Site-specific installations and exhibition
Explore site-specific installations and exhibitions at Arts Court during Pique on June 13. Activating overlooked corners of the former courthouse-turned-arts complex, artists and curators transform transitional spaces into immersive environments that invite reflection, participation, and new ways of engaging with the building’s layered histories.
Supported by Ottawa Tourism as part of the 200th anniversary of Bytown, two commissioned projects by Lesbian Community Service and Eric Quach respond directly to Arts Court’s past and present through site-responsive installation and exhibition practices. These works consider themes of memory, transformation, and civic space within one of Ottawa’s most historically significant cultural buildings.
Also on view is Home Beyond Borders, a special guest-curated exhibition developed by Danayit Zeru through WARP’s mentorship program. Featuring work by twelve emerging local artists, the exhibition explores ideas of migration, belonging, identity, and community through diverse contemporary art practices.
All installations and exhibitions are accessible with a ticket to Pique.
Home Beyond Borders
Home Beyond Borders is a multidisciplinary curatorial project that explores the emotional, psychological, and personal dimensions of “home.” Rather than treating home as a fixed geographic location, the exhibition considers it as an evolving and deeply subjective experience—shaped by memory, relationships, identity, and inner worlds.
Bringing together artists working across visual and conceptual practices, the project invites reflections on belonging, familiarity, and the subtle ways individuals construct a sense of grounding and continuity. The exhibition centers intimate, reflective, and atmospheric works that speak to presence, feeling, and lived experience.
Through this framework, Home Beyond Borders creates space for nuanced interpretations of home as something carried, imagined, remembered, or redefined. The project is guided by a curatorial approach attentive to mood, dialogue, and the emotional resonance that emerges between works, viewers, and space.
Curator: Danayit Zeru
Artists: Blank, David madu, Jayda Murray, Kouka, Mariya, Meraf, Natasha Lalani - Nat’s Crafts Studio, PG69, Rika, Sharon Chisholm, Tani Olorunyomi, Yasmeen Boudabès
The Telesymphonic Booth
The Telesymphonic Booth is an interactive installation featuring two public payphones transformed into electroacoustic instruments inside Arts Court’s jail cells. Visitors create evolving soundscapes using voice and touch-tone dialing, with keypad tones replaced by curated electronic sounds. Audio is processed with echo and looping, gradually fading while remaining audible both in the receivers and through external speakers. Blending sound art and participation, the work explores tension between confinement and possibility, turning a familiar device into a space for creativity, reflection, and shared listening.
This sound installation was originally conceived for the 39th edition of the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in 2023 by Eric Quach and Jim Demos, upgraded and updated by Eric Quach for Pique 2026.
Artist: Eric Quach
Lesbian Community Service
The Arts Court staircase is due for a cleanup. Commemorating the lesbian community service that came before them, this trio will be starting their hours during Pique #20...