23 October-18 December
From October 23 to December 18, Folie/Culture visits Maison l’Éclaircie for a third year as part of the DESSIN EN MOU workshop!
Dessin en mou is a cultural mediation project offered to a new cohort of participants at Maison l’Éclaircie. The aim is to stimulate participants’ creativity by exploring various artistic techniques, initiating discussions about art, and fostering an attitude of openness, listening, slowness, curiosity and caring.
LA MAISON L’ÉCLAIRCIE is a community organization that helps people aged 15 and over with eating disorders associated with anorexia or bulimia. The organization also offers support to loved ones.
People living with eating disorders go through various trials that are sometimes associated with productivity, appearance, the gaze of others and performance. During these sessions, participants will be welcomed with a new outlook aimed at breaking down the idea of “expectations”. Dessin en mou creates a split with productivity, placing participants more in the realm of discovery, looking at art for what is creative, spontaneous, accidental and uninteresting. We reject creative pressure and welcome error. Here, we want to encourage acceptance of our creative abilities and, above all, value the results in their difference. By opening up the discourse on current art, participants will be led to realize that artists have their own creative processes, and that mistakes, difference and accident are often at the heart of their approach.
” What seemed like a simple artistic activity turned out to be a real lesson in self-acceptance. I learned to be less critical of myself and to free myself from the gaze and judgment of others. I’ve seen positive effects in my life, in my relationships with others and myself, but also in managing my eating disorder. This project was a turning point in my life, and I’m deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to take part. ”
Maison l’Éclaircie participant at the Dessin en mou workshop, 2023.
WORKSHOPS
Dessin en mou is a series of eight workshops grouped into four different blocks. Through these four blocks, participants will approach creation from different angles and through a variety of techniques and materials. They will be invited to engage their bodies in an essential way in the artistic process, revealing a more positive and inclusive vision of the body beyond its image.
What’s more, participants will have the opportunity to see their animation presented as the opening act at our LA MINUTE VIDÉOevent in June 2026. An ideal conclusion, since it allows us to demonstrate that a work of art can take on a whole new dimension when taken out of its creative context. This presentation fosters a sense of pride and belonging to the group, while enhancing personal esteem.
THE ARTISTS
Audrée Demers-Roberge and Noelle Wharton-Ayer are both professional artists based in Quebec City. Their practice incorporates various image-related techniques, including drawing, photography, painting and printmaking. For them, art is a means of expressing their relationship with the world and their own environment. Participants will be invited to work with these two artists, whose work expresses sensitivity and intimacy.
Dominique Sacy, author and performer, will also lead a writing workshop for participants. With the assistance of the mediators, this author will propose a creative writing workshop to tackle the storytelling aspect often found in the visual arts.
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This project was made possible with the support of theCultural Development Agreement between the Government of Quebec and the City of Quebec.
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A multidisciplinary artist born in Toronto, Noelle Wharton-Ayer has lived and worked in Quebec City since 2011. Her practice considers the ways in which the image of the botanical can challenge us to introspection and act as an entry point into the construction of personal and familial narratives. She is interested in the collage process as a methodology that engages both real and imagined spaces, the mundane and the spectacular. The artist holds a BFA from York University and an MFA from Université Laval. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and Europe. Since 2019 she has been working as a freelance artist-mediator for cultural mediation projects in Quebec City. In winter 2024, the artist was awarded a CALQ creation grant for her project Bedfellows, which was presented in an exhibition at the artist-run center VU Photo in May 2024.
Audrée Demers-Roberge (Lévis) lives in Saint-Casimir. She completed a master’s degree in visual arts and a bachelor’s degree in visual and media arts at Université Laval, with a year of study in Finland. She presents À la rencontre du Gros Morne, a solo exhibition at the Parc Canada Visitor Centre in Rocky Harbor, Newfoundland. She has presented various solos, including one at Oeil de Poisson for Manif d’art’s Winter Garden. She has exhibited as part of a group at Plural and Art Toronto, represented by Galerie C.O.A., at Vu Photo, at the Foire en art actuel de Québec and at the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul. She has been in residence at Est-Nord-Est, Engramme, Vaste et vagues and Le Château – Association Diagn’Art in Senegal. Some of her works are now part of the Desjardins Collection, the Méduse Collection and the Collection d’oeuvres d’art de la Ville de Lévis. She realized her first public artwork thanks to Première Ovation’s public art mentoring program.
Dominique Sacy is a writer-performer of spoken word, slam and theatrical UFOs. His work blends music, narrative and poetry. The water table for his writing is rap culture. This culture is the poetry of everyday life, the hard-hitting phrase that we didn’t expect, the experience that shakes us, expressly expressed in simple words to be accessible to all and invite us to share.