Rencontres de la photographie en Gaspésie is hosting Japan’s Chieko Shiraishi, Belgium’s Lara Gasparotto, France’s Marine Lécuyer and Montreal’s Maude Arsenault for creation residencies from late August to mid-September 2023. These four artists will be crisscrossing the region in the days ahead to take pictures.
Chieko Shiraishi is exploring the sectors of Percé, Forillon and Chaleur Bay until September 2. Born in 1968 in Yokosuka, Japan, this true virtuoso of the silver print uses that technique to better enhance her images. Her singular world is both poetic and deeply introspective. The results of her creation residency will be presented at Musée de la Gaspésie as part of the exhibit Transcender le banal (Transcending the Ordinary), which brings together the works of a collective of four artists from Japan, during the 15th edition of Rencontres, in 2024. This project is the outcome of a first collaboration by Rencontres with Galerie Écho 119 (Paris) and the Fotozofio festival, in Kyoto, which aims to build creation and dissemination platforms between Japan and Québec.
Lara Gasparotto is currently making her way through Chaleur Bay and will then travel to the north coast of the Gaspé until August 30. Born in 1989 and a graduate of the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in Liège, she lives and works in Anthisnes, Wallonia, Belgium. Her work has been exhibited on numerous occasions in her country and abroad. She has published five books, and occasionally works as a curator. Since 2019 she has also worked on the project African Vox. Created with the museologist Basika Paola, that project aims to stimulate the creation of contemporary Belgian art by inviting young Belgian and Congolese artists to reclaim their colonial history. The result of her residency will be presented at the 15th Rencontres, in 2024.
Marine Lécuyer will be based in Escuminac to carry our her residency in the Gaspé Peninsula from September 5 to 16, in the context of the exchange project with Diaphane, pôle photographique en Hauts-de-France. Born in 1986, she lives and works in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. Self-taught, she chose to devote herself to photography after initial training in social sciences and much travel. She develops a personal style at the crossroads of the real and the imaginary, and involves herself in long-haul photography projects, primarily focusing on exploration of the notion of territory, geographic or private. Her various projects are centered around the question of trace, disappearance and memories. The results of her residency project will be exhibited in 2024 as part of Photaumnales in Beauvais, France, and during the 15th Rencontres, in 2024.
Maude Arsenault, who did a residency in the Gaspé in 2022, will be back on the peninsula the week of September 11. The Québec artist will document, with her camera, the changing shores, beaches, cliffs and seascapes of the coastline by investing them with women’s bodies by way of performance art, self-portraits and sculptures in situ. In doing so, the artist is attempting to take an introspective look at the micro- and macro-landscape in its relationship with bodies-spaces-regions, in the context of a climate and social crisis that is wreaking havoc on our ecological, physical, economic and identity-related balances. The result of her work will be unveiled to the public at the 15th edition of Rencontres, in 2024.
A reminder that exhibits by three of the artists referred to above are under way in the Gaspé. Until September 30, 2023, visitors can see Shikawatari (Deer Crossing) by Chieko Shiraishi on the Carleton-sur-Mer wharf, as well as Burning, by Marine Lécuyer, outside the Théâtre de la Vieille-Forge in Petite-Vallée. Also, until August 31, 2023, The Song of Caresses, by Lara Gasparotto, is being presented at the Vaste et Vague artist center in Carleton-sur-Mer.
Top image : Lara Gasparotto, Couleuvre (Grass snake), Gaspésie 2023.