During their residency, the artists explored the family as both a theme and a creative laboratory. They all decided to experience the residency with at least one person from their family unit (in the traditional or extended sense). La Famille Plouffe (Guillaume Boudrias-Plouffe, \u00c9milie Levert, and their three children, \u00c9meline, L\u00e9o, and Z\u00e9phir) is used to taking this kind of approach as it has been working as a collective in Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s cultural milieu since 2016. Driven by a desire to emphasize the extent and importance of the interinfluence that exists among family members, its practice shows the ways in which relational family structures\u200a\u2014\u200awhich are intimate, daily, and subjective\u200a\u2014\u200acan form the basis of an ongoing consideration of artistic and professional collaboration. The collective even defends the idea that everything previously presented by Guillaume Boudrias-Plouffe as a solo artist was in fact made by the whole collective, reaffirming the predominance of family ties in the creative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approach of La Famille Plouffe celebrates the porousness of their familial and professional interactions. Of course, there are periods in their creative process specifically dedicated to creation that make a kind of distinction between the action of work and the action of family. Nevertheless, the family members must at all times collaborate with a particular sensitivity toward the others, for what they experience as part of art projects necessarily affects their domestic life. The relationship with work is informed by the love, intimacy, and vulnerability specific to the family\u2019s daily routine, as well as by the desire to encourage learning and personal fulfilment that characterizes most relationships between parents and children. Although professional collaboration among related members is not new, given that family businesses have always been a part of Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s economic landscape, the distinctiveness of La Famille Plouffe resides in the closeness of its members, who live together on a daily basis, and in the presence of young children. The family\u2019s position elicits other forms of professional collaboration that are less focused on attaining specific objectives or improving performance and efficiency. The collective\u2019s intimate and convivial approach indicates a work ethic that has been rethought beyond the bounds of neoliberalism\u200a\u2014\u200aan ethic that deconstructs the normalization of practices, which all too often are disembodied and determined by relations of productivity and alienation incompatible with an individual\u2019s needs for fulfilment and self-realization.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"La-famille-Plouffe-secher-son-linge\" — La Famille Plouffe<\/strong>
S\u00e9cher son linge prop’ en famille !<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: courtesy of the artists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The context of the art residency also provided an opportunity to consider new forms of familiarity. This was the challenge taken up by the Marcoux(Sophie Castonguay, Mathieu Marcoux, and their children, Anna and \u00c9mile) and Carrier-Bouchard (Jacynthe Carrier, Bruno Bouchard, and their children, Elena and Margot) families, both of which transformed their family unit into a laboratory of relational exploration. For their project R comme ressac<\/em> (B like Backwash) (2021), the Marcoux family used the metaphor of breaking waves and their backwash to examine areas of friction and reciprocity within the family. The aim was to better understand the points of tension that occur between the need for affiliation and states of individuation, as well as between the need for attachment and the desire for detachment. Their research translated into a series of performances that visually represented all the emotional intensity sustained and expressed by people in conflict, a kind of raw and uncompromising bodily poetry that reveals what is most difficult and complex within families. A raised fist, agitated feet, a rudely pointed finger, rolling of the eyes: various angry gestures typical in moments of dispute and confrontation were dissected, magnified, repeated, and linked together. The performances, which consisted of movements in which most people would recognize themselves, elicited discomfort and empathy but also a consideration of how we recover from these difficult moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"Sophie-Castonguay-r-comme-ressac\"$
Sophie Castonguay<\/strong>
R comme ressac<\/em>, 2021.
