RELIER 2.0

Pairing up in interregional pairs, six artists are each developing their own publication while sharing their approaches, expertise, and reflections on publishing practice.

For the project carried out with AXENÉO7, Coco Simone Finken, from Gatineau, is paired with Em Hould, from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. Their publications will be launched simultaneously at AXENÉO7 following their residency at the SAGAMIE. Learn more

A bilingual illustrator, workshop facilitator, and self-employed cultural worker, Coco Simone Finken (an artist of settler/European descent | they·she) is interested in the intersections of labor and mental health, in place-based imaginaries, and in the realities of non-traditional, single-parent, and queer families. They work, raise a family, and live on the never ceded territories of the Algonquin/Anishinabe. Following a career in entrepreneurship in the agri-food sector, they have been working in arts administration for several years and offer workshops in community settings and as an independent facilitator.

Originally from Québec City, Em Hould is an emerging artist whose practice centres primarily on drawing, illustration, and publishing. They hold a BFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University and have lived and worked in the Saguenay region since 2021. Their first book, Terrains fertiles, was published that same year by Éditions Omri (now Le Noroît).

Their practice unfolds through deliberately subjective interpretations of their surroundings, moving between documentation, distortion, and fiction. Rooted in the territory they inhabit, their approach is informed by sustained attention to places and the human relationships that run through them. They seek to bring latent alternative narratives to light, at times nurturing a desire for a gentler world, at others questioning our relationship to dominant narratives.

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