Professor Eleonora Diamanti Presents Multi-media Art Installation in Montreal

On March 2, Professor Eleonora Diamanti presented a new multi-media art installation titled "Ascendence" during the Montreal Nuit Blanche event, in Montreal, Canada. The installation, along with artworks by other artists-researchers, was presented in the exhibit "Scènes de nuit - Night scenes" organized by the Atelier de chronotopies urbaines in the Department of Communication of the University of Quebec in Montreal.

The exhibit explored four cultural nightlife scenes from four different cities: Montreal (by Dr. William Straw, McGill University), New York (by Maxim Bonin, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue - UQAT), London (by Lo Marshall & Ben Campkin, University College London - UCL), and Santiago de Cuba (by Eleonora Diamanti, Alex Boudreault-Fournier, University of Victoria - UVic and Cuban artist Lazaro Antonio Sevila Calles).

The installation, consisting of photographs, videos, and an original soundtrack, explores the night sky as a medium during three major night events in the city of Santiago de Cuba: la quema del diablo, the opening celebration of the yearly carnival; la tarima, a recurrent popular music concert; and a bembé, a religious celebration connected to Afro-Cuban culture.

Professor Diamanti, who has been teaching in the Department of Communications and Media Studies since 2018, holds a Ph.D. in Semiotics from the University of Quebec focusing on an interdisciplinary approach in urban humanities. From 2010 to 2017 she lived in Montréal and worked on the city's public space, protests, and festival culture. She is a former post-doctoral fellow at McGill University's School of Architecture where she was affiliated with the Facility for Architectural Research in Media and Mediation and the Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria, where she was also limited-term Assistant Professor. Her interest in festivals, media, and the city brought her to work on nocturnal practices: from entertainment venues, like Italian discotheques, to radical spaces at night through an aesthetic creative approach. During her research at the University of Victoria, she started working on night and digital media in Cuba, and co-directed "Guardians of the Night " (2018) an experimental short-length ethnographic film on nighttime activities in Guantanamo (Cuba). She is currently teaching Urban Media and Media, Culture, and Society.