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-From May 10th to June 16th 2024
Opening : May 10th at 17h
Artist talk on May 11th at 13h



Anne Ardouin, Je pense à la rivière, à celle que j’étais, à celle que je deviens, 2024, Courtesy of the artist.
Eruoma Awashish, Kokom (Ed. 7/7), 2006, Courtesy of the artist.


The paths of Anne Ardouin and Eruoma Awashish crossed many years ago, when Eruoma was just 13. This exhibition, their first together, focuses on the grandmother figure. The artists propose a dialogue between their respective identities as women, honoring them. A series of paths are revealed: those that these grandmothers enabled the artists to travel, and those that their heritage opens before them.


For Anne Ardouin, Je marche vers toi grand-mère evokes the poetic narrative of a quest to discover the origins of her identity. Through a series of nine memory sketches, the artist weaves sensitive links with places of recollection, parcels of landscape encountered over the years in the forests of the Wendat and Atikamekw territories.  The large-scale drawings of the Île aux rochers roses create a synthesis between the space of day and the space of dreams, where she encounters her andichia' in the form of a hut, a shelter from which to take refuge, a place from which to observe the stars. Like so many small steps, she also embroiders the Akiawenhrahk watershed. She has made dolls from corn husks, seeking to honor the paths of her ancestors and those of the women who walk across the rivers to the oceans.


Eruoma Awashish grew up with her kokom (grandmother), in her family home in the heart of her community. She keeps many precious memories. She watched her kokom tan moose hides, make moccasins, embroider flower motifs, weave fishing nets, braid snowshoes... highly symbolic skills that define the Atikamekw Nehirowisiw identity. Her spirit is imbued with the teachings, received in silence and observation. The identity anchored by these gestures of millennial memory takes the form of roots and flowers. The resilience of the people who passed them on is expressed through an installation of hair, which evokes the great resilience of Indigenous peoples to the many violent changes in their way of life, the bereavements they have had to overcome, and the unshakeable strength of the women of her people. Today, Eruoma Awashish follows in the footsteps of her kokom, who has become a sacred figure in her work. She carries her heritage with her, passing it on to others.





Anne Ardouin is a visual artist, researcher, and member of the Huron-Wendat Nation. She is interested in imaginations related to landscape and living environments. She holds a master's degree in visual arts from Concordia University and a doctorate in landscape and cultural studies from the Faculté de l'Aménagement, Université de Montréal. She also presented the exhibition Une rivière merveilleuse (2019), in which she explored nine junctions of the Akiawenhrahk River through drawing, photography and cartography, in collaboration with the words of Andrée Levesque Sioui. She works between Quebec City and Opitciwan, where she is a project manager in the Education sector.

Eruoma Awashish is an artist originally from Opitciwan, who lives in Pekuakami (Lac-Saint-Jean) and works in Mashteuiatsh. She holds a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary art from the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, and is currently completing a master's degree in art, research, and creation. The decolonization of the Sacred is at the heart of her research. She has participated in the Biennale Révélations at the Grand Palais in Paris (2023), the exhibition “Territoires sous observation” at MURA, Museo Raùl Anguiano, Guadalajara, Mexico (2023), the Biennale d'art contemporain autochtone (BACA) (2018 and 2024) and presented the installation “Kosaptcikan, épier l'autre monde” at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2017-2018).






            
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