Photos: Yoanis Menge, courtsey of the artist &
AdMare, Iles-de-la-Madeleine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"Sophie-castonguay-r-comme-ressac\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Guided by a similar approach, the Carrier-Bouchard family carried out the project Nos emm\u00ealements<\/em> (Our Entanglements) (2020), a test site for multidisciplinary research driven by observations of the connections and affiliations at work in the nuclear family, particularly in terms of the interactions between parents and children, as well as between artists and non-artists. The residency period became one all-encompassing performative action in which experience was the project\u2019s prime value. Using a relational and collaborative process that involved the participation of the island\u2019s residents, the family set up a safe and welcoming creative space, from which everything that emerged (gestures, words, images, sounds) could be transformed into creative material. Out of this space, an eclectic visual, sonic, and performative lexicon developed, inspired by the island landscape and through which bodies and terrains were in conversation, revealing states of imperfection, beauty, and vulnerability that came out of lived experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"Jacynthe-carrier-nos-emmelements\"$
Jacynthe Carrier<\/strong>
Nos emm\u00ealements<\/em>, with Bruno Bouchard, Margot C. Bouchard & Elena C. Bouchard, 2021.
Photo: courtesy fo the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"jacynthe-carrier-nos-emmelements-margot\"$
Jacynthe Carrier<\/strong>
Margot<\/em>, from the series
Nos emm\u00ealements<\/em>, 2020.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Reconsidering the Myth of the Family Figure<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Unlike her colleagues, Mathilde Benignus came to the islands alone. Her project, 7 s\u0153urs choisies<\/em> (7 Chosen Sisters) (2021), addresses the theme of the chosen family and explores the particular bonds of solidarity and sense of belonging that can develop in communities of women. Reflecting on the family outside of blood ties, her work points to the important need to affiliate, come together as a group, and help each other\u200a\u2014\u200aor, on the contrary, to dissociate\u200a\u2014\u200aon the basis of natural or unlikely affinities, such as love for a particular place, the appreciation of a novel, a political opinion, a similar experience, or sometimes an obvious and spontaneous connection that cannot be explained. During her residency, Benignus examined these mechanisms of affiliation by creating a new family with the help of the islands\u2019 residents, which she called her \u201cchosen sisters.\u201d The sisters were selected though a natural, sequential process: the first sister, met by chance on a beach, shared a passion for the accordion with the artist. The second, chosen by the first, selected the third, and so on until a total of seven women were selected. Their voluntary participation in the project led to a series of exploratory meetings, the objective of which was to allow words, movements, and thoughts to flow freely so as to reveal the complex links uniting them. The participants, all connected by a love of picking wild plants, shared teas of medicinal plants that they had gathered and got into the habit of meeting by a stream. Benignus\u2019s research gave rise to three works that document the subjective sensations and emotions experienced with her chosen sisters. A collection of twenty-six zines\u200a\u2014\u200aone for each day of the residency\u200a\u2014\u200afull of symbolic drawings and short texts, celebrate a more expansive concept of family and emphasize the importance of affinity-based relationships that have no biological or legal connotations. The photograph Seule et ensemble (tentative d\u2019une f\u00e9ministe devant l\u2019absence de statues de femmes)<\/em> (Alone and Together [A Feminist\u2019s Attempt Due to a Lack of Female Statues]) (2021), created in collaboration with photographer Yoanis Menge, points to the dearth of female figures in commemorative monuments. Lastly, the performance 7 s\u0153urs choisies<\/em> presented Benignus walking in a stream, supported by the bodies of her sisters sitting on the shore, facing each other. The symbolic act evoked the solidarity within the group, as well as the idea of the bearing by many hands of what, for Benignus, is the true meaning of family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"mathilde-benignus-7-soeurs-choisies\"$
Mathilde Benignus<\/strong>
