Books

“This book is the result of a visual art program developed by artist Nathalie Lavoie and carried out during the 6th International Flax Biennial of Portneuf. In this context, the artist experimented mainly with Indian ink drawing on paper from stems, seeds and flowers of cultivated flax. She worked for 100 consecutive days, giving herself various precise instructions that led to subtle and interesting pictorial results. This duration corresponds to the cultivation time of the flax plant, from sowing to maturity. The texts and photographs that have been produced give an account of a process that has been developed over the course of the creation in the manner of a practice journal. This publication emanates a poetry to which the creative action of flax is intimately linked. “(Nicholas Pitre) (loose translation)

Text and pictures : Nathalie Lavoie | Graphic design : Mathilde Martel-Coutu, Centre Sagamie | Revision : Christine Martel | Direction : Nicholas Pitre

*Can be ordered through Quebec bookstores.

“The theme of the event being solid water, the artist sought to include ice within her creative process in three disciplines that are video, photography and drawing with Indian ink. The theme of solid water was approached from the angle of an intimate awareness of the time between this material and the artistic approach of Nathalie Lavoie. This one is based on a will to be present from moment to moment inside a process of creation in order to understand how to make the experience of the present more conscious. In this way, state of mind, inner state, state of attention are lived in a relationship to space and time. (…)” (Diane Laurier) (loose translation)

Texts : Diane Laurier et Nathalie Lavoie | Pictures : Nathalie Lavoie | Graphisc design : Atelier Poste 4

*sold out

“Tame the real as one tames a hare. The air that comes out of a lung no longer has the same characteristics as before it entered: the mixture of gases has been transformed, warmed, personalized. It has become colored by the person who breathed it. In a similar process of going back and forth between the outside and the inside, the works of L’écologie des lignes are like breaths, where Nathalie Lavoie breathes a little of her environment to let something discreetly modified come out. From inside her home and outside, the present is thus intrinsically linked to what surrounds it, to the living and to what maintains it. (…)” (Mariane Tremblay) (loose translation)

Text : Mariane Tremblay | Pictures : Nathalie Lavoie | Graphisc design : Élise Bouchard, Centre Sagamie | Direction : Nathalie Villeneuve

*Available at the Galerie l’Œuvre de l’Autre of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.

“becoming-Botanical is a long-term antidisciplinary project aiming to investigate and re-imagine the human/plant relationship with a view towards a sustainable future. We believe that new experiences with and deeper understanding of nonhuman life garners an ecocentric and empathetic perspective crucial to living sustainably in a shifting climate.

Central to the first phase of becoming-Botanical is the curation and publication of an herbal encyclopaedia (liber herbalis) which asks contributors and readers to contemplate in what ways we interact and depend on plant-life in a post-modern era and what future interactions and dependencies may be.

The book features 46 entries from over 50 international artists, researchers and practitioners spanning 6 continents–beautifully fusing academia, scientific and ecological research, art, and creative practice.”

Co-editors: Josh Armstrong and Alexandra Lakind, with support from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of California, Santa Cruz, published by Objet-a Creative Studio, Glasgow, Scotland. My contribution: cover. p.iii, p.xv-xvi, p.126

*To order: becoming-Botanical

” For eight weeks in the fall of 2019, artist
Nathalie Lavoie worked with students at Sainte-Hélène school in Saint-Henri-de-Taillon on the project Forêt-école. In art workshops held as extracurricular or after-school activities, the students took part in an individual and collective
creative process based on observation,
exploration and reflection, after taking an
attentive look of the forest.
First, students were given a notebook in which to write down and draw their perceptions of the forest, acting as both artists and researchers. They then participated in studio-labs based on
drawing and modelling. The entire project was aimed at bringing about a new view of nature.” (Mariane Tremblay)

*Available at Langage Plus.

Texts : Sylvain Desbiens and Nathalie Lavoie | Pictures : Mélissa Corbeil and Nathalie Lavoie | Graphic design : Isabelle Brassard, Centre Sagamie | Translation : Katrin Sermat | Revision : Christine Martel | Editorial direction : Nathalie Lavoie and Mariane Tremblay