Christophe Goussard
and Charles-Frédérick Ouellet
at L’Anse-au-Griffon
EXHIBIT
From One River to the Next
Le Griffon Cultural Centre | 557 Boulevard du Griffon | L’Anse-au-Griffon
July 15 – August 19, 2019*
VU (open Wednesday to Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.), and the outdoor walls of the Naval Museum of Québec (near the Port of Québec Agora) | Québec City
August 20 – September 11, 2019
Christophe Goussard, France | goussard.net
Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, Québec City, Québec | charlesouellet.ca
From One River to the Next is the outcome of an artistic collaboration between Christophe Goussard and Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, two artists brought together by a shared interest in history and waterways. Their photographs evoke the ties that bind their two territories, France and Québec, through the Basque presence in America.
Inspired by the voyages of Basque fishermen who came to harvest the riches of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the artists explored the traces of that forgotten seasonal migration. They turned to that little-known period in our history in search of real or fictitious traces, along rivers that cut across the Basque Country, Québec and Labrador. Through an exchange of perspectives, Christophe Goussard and Charles-Frédérick Ouellet each set off on an encounter with the other’s territory, offering new points of convergence to these maritime narratives.
The result of a collaboration between Manif d’art in Québec City, Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie, FRAC Aquitaine and the city of Bayonne, this residency and exhibition project comprises an opportunity to create a dialogue between the work of a French artist, Christophe Goussard, from the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and a Québec artist, Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, from Québec City, on the subject of representing places of remembrance and of our roots. A publication accompanies the exhibit as part of the project; that book is published under the direction of Éditions Filigranes in collaboration with the different partners.
* From August 20 to September 30, 2019, at L’Anse-au-Griffon, the Charles-Frédérick Ouellet exhibition Sillages takes over from the exhibit From One River to the Next.
SILLAGES
Hunted faces, insistent, blurred and unbalanced looks come together in this work and create dark ambiances in which anxiety is palpable. With Sillages, Charles-Frédérick Ouellet maneuvers between reality and fiction, by way of a uniquely visual progression. In an intimate and poetic form, he suggests a narrative of atmospheres. Our own gaze wanders through this photographic narration. It gets lost as it travels through images of a world without any fixed point.
EXHIBIT AT RENCONTRES
From One River to the Next
Christophe Goussard is a French artist whose photography fixes on human beings captured in urban landscapes, in Alexandria, in Yemen, in Tripoli, in private moments or at work. He’s undertaken a number of projects in collaboration with other artists, including several writers, among them one on the Aramaic language, in Syria, in 2006 and 2007; one of portraits of migrants in the Bordeaux suburb of Cenon resulting in the book Les jours d’après (The Days After) with writer Éric Bonneau in 2013; and one on the estuary of the river Garonne in L’adieu au fleuve (The Farewell to the River) with Christophe Dabich in 2015. His work is distributed by Agence VU’.
Charles-Frédérick Ouellet is a Québec artist-photographer fascinated by the St. Lawrence River. Looking well beyond its existence as a maritime route, he focuses on this waterway as a unifying element in the origins and traditions of Québec society. He dedicated a first publication to the river, Le Naufrage (The Shipwreck, 2010-2016), which marked the start of a cycle inspired by legends and myths. Since 2010 his works have been shown in over fifteen exhibition centers in Québec, Scotland, France and Greece. The artist is represented by Galerie Lacerte Art Contemporain.
This project is supported by the Québec Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie and the French Republic’s Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Développement international (Consulate General of France in Québec City) in the framework of the Fonds franco-québécois pour la coopération décentralisée (FFQCD).
The project is made possible thanks to financial support from the Government of Québec and from Québec City as part of the Entente de développement culturel (cultural development agreement).
