciplinary artistic practice that combines art and life, and develops a collaborative approach to creation through small talk. She uses multiplicity and micro-narrative to hinder the unspeakable, and to account for the plurality of identities in the expression of self-narratives linked to life’s defining experiences.
For 10 years, she held various positions at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, then worked as curator and editor at the Centre for Arts and Social Innovation of the National Theatre School of Canada, where she participated in the development of laboratories and knowledge-sharing platforms aimed at well-being through creation. She is now a member of the duo Place Courage, alongside her practice. Place Courage works at the intersection of art, truth and justice.
A graduate of the Université du Québec à Montréal with a master’s degree in visual and media arts, she co-directs creative workshops in micro-publishing and zines. She completed a creative internship at the École européenne supérieure de l’image de Poitiers Angoulême (France); a creative seminar in film studies at the Université de Montréal; post-graduate studies in pedagogy, focusing on accessibility and ableism; and is currently pursuing a degree in Indigenous Studies.
She lives and work in Tio’tia:ke – Mooniyang – Montreal