Images rémanentes is a public art itinerary in the city of Moncton consisting of thirteen contemporary works by the following artists: Alisa Arsenault, Maryse Arseneault, Jared Betts, Mathieu Boucher Côté, Jean-Denis Boudreau, Marjolaine Bourgeois, Luc A. Charette, Mario Doucette, Marika Drolet-Ferguson, Emilie Grace Lavoie, Mathieu Léger, Jacinthe Loranger, and Dominik Robichaud. Inaugurated in 2018, this permanent exhibition of new works was co-organized by the curators Michelle Drapeau and Elise Anne LaPlante. The works created for the exhibition recount the history of art in Acadie, in southeastern New Brunswick, highlighting the exceptional contribution of cultural events, entities, and cultural figures to the vitality of the contemporary Acadian art community from the 1960s to the present day.

Images rémanentes is a collaborative effort between Imago artist-run print shop, the Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen, and Galerie Sans Nom. This public art project is one of the 200 exceptional projects supported by the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. It has also been made possible by the support of the province of New Brunswick and the City of Moncton.

The Sites

All of the works are permanently integrated in locations where Acadian artistic expression still resonates and offer an artistic itinerary through the city of Moncton. Some of these sites have been chosen by the curators for their contribution to the development of the arts and culture in Moncton, while others provided sites or locations to show works of art outside of the usual circuits. The itinerary thus creates a meaningful dialogue between the artwork and the site of its installation.

By following the proposed route, the public can also visit current exhibitions at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre, the Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen, Galerie Triangle of the Visual Arts Department at the Université de Moncton, and Resurgo Place, among other locations. Constantly renewed by parallel exhibitions, this public art itinerary offers a general overview of local artistic practices of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The Logo

Claude Roussel, Relief #7, 1967

The Images rémanentes logo is inspired by the overall theme of the exhibition. The new works of public art created for the project are connected to the history of art in Acadie. The logo precisely reflects this reaching out to the past: it is composed of a direct graphic transposition of a work by the artist Claude Roussel, Relief #7 (1967).

The logo is a deliberate nod to the work of an artist who played a decisive role in the genesis and flourishing of the visual arts in Acadie. Relief #7 was created in 1967, at a time when Roussel headed the Visual Arts Department at the Université de Moncton. That same year, he organized a major historic exhibition at the Université de Moncton’s Galerie d’art (today the Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen). This group exhibition, Sélection 67, presented recent developments in the practices of nine French-speaking New Brunswick artists with the goal of demonstrating the vitality of the artistic community in Acadie. Fifty years later, Images rémanentes offers the same kind of critical assessment by bringing together work from thirteen present-day artistic practices into the urban fabric of Moncton.

The formal aspects of Relief #7 are analogous with the dynamic conception of history permeating the works in Images rémanentes. The work’s superimposed shapes rotate with slight shifts, giving a cyclical motion to the composition. In this way, Relief #7 evokes the operations of recovery and transformation that are at the heart of Images rémanentes: echoes of the past still impact today’s artistic practices, like the ripples created by the impact of a stone cast into water.