Hombres Videopoetry Award Finalist: Well of Babel

In the shadow of a tower, a young man is the missing link in an Arabic phone game driven by children. One of them turns a crank and everything comes alive. The inverted tower becomes a well around which human pyramids are built with bodies. The metamorphosed world becomes a party.

Author Bio

Hélène Matte has been working in Québec City’s cultural scene for over twenty years as a multitalented free agent. She is a writer and a poet, a curator and a mediator, a performer and a visual artist, a mother and a citizen. Her artistic practice examines the notions of the voice, encounters and experimental poetry. She practices action art, draws and writes. While Matte has exhibited and performed in Europe, Canada and elsewhere in the Americas, she is also active locally, initiating, coordinating and supervising projects such as Apprentis poétes ! (Planète Rebelle, 2015) and Vies de Quartier (2016). Hélène Matte regularly publishes her work and has directed and produced numerous works of video poetry.

Hélène Matte is a poet who comes from the visual arts. She particularly deals with drawing and poetry as acts of presence . Author, organizer’s events and performance artist, her practice is interdisciplinary. She has to her credit several presentations in Europe, Canada and elsewhere in the Americas. In 2003 she made the CD of electroacoustic poetry Chansons dégoulinantes et poèmes acculés au pied du mur (Dripped songs and Poems Backs to the Wall) as well as the multidisciplinary show of the same title. In 2005, her audio poems Lever du jour sur Kinshasa became a videographic project and was published by Planète Rebelle Editions. In 2007, her onewomanshow TRAVEL TRAVEL won the prize VIDERE. In 2008, she became the first champion of SLAM poetry of her region and participate in the provincial finals. Since, her work is presented on many stages and participates in international events . In 2009, she is at the International Poetry Festival of Namur (Belgium) and presents performances at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec and at the Galerie Jean -François Meyer (Marseille, France). In 2010, she is active in the Spring of Poets of Quebec, Expoésie (Périgueux, France), and present at the festival Québec en toutes lettres a multimedia installation. In 2011, she was in the festivals Voix d’Amériques and Metropolis Blue and participates in a literary tour of Colombia. The same year, she began a PhD in Litterature, Performing arts and Screen (concluded this year) in which she made her third stand-up show VI_DE_DI_EU, following by Les Robes. She is also working with community movement and school, introducing youth to many kind of poetry. Actually, her interdisciplinary project ZumTrobaR, is dedicated to the interpretation of Paul Zumthor’s text, with the multi-instrumentalist musician Michel Côté.
The FINALIST