Statistical Analysis
As part of our analysis of Biennale Montréal, we embarked upon a comparative statistical analysis of certain demographic factors between different iterations of Biennale Montréal (1998, 2000, 2007, 2014). We collected and graphed each participating artists’ gender, ethnicity, nationality and regional affiliation (when applicable). In order to nuance our statistical analysis, we have also collected comparative statistics from the 2014 Manif d’Art 7 held in Quebec City, and the 2014 Canadian Biennial of Contemporary Art, held at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Overall a trend of increased heterogeneity in the case of Biennale Montréal can be seen in the gender and ethnicity statistics. In addition, Biennale Montréal 2014 is demonstrated to have a more varied array of nationalities represented as compared to previous iterations and other local biennials, while simultaneously maintaining a strong Quebec focus.
Though we feel our research was thoroughly done (see: Bibliography), in the interest of transparency, and for clarity in reading these statistics, we acknowledge that certain things such as gender and national affiliation are personal, nuanced identifiers whose particularities are sometimes lost in a qualitative analysis. All charted information reflects information in circulation, but may not express the particularities of individual self-perception.
Though we feel our research was thoroughly done (see: Bibliography), in the interest of transparency, and for clarity in reading these statistics, we acknowledge that certain things such as gender and national affiliation are personal, nuanced identifiers whose particularities are sometimes lost in a qualitative analysis. All charted information reflects information in circulation, but may not express the particularities of individual self-perception.
Gender Representation
*Our analysis of gender identity was based on self-identification and visual presentation. We were unable to find any artists who self-identified as non-binary or Trans* however this does not necessarily indicate that non-binary or Trans* artists were excluded from these exhibitions or from our research.
Visible Minority Representation
*Our analysis was based on visibility, however Indigenous identity was based on self-identification within artist bios.
National Representation
*Due to the way the national representation for L'avenir (Looking Forward) was advertised, we chose to break down all national representations in the same way. This year, BNLMTL advertised that they had artists which represented 22 different countries, however, if you based this exclusively on where an artist was currently based only 16 countries were being represented. This included several countries which were all being represented by a single person. This means that the BNLMTL 2014 team based this representation on where the artist was born, and where they are currently based. We broke down the representation for each country in the same way, weighting them equally. (I.E an artist born in Canada but currently living between the United States and Mexico would statistically split their representation 1/3 to each country equally). Each country was then grouped by geographical region to make our final graphs.
L' avenir
*Our analysis of International and Local representation was undertaken in the same way. With the end of the Quebec Triennial, this year's BNLMTL promoted that close to half of this year's participants were Canadian, and half of those were from Quebec. Because of the way the statistics are broken down (as indicated above) Canada actually represented 39%, even though half of the artists did have some connection to Canada either through birth, where they are based, or both. Of those, slightly over half (53%) are represented by Quebec, and of the Quebec representation, slightly over 3/4 (77%) are represented by Montreal. This makes the local representation as high or higher (at 15.9% of the entire show) than many international locations, allowing for a show that is simultaneously local and global.