art in nature

Symposiums

As part of the 2006 Symposium at Essarts Sculpture Park, in Saint-Pie-de-Guire, Quebec, Dominique Laquerre invited visitors to have their portrait taken in order to create a piece called “L’Effet de Serre” [The Greenhouse Effect].

The artist had set up a small outdoor studio. She asked visitors to express how they felt toward greenhouse gas issues and atmospheric pollution. Visitors took the photo shoot seriously and participated enthusiastically.

Many of these photographs have been printed in transparency on the sides of a wood and acrylic structure reminiscent of a little house. That greenhouse set in the heart of the forest is a human-size sculpture that can be seen from outside. Visitors can also step inside the greenhouse, where they will feel all those expressive eyes converging on them.

“L’Effet de Serre” is a place where one can tune out the outside world and think, take cover, or watch the shifting images the light, trees, and printed pictures create together. Through these representations of the human world, the surrounding nature appears in filigree.

The work “Monument éphémère en hommage au présent de Brompton” [ “Ephemeral Monument Paying Tribute to Brompton’s Present” ] was created in 2009 at Maison des arts de Brompton, as part of the event “Jardins réinventés de la Saint-François.” The artist was sensitive to the layout of the site where, in its middle, is erected a single permanent monument. She says: “Its stripped-down and massive shape, its material, the message contained in its inscriptions are designed to last. It speaks to me about humans, belonging, sacrifice, memory. This cold and geometric block seems to hold a huge emotional charge.”

As to counterpoint this monument to Brompton’s veteran soldiers, Dominique Laquerre’s “Monument éphémère en hommage au présent de Brompton” consisted of colourful and expressive portraits of people of all ages. The artist canvassed the small town, meeting and taking photos of 50 people of Brompton, often in their homes or workplaces. The whole project was completed in a week, thanks to word of mouth, a warmer and more concrete approach than social networks like Facebook, from which it is inspired. “Monument éphémère en hommage au présent de Brompton” was made out of wood and had the same shape and size as its granite neighbour. It has been destroyed at the end of the summer.

Translated by François Couture