Maude Arsenault
at Carleton-sur-mer

This exhibit is the result of a research residency in the Gaspé in summer 2022 and fall 2023. I’d wanted to make this project a continuation of the work Étoffe de soi: plis et replis (Fabric of the Self: Folds and Creases), which I presented in Percé in 2021. My intention was to rethink the spaces of women’s bodies and notions of place and nature in transformation. Thus, based on photographic observations of the Gaspesian landscape and coastline, eroding thanks to climate change, I wanted at the same time to think about the mutations in women’s bodies, about their own erosion, their representations, their oppressions, their burdens, their protection and their impermanence.

During these stays in the Gaspé I documented, with both still photography and video, the changing shores, beaches, cliffs and seascapes of the coastline by investing them with my woman’s body through performance art, self-portraits and sculptural pieces in situ. My material research, my photo and video essays, attempted to take an introspective look at the micro- and macro-landscape in its relationship with the body-space-regions we relate to in the formation of our individual and collective identities. More specifically, I approach our alterations, our crossings and our finalities in the context of a climate/social crisis that is upsetting our ecological, physical, economic and identity-related balances.

I immersed myself in the spaces of this majestic region in upheaval so that I could create the photographic and sculptural exhibit Naviguer dans un océan de chair there.