Baie-Saint-Paul, 30 July 2021 - After its 38th edition was cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic, the team at the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul (MACBSP) is finally launching the 39th edition of the Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul with great feverishness today.
Under the theme Time and Things, the Symposium will host the twelve artists in residence (eight on site and four by video link) who were scheduled to participate last year. The Honorary President of this year’s edition will be Raymonde April, photographer and professor of photography at Concordia University in Montreal.
Sylvie Lacerte, the event’s Artistic Director, sees in this theme of time a powerful and relevant connection between what the world has gone through over the past year and the perception of passing time, the time that changes things, people and art:
“This edition of the Symposium, which was to have been held in August 2020, was cancelled because of the pandemic. We are back this year with renewed ardour, with same theme, Time and Things, and with all the artists who had been selected for the 2020 edition. This theme has added meaning this year because the time it took to get through this global event required patience and hope, making the theme even more vital.
Things, precisely, will perhaps not have returned to normal. Will they ever? It is hard to imagine that everything will be as before, and the same will be true for some of the Symposium’s activities. Things have changed with time, but art returns to us finally and it will always be there, whatever form it takes.”
Ms Lacerte, whose three-year mandate as Artistic Director concludes this year, would like to thank the staff of the MACBSP as well as the public:
“I would like to thank the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul and its entire staff for its renewed confidence during my three-year mandate, which will conclude when the present edition is over. I also thank the public, which is always just as enthusiastic with each new edition.”
The Director of the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Martin Ouellet, for his part, invites all residents to take part in this unique and uniting arts event which offers a rare opportunity to witness the creative process and its evolution and to take part in this dialogue between visitors and artists:
“I am tremendously happy to see everyone again at the Symposium! After the event was paused in 2020, I invite everyone, visitors and residents of Baie-Saint-Paul, to come and enjoy this opportunity to observe the work of these remarkable artists.
Our entire team has worked very hard to present a Symposium whose programming has of course been modified, but in a manner which will not alter in any way our visitors’ experience. This is an arts event on an international scale, one we are privileged to have here. If there is one thing we have learned over the past few months, it is the great importance of art in our daily lives and the extent to which this touch of joy in our lives is indispensable. I thus invite everyone to come out in great numbers!”
The 39th Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul is being presented from 30 July to 29 August 2021, Wednesday to Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the presence of the artists. Admission is $5 and is valid for the entire duration of the event.
For more information on the artists and the programming, follow us online and on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/symposiumbsp
https://www.instagram.com/symposiumbsp/
Relations de presse :
Véronique Gagnon, responsable des communications et du marketing
Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul
Tél : 418 435-3681 ou 418 265-0947; Courriel : communications@macbsp.com