In the tumultuous events that we’re experiencing on a worldwide scale, the theme “Identities and Territories” aims to bring together different voices and photographic records that observe, and reflect on, these concepts. The world moves on. Societies evolve. Countries change. Populations travel or emigrate. Natural and artificial borders have never been so easy to cross, and yet, walls keep going up to physically keep people apart. How do we define ourselves today, in a world in perpetual movement? Some will do it by focusing solely on external qualities – physical, social, historical, economic or political. However, never has territory played so much of a role in the construction of the individual. We may forget it or deny, but the natural elements that surround us, the environment that bears us, these influence us, shape us and reveal us. To analyze the connection between man and territory is to inquire into our own identity, built up over time, the seasons, and change.

This year’s theme – “Visible. Invisible.” – gives free rein to the interpretation we bring to the photograph, to what it embodies in our day-to-day life, in our relationship with the real and our perception of the world. It also serves as a pretext to present the body of work of the different artists taking part in this 5th edition of Rencontres.

AVIGNON // In Matapedia, in Saint-Laurent-de-Matapédia church, the exhibit Nomad by Kitra Cahana (Montreal, Québec) will be held. In Miguasha, on the site of the national park, Donald Weber (Los Angeles, California) presents the exhibit Quniqjuk, Qunbuq, Quabaa. Carleton-sur-Mer will play host to four exhibits: Ice, by Flora (Paris, France), the fruit of an artist residency in the Gaspé in the winter of 2013, will be staged at the Vaste et Vague artist center; Changing the World, by Gilbert Garcin (Marseilles, France), at Saint-Joseph school; and also Volatile Slide and Other Disorders, by Maryse Goudreau (Miguasha, the Gaspé) and The Sensor, by Bertrand Carrière (Longueuil, Québec), on the municipal beach. In Maria, at Parc du Vieux-Quai, Helen Sear (Raglan, Wales, United Kingdom) will be exhibiting Pastoral Monuments and Inside the View, while Michael Flomen (Montreal, Québec) will be presenting Higher Ground. The Gesgapegiag reserve, meanwhile, will be hosting Tia’Mugwet (Moose Hunt) by Estelle Marcoux (Caplan, the Gaspé).

BONAVENTURE // In New Richmond, Pointe-Taylor park will present Fallen Princesses by Dina Goldstein (Vancouver, British Columbia). In Bonaventure, at the Saint-Bonaventure church, Jean-François Bérubé (Montreal, Québec) will exhibit part of the works of Bonum iter Compostellam (Have a good trip to Compostela). In Paspébiac, at the cultural center, Isabelle Hayeur (Rawdon, Québec) will present Mirages, while the warehouse LeBoutillier & Brothers on the Banc-de-Pêche-de-Paspébiac historical site will host Possible and Imaginary Lives by Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh and Rozenn Quéré (Brussels, Belgium).

ROCHER-PERCÉ // Chandler will offer The Girl Who Sees the Verses by Rina Vukobratovic (Novi Sad, Serbia) on the Parc du Souvenir road and Circuit des bâtisseurs bridge. Percé will be hosting, near the dock and on the promenade along the sea, Eyes on the Collection Loto-Québec, showing 35 years of Québec creation through the works of 23 photographers. On Bonaventure Island, Patrick Dionne and Miki Gingras (Montreal, Québec) will present Story Gatherers, the result of a creation residency in Percé during the spring and summer of 2014.

CÔTE-DE-GASPÉ // The town of Gaspé hosts another part of Bonum iter Compostellam (Have a good trip to Compostela) by Jean-François Bérubé (Montreal, Québec) on the Rue de la Reine. Linda Rutenberg (Montreal, Québec) has been presenting, since June, the exhibit The Gaspé Peninsula: Land on the Edge of Time at Musée de la Gaspésie (admission fee of $5 for Museum non-members). In Grande-Vallée, on the promenade towards the Galipeault covered bridge, the collective Kahem, composed of Québec photographers Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, Christian Lamontagne, Nicolas Levesque and Yoanis Menge, is presenting the exhibit 132.

