About Diane Leclair Bisson
Diane Leclair Bisson is a Canadian environmental designer and contemporary artist whose work examines human–environment relations through long-term, research-driven artistic practice. Grounded in anthropology and material inquiry, her work explores how ecological systems, cultural memory, and everyday practices are shaped—and rendered visible—through designed and material forms.
Her academic training spans design, the humanities, and the social sciences, including a B.A. and an M.Sc. in Anthropology, an M.A. in Museum Studies, and a Ph.D. in the Theory and History of Design from the Royal College of Art (2000). Drawing on fieldwork, documentary strategies, and anthropological interpretation, her practice explores lived experience, embodied knowledge, and the cultural dimensions of material systems.
Her current artistic research investigates the ecological impacts of climate change and resource extraction on algae-based ecosystems and on the communities that depend on them. This work takes the form of underwater videos and short documentary films, produced in diverse geographic contexts. In parallel, she is developing a body of work in Sicily based on life histories of men whose working lives were shaped by stone—extracting, transforming, and building with it—at a moment when this embodied knowledge is disappearing. These narratives frame manual stone labor as a form of cultural memory, where material practice, personal meaning, and communal life are inseparable.
Since the 1990s, Leclair Bisson has been a important figure in Québec’s design and art landscape, and an active voice internationally, advancing socially and materially responsible practices through research-based work. Initially known for furniture design using recycled plastics, she gradually reoriented her practice toward food systems, rituals, and environmental ethics. Projects such as Taste No Waste examine food as material, proposing edible containers and alternative consumption rituals that challenge industrial packaging systems. This research culminated in the publication Edible: Food as Material (Les éditions du passage, 2009).
More recently, her work turned toward funerary practices, focusing on the material, rituals, and ecological dimensions of cremation and the dispersal of ashes. Through experimental objects, materials, and service scenarios, she introduces new typologies into a domain traditionally resistant to change. This ongoing body of work forms the basis of her forthcoming book, On Funerary Ashes and Design (2026).
Alongside her artistic practice, Leclair Bisson has contributed extensively to museum research and exhibitions documenting Québec’s design history. She recently authored the biography of designer-architect Albert Leclerc, Le monde modulaire d’Albert Leclerc: des systèmes de produits aux communautés de design (Les éditions du passage, 2024).
Her work has been recognized internationally within artistic, academic, and institutional contexts. She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2015 and received the King Charles III Coronation Medal in 2024 for her significant contributions to environmentally engaged artistic practice and cultural research.