Copyrigtht: Vanessa Yanow, Hooked (Série Second Life), 2016. Verre et laine sur un tapis Eaton inachevé. 71 x 137 x 50 cm. Crédits photo : Jocelyn Reynolds
Curators
Oriane A.-Van Coppenolle & Marie Pierre Daigle
Artists
doux soft club | Montserrat Duran Muntadas | Nadia Gagné | Ryth Kesselring | Caroline Monnet | Michaëlle Sergile | Vanessa Yanow
Artists from our collection
Michèle Bernatchez | Mariette Rousseau-Vermette
In collaboration with the Cercles de Fermières du Québec
This summer, the Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent invites you to (re)discover the textile arts! In observing the revival of this craft, the curators of Social Fabrics, artist and cultural worker Marie Pierre Daigle and the Musée’s commissioner Oriane A.-Van Coppenolle, aim to shed light on current textile arts practices while situating them in their historical context. They offered a creative space to the members of the local Cercles de Fermières du Québec chapter to share their expertise and skills, recognized as part of Quebec’s intangible heritage.
First, there are works, drawn from the Musée’s collection, by artists Mariette Rousseau-Vermette and Michèle Bernatchez. These true pioneers redefined the medium in the 1970s and now have pieces displayed in the hall of the Musée.
Second, the main exhibition room hosts more contemporary artwork, centred around textiles, this medium that creates social ties and conveys political messages and reflections on society. Using hybrid artistic practices that combine different mediums, such as glass, Montserrat Duran Muntadas and Vanessa Yanow share their thoughts on intimate subjects. Michaëlle Sergile expresses her art using a new language: weaving according to a system of textual coding. Some artists take a performative approach to textiles: the doux soft club and Nadia Gagné will bring their installations to life at certain times during the exhibition. Yet others, like Ryth Kesselring, use technology to integrate sound or, like Caroline Monnet, to create specific patterns.
To push this idea of encounters even further, the curators imagined a dynamic space for creation within the exhibition. The members of the local Cercles de Fermières du Québec chapter were thus invited to create textiles throughout the duration of the exhibition using a loom and other tools set up in the exhibition hall. Social Fabrics builds bridges between how women’s ancestral textile skills are passed down in a community and the critical reappropriation of the medium to deliver a message, thus finding its place between tradition and subversion.
Opening: Thursday June 15th at 5 p.m