HAUTE-GASPÉSIE // In Marsoui, at A.-Couturier park, Evgenia Arbugaeva (Yakutsk, Russia) is presenting her series Tiksi, which enjoyed great success in Bonaventure last year. Laurent Villeret (Paris, France) presents Heliotropes #7. Northbound at the Couturier building. And finally, at the municipal rest stop, Cap-Chat will be hosting Micronations by Léo Delafontaine (Paris, France).

A reminder that Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie is an invitation to come out and meet artists in a region where photographs and landscapes come together around an artistic project. For more details: photogaspesie.ca.

The programming for the 5th edition of Rencontres took shape thanks to the joint efforts of Claude Goulet, executive and artistic director of Rencontres, and Jean-François Bérubé, photographer. Over 30 artists from Belgium, France, Russia, Serbia, the United Kingdom, the United States, elsewhere in Canada, and, of course, from Québec delighted us by responding positively to our invitation to join us on the Gaspé territory.

Discover exhibitions:

All exhibitions

Fleurdelise Dumais

Visible. Invisible. is an opportunity for viewers to interpret photography, and consider what it represents in their daily lives, in their connection to the real world and the way they see the world. It is also a pretext for presenting the body of work created by each artist participating in the fifth edition of Rencontres.

The Photographers Tour, from August 15 to 19, will be central to the event and see more than 30 photographers participating in public activities such as screenings of images and presentations or lectures that explore the creative process. The Tour will kick off at the Quai des arts in Carleton-sur-Mer and then move on to five other towns around the peninsula. As for the installations and shows, they will be on display from mid-July to mid-September in the 13 host municipalities: Cap-Chat, Marsoui, Grande-Vallée, Gaspé, Percé and Bonaventure Island, Chandler, Paspébiac, Bonaventure, New Richmond, Maria and Gesgapegiag, Carleton-sur-Mer, Nouvelle (Miguasha) and Matapédia.

Invited Québec artists notably include Bertrand Carrière (Montréal, Québec) with Le Capteur. Using motifs and symbols that recur time and again in his work, Carrière builds a territory, atlas-style, in which the ordinary and the unusual appear side by side. Michael Flomen (Montréal, Québec, and New York, United States) offers us his Higher Ground, works that depict things we know exist but do not see. Using only photo-sensitive paper as a photographic tool, the artist makes a darkroom of the night to create unique images, whose visual effects challenge the imagination of the viewing public.

A bridge over the Atlantic

Seeking new creative and promotional platforms for its artists, Rencontres has joined forces with Promenades photographiques de Vendôme, in France. As part of this partnership, which builds bridges between communities, regions and photographers by organising artistic residencies and shows on either side of the Atlantic, Rencontres will notably welcome Gilbert Garcin (Marseille, France) and his Faire de son mieux. Garcin’s images reveal ambiguous incarnations of the artist, falsely burlesque glimpses of himself that he calls “small philosophies”, somewhat like the great Hitchcock did in his films. The spell works because the artist speaks to us of things that are self-evident: of the ebb and flow of life, of time slipping through our fingers, of the tenacity we need to go on...

Other international guests include Rozenn Quéré (Brussels, Belgium) and Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh. Their installation, Vies possibles et imaginaires, is a staging of photos and sounds that tell the story of four strong, earthy Palestinian-Lebanese sisters who experienced the 20th century as exiles around the world. Not quite documentary and not quite delusion, part biography part theatre, the story is told via family photos and sound recordings, a tale of true and imagined events gleaned in Cairo, New York, Beirut and Paris.

Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie is an invitation to come meet artists in an area where photos and landscape join together around an artistic project. The full program will soon be posted at photogaspesie.ca.

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Media relations in the Gaspé 

Marie-Ève Forest, Communication Antilope

418-364-7008 | 581-886-1479

meforest@globetrotter.net

Media relations in Montréal and Québec City

Patricia Lamy

514-912-7443

lamypat@videotron.ca

Haute-Gaspésie // Cap-Chat will welcome At My Last Meal, by Sandra Lachance (Montreal, Québec), at the rest area. In Marsoui, Michael Wolf (Hong Kong, China) will exhibit his Tokyo Compression project in the Couturier building, while Sébastien Michaud (Montreal, Québec) presents Domaine de la Florida at A.-Couturier park. Lastly, a building in Sainte-Madeleine-de-la-Rivière-Madeleine will display a giant work from the project Murdochville: The Beauty of Destruction by Louis Couturier and Jacky Georges Lafargue (Carleton-sur-Mer, the Gaspé).

