We are excited to announce that three talented artists will be joining DePOT’s team under the Artist-in-Residence program! This year, we issued a call for submissions to artists from various disciplines exploring the connections between deindustrialization and the environment . We are pleased to welcome Nina Vroemen and Hervé Demers to the DePOT project.
Nina Vroemen is a multidisciplinary artist and educator born in Gatineau, Quebec, and based in Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal), on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka. Their practice spans video, performance, ceramics, and installation. It is grounded in research-driven, experimental methodologies that examine how artistic practice can activate ecological ways of thinking grounded in environmental and social justice. They hold an MFA in Sculpture and Ceramics from Concordia University (2024).
Vroemen’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at L’Ecart (QC, 2025), Agrégat (QC, 2025), and PHI (Montreal, 2025), and in group exhibitions at institutions including NERMA (Australia, 2025), the Critical Media Lab at McGill (2025), the Beall Center for Art + Technology (CA, 2025), the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (QC, 2024), and Centre Clark (QC, 2022). In February 2026, they will present work as part of Briser la glace: La biennale de Québec at MAC Baie-Saint-Paul.
Performance and time-based works have been presented at festivals such as Manifestation JE/US (QC, 2024), Sight and Sound (Eastern Bloc, 2024), Sentient Disobedience (PHI, 2024), Marées: Queer Tides (Gallery Sans Nom, 2023), and Place Publique (Darling Foundry, 2020). Their research-creation has been supported through residencies at PHI (2024), Studio Kura (Japan, 2024), Eastern Bloc (2023), PAF (France, 2023), Watershed Art and Ecology (Chicago, 2023), ARTSCAPE Gibraltar (2022), and RURART (2020). This year (2026), they are the recipient of the DePOT Artist-in-Residence Fellowship and the Woodhaven Artist-Scientist-in-Residence at UBC.
Vroemen’s writing and artistic research have been published in Bodies of Sound (Silver Press), Being a Body of Water (PHI), Engaging the Margins (Brill), and esse: art + opinions, amongst others. Most recently, their collaboration with Erin Hill, Horizon Factory, appears on the cover of Espace: art actuel no. 142 and will participate iin a roundtable at Plural Contemporary Art Fair (2026).
Project statement: Licence to Abandon: Confronting Nuclear Futures and Deep-Time Stewardship
With growing global energy demands and a search for carbon-neutral alternatives, nuclear energy is experiencing a global ‘renaissance’ as a net-zero, clean solution to our climate crisis. In response, countries globally have pledged to triple nuclear production by 2050, however its afterlife remains a profound oversight: nuclear waste. The half-life of Uranium-238— the primary element in high-level waste—is 4.5 billion years, a geological timescale that exceeds human comprehension yet defines the long-term risks of nuclear expansion. Without much public discourse, Canada is pursuing two controversial waste management projects: a Near Surface Disposal Site in Chalk River and a Deep Geological Repository in Wabigoon Ojibway Lake Nation. These projects expose deep social, political, and ethical fissures around what constitutes waste, whose lands and bodies can be ‘abandoned’ and how responsibility can be sustained across vast spans of time. The title of this project comes from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s licensing process for Class I nuclear facilities, which culminates in the ‘Licence to Abandon’. While the dictionary definition of ‘abandon’ is to leave behind, or to stop before completion, nuclear waste remains hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years—demanding responsibility, not abandonment. in nuclear developments unfolding in Canada and beyond.
Hervé Demers is a French Canadian filmmaker and photographer. He holds a PhD in Art and Visual Culture, specializing in post‑documentary practices. His award-winning films were selected by over a hundred international competitions and festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand, Hot Docs and True/False. Retrospectives of his body of work were presented in South Korea, Ukraine and Morocco. He was a jury of numerous film festivals, including the 35th edition of the Busan International Short Film Festival (BISFF).
Project statement: Une fois la poussière retombée
My research-creation project is the second phase of a documentary investigation into the deindustrialization of the former mining town of Asbestos, located in Quebec. Following the completion of a film on this same theme in 2020, I am now seeking to expand the narrative, aesthetic, and political scope of this interdisciplinary documentary investigation through the creation of a photo book. I have been developing this research-creation project in close collaboration with the Asbestos community for the past ten years. As an introduction to my approach, I’d like to share a link to an interview I gave to the British platform Directors’ Notes, where my 16-minute film can be viewed in its entirety. https://directorsnotes.com/2024/07/01/herve-demers-once-the-dust-has-settled/
You will then find a selection of images from the ongoing photo book project at the following address: https://hervedemers.com/asbestos
In summary, I propose continuing this documentary photographic investigation by engaging in dialogue with the members of DéPOT, whose intellectual and logistical contributions could prove decisive for its success (and its impact).
Nina and Hervé’s work will be featured at this year’s DePOT conference in Montréal, Canada. Welcome and congratulations!
