Michel de Broin was born in Montreal in 1970. This young artist, who has been exhibiting only since 1993, has shown a surprising maturity in the way he has created his "events". They are characterised by a remarkable formal asceticism that makes reference to minimalism and includes a good dose of humour as well.

He wrote while in residence in Basle: "One of the premises of my art practice consists of introducing a heterogeneous element into a normative system. This is to see what reactions the agent produces in its new context, which initiates stress and encourages encounters."

Among other things, there has been a glass of red wine which gave off heat from an electric circuit and also the introduction of a black cube in the normative system of a road network...

De Broin is currently working on a new project, in which anthropomorphic vertical forms connected to fire hydrants would become parasites on the City of Montreal's aqueduct system. At the moment, the work is called Collaborer avec les pompiers (Collaborating with Fire Fighters) and relates very well to expectations of this project.