7 s\u0153urs choisies<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: Martin Dufrasne, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Along the same lines, Cynthia Girard-Renard explored the question of affiliation and sense of belonging specifically by examining interspecies relationships in families. Guided by the agency of her dog, Satan, she wandered across the islands and mapped out the canine encounters they had. Using painting, embroidery, and drawing, she sketched a portrait of each dog encountered. Although many people claim that they consider their dog to be a full-fledged member of their family, expressions such as \u201cthe dog\u2019s owner,\u201d \u201cthe dog\u2019s master,\u201d or \u201cowning a dog\u201d nevertheless suggest a difference in status and power dynamics. By positioning the dogs as the main driving force of the encounters but also as the only visible trace of them on her map, Girard-Renard documents the extent of animal influence on intra- and interfamily relationships. In so doing, she asks us to reconsider the traditional distribution of roles between human and non-human animals in families. What are the effects of canine presence on \u201cmaking a family\u201d? What happens to one\u2019s relationship with place and the quotidian when one lets oneself be guided by animal agency? *Sans toit ni loi: r\u00eaves canins<\/em> (Homeless and Lawless: Canine Dreams) (2021) examines these interspecies relational dynamics and their possible reinvention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n*
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"cynthia-girard-renard-sans-toit-ni-loi\"$
Cynthia Girard-Renard<\/strong>
Sans toit ni loi : r\u00eaves canins<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: Yoanis Menge, courtesy of the artist &
AdMare, Iles-de-la-Madeleine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hard to evoke the theme of the family without addressing its great power for social organization, as a space of socialization and a factory of collective meaning. The pathways that form between individual identity, family history, and folk references are complex and often difficult to grasp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"rachel-echenberg-comment-tenir-le-vide\"$
Rachel Echenberg<\/strong>
Comment tenir le vide<\/em>, 2022.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
Yet this is precisely what interested the couple formed by Rachel Echenberg and S\u00e9bastien Worsnip. Their performative work focuses on the complex balance that develops between love and tension in a couple when co-parenting. In particular, they were interested in the stages of aging and their repercussions on the couple and on parental dynamics. Allowing the human and geographical landscapes of the islands to influence them, Echenberg and Worsnip presented a series of solo and duo performances, documented through photography, video, sound, and drawing. The series continued a project begun by Echenberg in 2018, Conversation avec ma famille<\/em> (Conversation with My Family), in which she examined passing on knowledge and heritage without verbal language, as well as the manner in which every family appears in public space, through a series of nonverbal conversations with her family. Although the performative explorations left room for spontaneity and the unexpected, the final image was meticulously created and every detail carefully considered. The resulting photographs and videos draw parallels between the power and scale of intimate interactions and the vastness of Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s landscape. Gestural dialogues unfold through a sequence of poetic parallels among bodies, art, and landscape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Storyteller Grand-Manon (Manon Lacelle) mobilizes her role as a grandmother to examine the intergenerational transmission, heritage, and transfer of cultural values and norms. With her grandchildren Estelle, Eddie, and Milo Bergeron, she composed, recited, and played stories and songs. Their writing project is driven by the oral tradition and the poetry of childhood. It reveals the potential of every story to be transformed and adapted as it becomes entangled with a family\u2019s domestic references. Although these vernacular stories shape us as individuals and provide us with a system of values and norms that usually reflect those of the era or society in which they came to be, we also have the potential to transform them by adapting them to the utopian ideals we wish to see develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"manon-lacelle\"$
Manon Lacelle<\/strong>
Seuls et ensemble<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: Yoanis Menge, courtesy of the artist &
AdMare, Iles-de-la-Madeleine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The artists assembled for this residency-event allowed the landscape of \u00celes-de-la-Madeleine to influence them in order to offer alternative family models, reveal diverse types of domestic sociability, and problematize a range of social and political issues stemming from the fundamental human need for connection and belonging. Their work gave rise to deeply intimate and subjective narratives, stories, and portraits. None of the artists chose to work alone; they all made room for one or more members of their family. The intimate experience of making a family and being a family was at the heart of their process, and relational structures were explored not only as subject matter but also as a laboratory for art creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated from the French by **Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n**
