Department heads

That rarity—an art show that’s engaging and even fun—The Department, an exhibit curated by Kyra Griffin and Jed Lind, is worth checking out. Old-style etched letters bearing the show’s name on a glass door greet the visitor at the exhibit’s entrance at 3997 St-Laurent. Upstairs, a large space contains the handful of installations, by six artists, that comprise the show.

The front of the space contains “Resonating Dome Module,” an appropriate title for a piece by Thomas Bégin and Kristen Roos. It’s just that: a wooden geodesic dome propped up on four massive springs, hooked up to a stereo. The great thing is you can get inside the thing and wobble around.

Also striking is “Two Dimensional Landscape,” by co-curator Lind, a wooden grid with shafts of wheat arranged vertically in rows. Sensors outside the gallery space monitor the level and direction of the wind, causing the wheat to move accordingly.

There’s actually too much interesting stuff in The Department to list here; you should check it out for yourself and see the great big inflatable white grid by The Flaters (Suzanne Derry and Anthony Burnham), beautiful cement-like heads by Amélie Pomerleau, and a lot more. The show runs through April 28. :

—Mark Slutsky