Exhibition at Jardin Daniel A. Séguin
Opening on Saturday, June 29, 2024
10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
French version available
Relations végétales highlights plants gift for creating connections: among themselves, with us, and between us. Following a first foray in 2021, Annie France Leclerc returns to Jardin Daniel A. Séguin to create an installation in several parts, produced from dye plants gathered and dried there, such as sulphur cosmos, goldenrod, broom sorghum, staghorn sumac, and Japanese indigo. Each makes its presence felt both on sheets of dyed and draped fabric on which the colourful essences of several species are displayed side by side, and in a dye-plant garden created by Leclerc that occupies part of the green roof and the atrium of the Pavillon d’accueil.
By encouraging people to venture into the garden – to wander its inviting paths, to rest on the furnishings embodying nearby plants – Leclerc presents an alternative to the conventional codes that would keep a distance between artwork and visitors. At the same time, she reaffirms the role human beings must play within their ecosystem; although the climate emergency may lead us to believe that nature would be better off without human presence, she asserts that our actions can not only be harmonious, but are necessary. Who takes care of the garden if not the gardener?
What emerges from this project are spaces of kinship, shaped over time and in togetherness, where we can take a moment to engage in reflection and come into relation with the social beings that are plants. Encounters with visitors will also take place during the exhibition so that Leclerc can pass on her knowledge about plant dyes, have conversations, and simply share a moment with fellow nature lovers.
– Ariel Rondeau
Presented by EXPRESSION, the exhibition Relations végétales takes place at Jardin Daniel A. Séguin and will evolve over two seasons, simultaneously with its environment, and thanks to all of the actions taken – some intentional, some instinctive, some simply blown by the wind.
Annie France Leclerc, video of the exhibition Relations végétales presented at EXPRESSION, 4 min 25 s. © Félix Bouchard