Alexandra Tourigny Fleury, Cynthia Girard-Renard, Famille Plouffe, Jacynthe Carrier, Manon Lacelle, Mathilde Benignus, Rachel Echenberg, Sophie Castonguay<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traditional, blended, nuclear, single-parent, extended, or adoptive: as a model of social organization, the family raises questions of affiliation, intimacy, closeness, and togetherness. Our notion of the family has expanded in recent years, as various transformations and social changes have transpired. Now, it tends to be distanced from the traditional view based on blood and marriage ties. Family reveals itself through complex and varied structures that form between the unit and the whole, between belonging and exclusion, between individual and collective identity. Seuls et ensemble\u00a0: Cr\u00e9er du lien<\/em> (Alone and Together: Making Connections), a three-week residency-event curated by Martin Dufrasne and presented at AdMare on Iles-de-la-Madeleine in the summer of 2021, assembled seven artists and collectives who made these relational dynamics the focus of their artistic research. The project offered an open creative platform that encouraged the artists to reflect collectively, and especially publicly, on a subject that is usually relegated to the domain of personal rites and intimate quotidian matters\u200a\u2014\u200ain short, the private sphere.<\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":182081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[882],"tags":[],"numeros":[5499],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[5591],"artistes":[2460,5577,2232,5557,5527,1975,5531],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[],"class_list":["post-182103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post","numeros-107-family","auteurs-alexandra-tourigny-fleury-en","artistes-cynthia-girard-renard-en","artistes-famille-plouffe-en","artistes-jacynthe-carrier-en","artistes-manon-lacelle-en","artistes-mathilde-benignus-en","artistes-rachel-echenberg-en","artistes-sophie-castonguay-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271203,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182103\/revisions\/271203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=182103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

La Famille Plouffe<\/strong>
S\u00e9cher son linge prop’ en famille !<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: courtesy of the artists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The context of the art residency also provided an opportunity to consider new forms of familiarity. This was the challenge taken up by the Marcoux(Sophie Castonguay, Mathieu Marcoux, and their children, Anna and \u00c9mile) and Carrier-Bouchard (Jacynthe Carrier, Bruno Bouchard, and their children, Elena and Margot) families, both of which transformed their family unit into a laboratory of relational exploration. For their project R comme ressac<\/em> (B like Backwash) (2021), the Marcoux family used the metaphor of breaking waves and their backwash to examine areas of friction and reciprocity within the family. The aim was to better understand the points of tension that occur between the need for affiliation and states of individuation, as well as between the need for attachment and the desire for detachment. Their research translated into a series of performances that visually represented all the emotional intensity sustained and expressed by people in conflict, a kind of raw and uncompromising bodily poetry that reveals what is most difficult and complex within families. A raised fist, agitated feet, a rudely pointed finger, rolling of the eyes: various angry gestures typical in moments of dispute and confrontation were dissected, magnified, repeated, and linked together. The performances, which consisted of movements in which most people would recognize themselves, elicited discomfort and empathy but also a consideration of how we recover from these difficult moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"Sophie-Castonguay-r-comme-ressac\"$
Sophie Castonguay<\/strong>
R comme ressac<\/em>, 2021.
Photos: Yoanis Menge, courtsey of the artist &
AdMare, Iles-de-la-Madeleine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"Sophie-castonguay-r-comme-ressac\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Guided by a similar approach, the Carrier-Bouchard family carried out the project Nos emm\u00ealements<\/em> (Our Entanglements) (2020), a test site for multidisciplinary research driven by observations of the connections and affiliations at work in the nuclear family, particularly in terms of the interactions between parents and children, as well as between artists and non-artists. The residency period became one all-encompassing performative action in which experience was the project\u2019s prime value. Using a relational and collaborative process that involved the participation of the island\u2019s residents, the family set up a safe and welcoming creative space, from which everything that emerged (gestures, words, images, sounds) could be transformed into creative material. Out of this space, an eclectic visual, sonic, and performative lexicon developed, inspired by the island landscape and through which bodies and terrains were in conversation, revealing states of imperfection, beauty, and vulnerability that came out of lived experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"Jacynthe-carrier-nos-emmelements\"$
Jacynthe Carrier<\/strong>
Nos emm\u00ealements<\/em>, with Bruno Bouchard, Margot C. Bouchard & Elena C. Bouchard, 2021.
