Shared creativity and relationship skills are the experimental foundation of a thought process where resource meets said creativity. Each project starts with cultural raw material : photography, note-taking strategies, sketch design or any inspiring material used in workshops around the artistic community. Creative thought processes can occasionally emerge from solitary work. Photography, painting and silkscreen printing come together in a personalized creation. On other occasions, I am looking to build strong relationships around the community through co-creation. It provides the material I need to create, assemble and bring an art project to fruition using various techniques. Installations are born. Flirting with recurring themes which are my main body of work: relational aesthetics and infiltration art, self-portrait, work using body posture as a basis, corporeality or nudity as an imperative transition towards authenticity in art. Conclusively, I want to create links. I am looking to bring together an individual and its environment in a place dedicated to mediation. This creative approach will seek to bring oneself, others and the community linked ultimately to the world.
During the residency, I will question the impact of nudity in social interactions. To that end, I want to use Bare Oaks’ Laundromat as a space of research. I want to talk about nudity in terms of lack of clothing. Laundromats are recognized in small urban areas as places for meeting and socialization. I will document the interactions that take place and evolve in the laundromat via various devices addressing the naturist community. The laundromat will become my creative laboratory, then a space to involve the community of Bare Oaks. Afterwards, I will create an extension of laundromat outside and present cyanotypes. I will also suggest to the members of the naturist community a cyanotype workshop (solarization and revelation of images). At the end of the residency, I will offer a performance inspired by my research’s results, which I will document photographically. Then, a sheet soaked with photosensitive solution (cyanotype) will gather the traces of this performance in the manner of a photogram.
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Gabrielle Bélanger is a visual artist based in Quebec City, Canada. Having completed a B.A in Social Work and holding an Arts Technique certificate degree, her body of work combines painting, photography, silkscreen printing, installation and performance. Her approach relies on a co-creation process: she has been carrying out several cultural meditation projects. Recipient of several grants, she developed new approach on homelessness with the RE-lierproject (2017). Furthermore, she achieved on winter 2018 theNUITSproject, in which she will involve sex workers in her artistic process. Her work is part of the Arthothèque collection at the Bibliothèque Gabrielle-Roy (Quebec).