Yves Arcand at Pointe-à-la-Croix

“My artistic work has focused for a long time on the nature/culture problematic. Which means, questions concerning use of the territory, its planning, the presence of humans and the many consequences of that lie at the heart of my concerns. I address those essential links that create us and that we create, but also the different ways of visually representing them.

“With the digital-photogram project Traces I’m continuing my research connected to the representation of the territory and to our influence on it. Without a camera or photosensitive material I collect the traces left by different territories over a period of time and transform them digitally to create tableaux that are half-figurative, half-abstract. To what extent can the traces left by an environment account for its reality? Those traces, turned into signs after my interventions, are they seen as being more ‘realistic’ than those of documentary photography? And what is the esthetic potential of a place that isn’t? These are thought-provoking questions about our environments, but also about the artist’s work and its understanding by the public.

“With a focus on the community of La Matanie, a number of the region’s sectors of activity have been explored and continue to be: industrial, maritime, residential, touristic, protected areas, and so on. This creation project, still in progress, therefore raises more questions than answers. That’s the very nature of art.” – Yves Arcand

Yves Arcand thanks the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the MRC de La Matanie, Cégep de Matane, Musée régional de Rimouski and SODEC who, thanks to their financial contributions, enabled him to carry out this project.

He additionally thanks Élie Maure, Louis Ruelland, the team of Rencontres de la photographie en Gaspésie and all those who, directly or indirectly, made this creation work possible.