Photo: courtesy fo the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"jacynthe-carrier-nos-emmelements-margot\"$
Jacynthe Carrier<\/strong>
Margot<\/em>, from the series
Nos emm\u00ealements<\/em>, 2020.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Reconsidering the Myth of the Family Figure<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Unlike her colleagues, Mathilde Benignus came to the islands alone. Her project, 7 s\u0153urs choisies<\/em> (7 Chosen Sisters) (2021), addresses the theme of the chosen family and explores the particular bonds of solidarity and sense of belonging that can develop in communities of women. Reflecting on the family outside of blood ties, her work points to the important need to affiliate, come together as a group, and help each other\u200a\u2014\u200aor, on the contrary, to dissociate\u200a\u2014\u200aon the basis of natural or unlikely affinities, such as love for a particular place, the appreciation of a novel, a political opinion, a similar experience, or sometimes an obvious and spontaneous connection that cannot be explained. During her residency, Benignus examined these mechanisms of affiliation by creating a new family with the help of the islands\u2019 residents, which she called her \u201cchosen sisters.\u201d The sisters were selected though a natural, sequential process: the first sister, met by chance on a beach, shared a passion for the accordion with the artist. The second, chosen by the first, selected the third, and so on until a total of seven women were selected. Their voluntary participation in the project led to a series of exploratory meetings, the objective of which was to allow words, movements, and thoughts to flow freely so as to reveal the complex links uniting them. The participants, all connected by a love of picking wild plants, shared teas of medicinal plants that they had gathered and got into the habit of meeting by a stream. Benignus\u2019s research gave rise to three works that document the subjective sensations and emotions experienced with her chosen sisters. A collection of twenty-six zines\u200a\u2014\u200aone for each day of the residency\u200a\u2014\u200afull of symbolic drawings and short texts, celebrate a more expansive concept of family and emphasize the importance of affinity-based relationships that have no biological or legal connotations. The photograph Seule et ensemble (tentative d\u2019une f\u00e9ministe devant l\u2019absence de statues de femmes)<\/em> (Alone and Together [A Feminist\u2019s Attempt Due to a Lack of Female Statues]) (2021), created in collaboration with photographer Yoanis Menge, points to the dearth of female figures in commemorative monuments. Lastly, the performance 7 s\u0153urs choisies<\/em> presented Benignus walking in a stream, supported by the bodies of her sisters sitting on the shore, facing each other. The symbolic act evoked the solidarity within the group, as well as the idea of the bearing by many hands of what, for Benignus, is the true meaning of family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"mathilde-benignus-7-soeurs-choisies\"$
Mathilde Benignus<\/strong>
7 s\u0153urs choisies<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: Martin Dufrasne, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Along the same lines, Cynthia Girard-Renard explored the question of affiliation and sense of belonging specifically by examining interspecies relationships in families. Guided by the agency of her dog, Satan, she wandered across the islands and mapped out the canine encounters they had. Using painting, embroidery, and drawing, she sketched a portrait of each dog encountered. Although many people claim that they consider their dog to be a full-fledged member of their family, expressions such as \u201cthe dog\u2019s owner,\u201d \u201cthe dog\u2019s master,\u201d or \u201cowning a dog\u201d nevertheless suggest a difference in status and power dynamics. By positioning the dogs as the main driving force of the encounters but also as the only visible trace of them on her map, Girard-Renard documents the extent of animal influence on intra- and interfamily relationships. In so doing, she asks us to reconsider the traditional distribution of roles between human and non-human animals in families. What are the effects of canine presence on \u201cmaking a family\u201d? What happens to one\u2019s relationship with place and the quotidian when one lets oneself be guided by animal agency? *Sans toit ni loi: r\u00eaves canins<\/em> (Homeless and Lawless: Canine Dreams) (2021) examines these interspecies relational dynamics and their possible reinvention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n*
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"cynthia-girard-renard-sans-toit-ni-loi\"$
Cynthia Girard-Renard<\/strong>
Sans toit ni loi : r\u00eaves canins<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: Yoanis Menge, courtesy of the artist &
AdMare, Iles-de-la-Madeleine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hard to evoke the theme of the family without addressing its great power for social organization, as a space of socialization and a factory of collective meaning. The pathways that form between individual identity, family history, and folk references are complex and often difficult to grasp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
$\"rachel-echenberg-comment-tenir-le-vide\"$
Rachel Echenberg<\/strong>
Comment tenir le vide<\/em>, 2022.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
