- City
- Montréal
- Booth
- Nathan Phillips Square
Booth 359
Clothilde Allen
Clothilde Allen was born in Montreal, where she lives and works. Her father comes from the mining town of Rouyn-Noranda, while her mother was born in Centre-Sud, a working-class district of Montreal. From an early age, she was interested in the magic of plants, transported by her travels in the Abitibi region, where she feared the witches hidden beneath the rocky capes. From an early age, she created cedar perfumes, plant potions, insect collections, a collection of cocottes found in Anjou's Parc à la croisée des chemins, and cut flowers on private land to make bouquets. Always on the lookout, she studied Spanish, German and Italian. She began her university studies in art history, where she branched out into teaching French as a second language, and discovered an unsuspected talent in an optional photography course. At the same time, she developed new skills in horticulture at her local plant market, where she worked for ten years. During these years, she validated her horticultural knowledge with training at the botanical garden, and completed her bachelor's degree in photography at Concordia. In 2021, she moved to the Centre-Sud neighborhood, began her master's degree in photography and worked as a gardener for the City of Montreal in Plateau Mont-Royal. She is now the mother of a one-year-old daughter.
My art and research focus on the representation, cultivation and reclamation of nature in the city. I'm particularly interested in the relationship between humans, plants and their environment. As a gardener for the city of Montreal, I move from one place to another every day. This is why gesture, movement and the gaze have become central to my practice. They reflect the fluidity of the body's movements, like the writing of light.
Allen holds a BFA (2018) and an MFA (2025) from Concordia University. Exhibitions include “Apparition ondulante”, an ephemeral public art piece (1% project) created for the Rem, presented at Place des Aiguilleurs (2023), his thesis project: “Quelque part ailleurs : Les sténopés des jardinier(e)s” at Concordia's MFA Gallery (2024) and “Parcours discursif et autres espaces” at Maison de la culture Mont-Royal (2017).