Côte-de-Gaspé // In Grande-Vallée, on the promenade towards the Galipeault covered bridge, Yves Beaulieu (Montréal, Québec) will present Quiproquo. In Gaspé, Alain Paiement (Montreal, Québec) will offer From a Different Angle at Musée de la Gaspésie, while rue de la Reine in the same town will welcome photographs from the city’s Festival Musique du Bout du Monde to mark the festival’s 10th anniversary. Finally, Murdochville will host a work from the project by Louis Couturier and Jacky Georges Lafargue about the town.

Rocher-Percé // Percé will be hosting, near the dock and on the promenade along the sea, The Gaspé, Wild, with Your Feet in the Water… by Frédéric Merlet (Mortagne-sur-Sèvre, France) and Cross-Perspectives by Gaspé native Guillaume D. Cyr (Quebec City, Québec), both the result of the exchange program called Gaspésie-Vendée Cross-Perspectives. Chandler will offer Memory (Woman Scenario) by Patrick Dionne and Miki Gingras (Montreal, Québec), on the Souvenir park road and the Circuit des bâtisseurs footbridge.

Bonaventure // in Paspébiac, at the Banc-de-Pêche-de-Paspébiac historical site, Beatrix von Conta (Peyrins, France) will be exhibiting The Great Divide. In Bonaventure, near the marina, Evgenia Arbugaeva (Iakoutsk, Russia) will present her series Tiksi. A work by Louis Couturier and Jacky Georges Lafargue about Murdochville will also be on exhibit close to the Musée acadien du Québec in Bonaventure. In New Richmond, the Gaspesian British Heritage Village will host Devonians by Jocelyne Alloucherie (Montreal, Québec), and the Pointe-Taylor park will present Depressive Landscapes by Armando Ribeiro (London, U.K.).

Avignon  // In Maria, at the Vieux-Quai park, Suzanne Opton (New York City) will be exhibiting Soldier and Soldier+Citizen.
Carleton-sur-Mer (Carleton sector) will host 0:00 GMT Intersection by the collective Tendance Floue (Montreuil, France) at the Centre d’artistes Vaste et Vague, and also Archipelago by Serge Clément (Montreal, Québec) at the municipal beach. In the Saint-Omer sector, at the tidal lagoon rest stop, Isabelle Hayeur (Rawdon, Québec) will exhibit Model Homes. At Nouvelle, on the Little School site, Yves Gonthier (Maria, the Gaspé) will be presenting Playing with Reality. In Matapédia, outside the Saint-Laurent-de-Matapédia church, photographs by Jean-François Lamoureux and Mathilde Fournier-Hébert (Montreal, Québec) will be on display. The results of their residency in the area this summer will be presented beginning August 15 inside the church.

A reminder that Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie is an invitation to come meet these artists in a region where the photograph and the landscape come together around an artistic project.

More details: photogaspesie.ca.

Press relations in the Gaspé

Marie-Ève Forest, Communication Antilope

418 364-7008 | 581 886-1479

meforest@globetrotter.net

Press relations in Montreal and Quebec City

Patricia Lamy

514 912-7443

lamypat@videotron.ca

The 2013 Rencontres brings together artists who are interested in representing the real in ways that are distorted, transformed or modified, and in so doing stimulating new perceptions in viewers. Any number of avenues have been made available to the creators to consider the way in which individuals live in their environment and the manner in which they comprehend it.

At the heart of the event, the Photographer Tour will run from August 15 to 21. Some 30 photographers will take part in public get-togethers on the subject of creation, in the form of projections or lecture-discussions. The event will open at the Quai des arts in Carleton-sur-Mer, and then the Tour will continue towards the north shore of the Gaspé Peninsula, making its way to among other places the towns of Gaspé and Percé, and then on to Baie-des-Chaleurs.

