Verily, time is of the essence.

“It’s been busy,” says Myriam Achard as she reclines into one of the plum-coloured sofas in the foyer of the PHI Centre, Montreal’s foremost site for the exhibition of works that exist at the intersection of art and technology.

Achard has recently returned from a festival in the south of Taiwan and will next embark upon a whirlwind Trans-European reconnaissance tour through Geneva, Amsterdam, and much of Germany.

“I’m not complaining, I love what I do,” says Achard. “But I’m not very proud of my carbon footprint.”

Atop a mane of spirited blonde curls that are her trademark, Achard wears a number of hats at Centre PHI: chief of new media partnerships, head of public relations, and an overarching curatorial role in selecting exhibitions.

This last credential is what frequently takes Achard around the world, visiting festivals, vernissages, conferences, art fairs, and related types of events, always on the hunt for the latest in creative technological mediation.

The PHI Foundation was launched first as DHC/ART in Montreal in 2007 by the producer and Ottawan Phoebe Greenberg, whose father was among the founding partners in the real-estate conglomerate, Minto Group.

Greenberg chose our city over New York and Paris as the home for her philanthropic legacy, and concurrently tapped Achard as one of her closest collaborators. “I’ve been working with Phoebe for 18 years,” Achard tells me. “We met, and it was somehow love at first sight.”

Though unlike other influential curators, Achard peculiarly doesn’t come from an Art History background. Nonetheless, she has assumed the job with a particular sense of purpose and a dose of destiny.

“I’m a trained German teacher,” she says. “But art has always been part of my life. My mom took me to the movies and to the theatre as a kid,” Achard recalls. “I didn’t think I would work in that sphere. But going with my mom to Casse-Noisette, and as a teenager to the movies with friends, going to concerts, art has always been very present. It was a happy accident.”

With its cobblestone streets and Gaslamp aesthetic, Old Montreal might on the surface seem like an incongruous district to showcase some of the world’s most technologically advanced works of art. But across two historic edifices — one tucked into the corner of Saint-Jean and Saint-Sacrement, and the other located at 407 Saint-Pierre — the PHI Foundation and Centre PHI, respectively, have remained at the forefront of avant-garde art exhibition in Montreal for nearly two decades. And PHI Contemporary, a cluster of 18^th century heritage buildings across from Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel on Rue Saint-Paul, is slated to open in 2028.

“PHI Contemporary will allow us to bring under one roof what we are currently doing in two physical spaces,” Achard explains. “Right now, when we speak about the Foundation, we speak about contemporary art, and when we speak about PHI Centre, we speak about art and tech. We just want to speak about art. We don’t want to have to separate this anymore. Artists don’t either. There are more and more artists that are using technology to tell their stories. PHI Contemporary will allow us to have one discussion.”

The Montreal architecture firm Pelletier de Fontenay in collaboration with Berlin-based Kuehn Malvezzi won the international competition to repurpose Maison Louis-Viger and Maison Du Calvet, both of which date from the mid-1700s and are among Canada’s oldest existing structures, into the new PHI Contemporary location.

“We are definitely aware of our responsibility to Montreal’s history,” Achard says. “We feel the pressure of succeeding. But we are convinced that this new institution will become a landmark for Montreal. I sometimes go to New York just to see an exhibition. One exhibition. We hope, we think, that people will do the same — they will come to Montreal to see an exhibition at PHI Contemporary.”

Centre PHI has a unique directive based upon the Kunsthalle model for artistic institutions.

“The Foundation doesn’t have a collection,” Achard says. “We don’t represent any artists. The goal with the PHI Centre is to present international artists to the local community. Artists that maybe never had a solo show in Quebec, or Canada. Our proposition is unique not only in Montreal but internationally. I’ve travelled a lot, and I’ve never found a space like us.”

With its specific mandate of presenting art’s increasing conjuncture with digital technology, Centre PHI has broad license to exhibit works across a diversity of forms and media.

Currently, there are four exhibitions under PHI’s aegis: Oma-je, the French artist Laure Prouvost’s sprawling and multidisciplinary contemplation on ancestry, family, and memory; Habitat Sonore, which invites listeners to experience Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ new album, Wild God, in Dolby Atmos sound; Tulpamancer, a clinical installation that projects through Virtual Reality goggles possible pasts and futures individually tailored for each audience member; and The Golden Key, an interactive audiovisual mythology created by Matthew Niederhauser and Marc Da Costa which harnesses A.I. to generate a never-ending user-directed fairy tale.

“We are aware that Artificial Intelligence could potentially be a threat for some artists,” Achard admits. “But with our mission, we have to embrace it. The Golden Key, for example, is making fun of A.I. So, we don’t take it too seriously. We want people to laugh and make fun of what A.I. gives us. I think A.I. in general needs to be regulated. But it’s here to stay, so it’s better to go with the flow than to try and go against it.”

Technology in contemporary art practice is most often associated with themes of disruption, velocity, disposability, and post-humanity — things that seem at odds with Montreal’s local, scrappy, DIY spirit. Yet, Achard is ultimately aware that longevity and collaborative community are the core of any enduring curatorial practice.

“12 years ago, when the paint wasn’t even dry on the walls,” Achard remembers, “we organized a press tour. And some journalists and people from the community were like, ‘why will you show only international artists?’ And we said, ‘that’s our mandate.’ But then, over the years, we enlarged our mandate to include local artists. At the PHI Centre, when I can, I want to show local artists. It’s nice to find a balance. It will be the same at PHI Contemporary. The Montreal audience is so curious, so savvy, so open. Sometimes we fail. But it’s okay to fail. Our audience understands that great collaborations take time.”◼︎

_{Cover image: Myriam Achard photographed for NicheMTL.}