Review of the book Mirement/Towering, edited by Gentiane Bélanger, France Choinière and Marie-Hélène Leblanc, Montréal, Dazibao, Lennoxville, Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University, Gatineau, Galerie de l’UQO, 2023, 236 pages (bilingual)
Read moreThe book Mirement/Towering continues a reflection based on Geneviève Chevalier’s homonymous exhibition project, which was presented in three parts between 2021 and 2024 at Dazibao (the installations Towering/The Menagerie and Towering/The Herbarium), the Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University (Mirement/Trissements), and the Galerie de l’Université du Québec en Outaouais (Towering/Instability). The French word “mirement” refers to a navigation term designating an optical refraction effect that makes distant things look taller than they are. Here, it evokes both the obvious “objective” distancing of scientific museology and the illusions impressed by this approach upon human relationships with nature – two positions that Chevalier explores in her project.
The book contains essays by Mélanie Boucher, museology and art history professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais; Stéphanie Posthumus, professor of European literature at McGill University, and Heather Rogers, a graduate of the Digital Humanities program at McGill University; and Alain Deneault, a professor of philosophy at the Université de Moncton. Gentiane Bélanger, director/curator of the Foreman Gallery, wrote the preface and also contributes an essay. These authors offer analyses of Chevalier’s approach from different angles and unique pathways – including a critique of the notion of sustainable development, juxtaposed against the excesses of contemporary capitalism – testifying to its polymorphous and polysemic nature.
Like the exhibitions from which it is drawn, the book is the product of a concerted effort by three institutions, related to their desire to save resources and reduce the impact of their activities. In this sense, it is coherent with the scope of Chevalier’s work, as she aims to raise awareness of ecology and the upheavals affecting living beings today, as well as the roles played by human beings in these disruptions.
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