The public is therefore invited to visit the installations and exhibits from July 10 to September 11 in 14 host municipalities: Cap-Chat, Marsoui, Grande-Vallée, Gaspé, Murdochville, Percé, Chandler, Paspébiac, Bonaventure, New Richmond, Maria, Carleton-sur-Mer, Nouvelle and Matapédia.

In 2012, Louis Couturier and Jacky George Lafargue spent ten days exploring the Murdochville copper mine and photographing that astonishing landscape. In Murdochville and Bonaventure they are presenting, under the title Murdochville: la beauté de la destruction (Murdochville: Beauty and Destruction), a series in which those mining landscapes are incorporated onto buildings.

In Saint-Omer, Isabelle Hayeur is exhibiting Maisons modèles (Model Homes). Her photographs of modest houses as well as luxury homes are transformed by computer and relocated to a new context. The aggregate is a survey of today’s suburbs, but is also intended as a portrait of society.

Alain Paiement, known for his architectural works made up of images joined together to reconstitute a place, invites us to the Musée de la Gaspésie in the town of Gaspé to see Sous un autre angle (From a Different Angle), which presents laid-out residential interiors and housing. The photos will be presented on the ground, with an unsettling effect on the viewer.

Other Quebecers: Patrick Dionne and Miki Gingras in Chandler with the exhibit Mémoire (Memory), and Serge Clément in Carleton-sur-Mer with the photo installation Archipel (Archipelago).

For details on all guest photographers: photogaspesie.ca/en/photographes.

Photo : Jocelyne Alloucherie

In the same municipality, Evgenia Arbugaeva, from Russia, presents the project Tiksi, which was carried out in her home town, a former Soviet military base, now abandoned. Her images speak of memory, of transformation, of exile…

Armando Ribeiro, from the U.K., explores concepts in his work relative to the evolution of the landscape, the global environment and the human condition. He will be exhibiting his Depressive Landscapes in New Richmond.
The American Suzanne Opton, meanwhile, is presenting Soldier and Soldier+Citizen in Maria, projects undertaken with young men and women in uniform who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Opton photographed their heads, placed on a horizontal surface. The effect is striking.

For details on all guest photographers: photogaspesie.ca/en/photographes.

Photo : Michael Wolf

In the context of that collaboration, Tendance Floue (a French collective) will be presenting Carrefour 0 h 00 GMT (0:00 GMT Intersection) at the Centre d’artistes Vaste et Vague in Carleton-sur-Mer, a video installation using 10 screens and projectors: 10 looks, 10 esthetics, of 10 cities around the world. Photos taken from the video will also be projected on the Quai des arts. Furthermore, French artist Beatrix von Conta will bring her critical gaze to bear on the Gaspesian landscape through a reflection on the contemporary landscape in mutation with Le Grand Écart (The Great Divide), in Paspébiac. In France, the public will get to know the work of three Quebecers: Gabor Szilasi with L’éloquence du quotidien (The Eloquence of the Everyday) – the result of a residency in the Gaspé – Christian Lamontagne and Doreen Lindsay.

As far as 2013 residency projects go, Quebecers Jean-François Bérubé and Maryse Goudreau will be in Vendôme this summer, while France’s Laurent Villeret and Flora will visit Gaspesian territory. The outcome of these projects will be presented in 2014.

Lastly, in the framework of the partnership between Rencontres and the Conseil général de la Vendée, in France, the results of Gaspé native Guillaume D. Cyr’s artist residency in Vendée and of Vendée photographer Frédéric Merlet’s in the Gaspé last fall will be presented this summer in the two locations.

For details on all those photographers: photogaspesie.ca/en/photographes.

Photo : Tendancefloue_Mat_Jacob_00h00_GTM-Argentine

EXHIBITS AND INSTALLATIONS – July 10 to September 11 ::

Outdoors and indoors, everywhere in the Gaspé ::

- Over 900 photos

- 31 photographers from Québec and elsewhere, recognized or emerging

- 20 activities in the presence of photographers

- 26 sites and attractions in 14 host municipalities