Popping up where you least expect them, the Songlines artists will awaken subtle tracks, often ephemeral. They are not there to “blow you away »; the Islands’ territory already plays this role spectacularly. Rather, their stealthy interventions will allow us to feel, to imagine, to hear. One must be on the lookout.
Manon Lacelle, (Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Qc) Winguejgwej Mi’kmaq, was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, and grew up in Acadia in New Brunswick. She was brought up spiritually by the Mi’kmaq Elsipogtog in New Brunswick and has been living for several years in the Magdalen Islands.
Lacelle’s artistic journey reflects her multiple roots, which she has grown over the course of a lifetime, driven by mutual aid and travelling to the end of her world. The people met, the stories heard—intensely lived events become a handful of fertile land, which she mingles with her own and presents through her writings, drawings, stories and songs.
The short story, the stage, the paper, or the melody will then become an imprint of the “we” on this path, with no precise destination other than to reach for the heart of things and beings.
Nathaël Molaison (Magdalen Islands, Qc) is an author and multidisciplinary artist. Between poetry, short story and monologue, he explores literary possibilities outside the fixed structure of the book. His writing, coarse and marked by romance, explores the intricacies of desire, our lust for one another, the nostalgic quest and the shattering of consensus. In his projects, Molaison loves to confront the viewer in a manner sometimes hyper-sensitive, sometimes brutal and uncompromising. Since July, he has returned to his roots in the Magdalen Islands. Here, he explores issues of legacy, heritage and traces of the Other. This intention unfolds through a series of more intimate projects in which Molaison seeks to rebuild his own history through the marine mythology, the family story and told memories.
http://nathaelmolaison.weebly.com
For Nigel Quinn, photography is the best cure for cynicism and stress. Unapologetically aesthetic in nature, there is a simple idealism in the subjective framing and presentation of a landscape in its best light, or a dignified portrait in an authentic location, which he finds very rewarding. Quinn came to be a photographer by accident. He received a camera as a graduation gift, and from then on his career path changed dramatically. Photography is now his sole source of revenue. Quinn has received several art grants: from Art-Jeunesse Télé-Québec (2010) for his project La face cachée de la face cachée de l’Ile d’Entrée; from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), the Conseil régionale des élus Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine (CRÉGIM), and the Commission jeunesse Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine (2013), for What Remains; and the Avila-Leblanc grant in 2015, for his documentary project La Mi-Carême: de génération en génération. Quinn also participated in a group exhibition at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie in 2015, and has won several contests presented by photography magazines, including the 2014 competition “Parcs Naturels” in Photo Solution, and the “Faces” contest’s professional editorial portrait category in 2014 in Photo District News.
Songlines 