Degraded territories and honorable humans
After focusing on the degradation of territories, photographer and videographer Isabelle Hayeur added humans who oppose the destruction of the environment to her favorite theme.
Share October 30, 2020 3h00 Update at 8h00 Share Degraded territories and honorable humans
Mélanie Noël La Tribune Activist groups defending their territory are at the heart of the exhibition (D) enunciate , produced by photographer and videographer Isabelle Hayeur and presented at the Antoine-Sirois art gallery at the University of Sherbrooke.
The title of the exhibition was chosen by art historian and curator Mona Hakim. “All the work of Isabelle Hayeur, who has a great ecological conscience, consists in highlighting the degradation of territories and the mutation of ecosystems. There is therefore, in his work, a very critical discourse which denounces. And I wanted to link the words denounce and state, because the artist is also someone who speaks and documents all the work she does ”, she sums up.
The environment and the preservation of the territory have always been the driving force behind Isabelle Hayeur's artistic approach: “I grew up in a village that was destroyed by progress. It is the story of several villages. Today, my hometown has become a suburb that looks like all the other suburbs, with rivers in which we used to swim which are made too polluted, ”explains the one who also worked, younger, for Greenpeace.
The tripartite exhibition is presented simultaneously in three places: the Antoine-Sirois art gallery, the Plein Sud contemporary art exhibition center in Longueuil and the Alfred-Pellan room at the Maison des arts de Laval.
“The global exhibition has three main themes, one per location. The theme of water is presented in Longueuil, the theme of the territory, in Laval, and the artist's engagement with activist groups, in Sherbrooke, ”said Ms. Hakim, specifying that works from the Underworlds series , probing the degradation of water bodies since 2008, are present in the three exhibition centers.
Human solutions
(D) enunciate includes photographs taken between 2003 and 2020. A portion of the works exhibited in Sherbrooke is part of the Dépayser corpus. “We see groups of citizens denouncing power line or hydroelectric projects on their territory. I have worked with different communities, namely the citizens of Lanaudière, the Laurentians, Montreal and the Côte-Nord ”, summarizes the artist, adding that after having mainly photographed landscapes, she turned more recently to humans.
“Photographing people who are defending their territory is one way of looking towards solutions,” summarizes Hayeur.
The damage done by Hydro-Quebec projects, a group of citizens at the courthouse, press briefings, dams …
The series Le camp de la rivière occupies a section of the gallery. “These are people who camped for a full year to oppose oil development in the Gaspé,” explains the one who has traveled three times to immortalize them.
Two video works will also be presented at the UdeS gallery: one on citizen mobility and the other on the oil industry and water pollution. An interactive platform also exhibits the artist's approach as well as all the places she has investigated over the past 25 years.
“There is also a video on the portions of the exhibition presented in Laval and Longueuil, so that people who cannot travel can see the entire exhibition,” says Ms. Hakim.
Do you want to go?
(Denounce
Antoine-Sirois Art Gallery
Until December 19, 2020.
Zoom on the exhibition event
Video presentation of the three exhibitions and question period with the artist and the curator
Wednesday, November 11, 12 p.m.