Yet this is precisely what interested the couple formed by Rachel Echenberg and S\u00e9bastien Worsnip. Their performative work focuses on the complex balance that develops between love and tension in a couple when co-parenting. In particular, they were interested in the stages of aging and their repercussions on the couple and on parental dynamics. Allowing the human and geographical landscapes of the islands to influence them, Echenberg and Worsnip presented a series of solo and duo performances, documented through photography, video, sound, and drawing. The series continued a project begun by Echenberg in 2018, Conversation avec ma famille<\/em> (Conversation with My Family), in which she examined passing on knowledge and heritage without verbal language, as well as the manner in which every family appears in public space, through a series of nonverbal conversations with her family. Although the performative explorations left room for spontaneity and the unexpected, the final image was meticulously created and every detail carefully considered. The resulting photographs and videos draw parallels between the power and scale of intimate interactions and the vastness of Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s landscape. Gestural dialogues unfold through a sequence of poetic parallels among bodies, art, and landscape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Storyteller Grand-Manon (Manon Lacelle) mobilizes her role as a grandmother to examine the intergenerational transmission, heritage, and transfer of cultural values and norms. With her grandchildren Estelle, Eddie, and Milo Bergeron, she composed, recited, and played stories and songs. Their writing project is driven by the oral tradition and the poetry of childhood. It reveals the potential of every story to be transformed and adapted as it becomes entangled with a family\u2019s domestic references. Although these vernacular stories shape us as individuals and provide us with a system of values and norms that usually reflect those of the era or society in which they came to be, we also have the potential to transform them by adapting them to the utopian ideals we wish to see develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
$\"manon-lacelle\"$
Manon Lacelle<\/strong>
Seuls et ensemble<\/em>, 2021.
Photo: Yoanis Menge, courtesy of the artist &
AdMare, Iles-de-la-Madeleine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The artists assembled for this residency-event allowed the landscape of \u00celes-de-la-Madeleine to influence them in order to offer alternative family models, reveal diverse types of domestic sociability, and problematize a range of social and political issues stemming from the fundamental human need for connection and belonging. Their work gave rise to deeply intimate and subjective narratives, stories, and portraits. None of the artists chose to work alone; they all made room for one or more members of their family. The intimate experience of making a family and being a family was at the heart of their process, and relational structures were explored not only as subject matter but also as a laboratory for art creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated from the French by **Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n**
Alexandra Tourigny Fleury, Cynthia Girard-Renard, Famille Plouffe, Jacynthe Carrier, Manon Lacelle, Mathilde Benignus, Rachel Echenberg, Sophie Castonguay<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traditional, blended, nuclear, single-parent, extended, or adoptive: as a model of social organization, the family raises questions of affiliation, intimacy, closeness, and togetherness. Our notion of the family has expanded in recent years, as various transformations and social changes have transpired. Now, it tends to be distanced from the traditional view based on blood and marriage ties. Family reveals itself through complex and varied structures that form between the unit and the whole, between belonging and exclusion, between individual and collective identity. Seuls et ensemble\u00a0: Cr\u00e9er du lien<\/em> (Alone and Together: Making Connections), a three-week residency-event curated by Martin Dufrasne and presented at AdMare on Iles-de-la-Madeleine in the summer of 2021, assembled seven artists and collectives who made these relational dynamics the focus of their artistic research. The project offered an open creative platform that encouraged the artists to reflect collectively, and especially publicly, on a subject that is usually relegated to the domain of personal rites and intimate quotidian matters\u200a\u2014\u200ain short, the private sphere.<\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":182081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[882],"tags":[],"numeros":[5499],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[5591],"artistes":[2460,5577,2232,5557,5527,1975,5531],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[],"class_list":["post-182103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post","numeros-107-family","auteurs-alexandra-tourigny-fleury-en","artistes-cynthia-girard-renard-en","artistes-famille-plouffe-en","artistes-jacynthe-carrier-en","artistes-manon-lacelle-en","artistes-mathilde-benignus-en","artistes-rachel-echenberg-en","artistes-sophie-castonguay-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271203,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182103\/revisions\/271203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=182103"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=182103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}