Place des Arts and PHI presents Burn From Absence from Emeline Courcier

Place des Arts and PHI are pleased to present a new AI-powered experience, produced by PHI Studio and created by French artist Emeline Courcier, free of charge in the Place des Arts Exhibition Room. The work unfolds as a four-channel video installation in which AI-generated imagery reconstructs memory fragments that have been lost, denied, or deliberately forgotten, like growing up in Vietnam, the impact of the Indochina wars, family dynamics, and the escape to Paris.

About the experience

Burn from Absence by Emeline Courcier is a four-channel video installation that explores memory, silence, and generational ties. Drawing on her Vietnamese family’s experience of displacement and the use of forgetting as a survival strategy, Courcier uses artificial intelligence both as a tool and a metaphor to reconstruct fragments of lost or erased memories.

Rather than treating AI as an archive, the work highlights its instability and blurring of reality and imagination, questioning what it means to inherit silence and reimagine memory. Both intimate and universal, the piece reflects on the lasting impact of trauma and the power of storytelling as a form of healing.

The experience was celebrated with a Special Mention for Digital Storytelling at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2024. The presentation of Burn from Absence by Emeline Courcier is part of a partnership between PHI and Place des Arts, established in 2021 to enhance access to immersive content for a wider audience, free of charge.

For more information about the experience or to get your free tickets, visit the Place des Arts website.

Public relations:
Myriam Achard
Chief, New Media Partnerships and PR
Tel.: 514 779-8868 • machard@phi.ca