Return to the water

Returning to the Water – Maryse Goudreau

The Acadian Museum of Quebec presents Retourner à l’eau, a new exhibition created bymultidisciplinary artist Maryse Goudreaufrom the Gaspé Peninsula. This exhibition will be on display from September 30, 2021, to December 20, 2021.

The artist from Escuminac (recipient of the CALQ Artist of the Year Award 2020 in Gaspésie) focuses on social, political, and environmental issues. Her works navigate between photography, sound art, performance, installation, and cinema. For nearly ten years, the artist has been fascinated by beluga whales, whose social and political history she has reconstructed through the creation of a vast archive.

"Sometimes animals serve as guides in stories: my work echoes this age-old genre. My projects are developed to do justice to a story I experienced during one of my encounters with beluga whales."

— Maryse Goudreau.

The artist had access to the museum's artifact collection while developing his exhibition.

Photograph entitled "La permission" (Permission) presented in Maryse Goudreau's exhibition "Retourner à l'eau" (Return to Water)

The artist's approach

A photograph entitled Permissionshows a beluga whale's eye staring at us. This image is key to the artist's work over many years, building up a thematic archive on beluga whales since 2012.

Guided by the idea that nature is watching us, Maryse Goudreau became involved in marine mammal rescue efforts. She has participated in scientific sampling of stranded whales. She sometimes says that she feels her first cuts and incisions into these monumental carcasses were her first steps as a sculptor. This experience sparked her desire to work with natural materials, including marble from the Gaspé Peninsula. Inspired by her field experience, her pieces evoke fragments of whales and mourning.

Maryse Goudreau - opening of the temporary exhibition "Retourner à l'eau" (Return to Water) at the Musée acadien du Québec.

About Maryse Goudreau

Maryse Goudreau has published the artist's books Histoire sociale du béluga (2016) and La Conquête du béluga (The Conquest of the Beluga) with Éditions Escuminac (2020). She also published a monograph with Éditions Sagamie, L’Appel (The Call) (2012), which focuses on her work on the docks.

In recent years, she has exhibited at the Biennale de l’image; Momenta and La Galerie de l’UQÀM (Montreal 2021), the Venice Biennale (PHI Centre Pavilion, Montreal, 2019), the Dazibao art center (Montreal), the Museo de la Cancillería/Instituto Matías Romero (Mexico City), VU — Centre de production et de diffusion de la photographie (Quebec City), the Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles, USA), and the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam (Havana, Cuba).

Maryse Goudreau has won several awards, including the Lynne Cohen Prize (2017), awarded in partnership with the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. Her works are part of several collections, including that of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

To learn more about Maryse Goudreau: https://marysegoudreau.com/

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