L'Acadie mythique - Saint Mary's Art Gallery, Halifax NS

MARIO DOUCETTE, Le génocide des Micmacs en Nouvelle-Écosse (Cornwallis) - étude, 2015

September 12 - November 15
Opening reception : Friday, September 11, 2015
curator : Harlan Johnson

L'Acadie mythique brings together 20 artists from across diasporic Acadie - from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Maine, Québec and Louisiana - in a conversation about the meanings of historical artifacts, both material and immaterial, and about how such objects, images, rituals and ideas are deployed to constitute a mythical identity for Acadians. It invites artists to explore how we might reinterpret and reinvent such mythologies to broaden the scope of what is imaginable, and thus possible, for Acadians in the here and now. Curator Harlan Johnson selected objects in Acadian and Cjun community museums and archives and invited artists to respond to them in whatever way they chose, restricted only by material parameters that allow the works to be shipped between regions and across an international border. Responses range from a direct engagement with a specific obkect, or with motifs or ideas derived from a class of objects, to a more free and general engagement with mythology and identity in an Acadian context.

Participating artists : Steve Breaux, Kathy Reed Mary Perrin, Denise Comeau, François Gaudet, Donnalee Downe, Becka Viau, Alisa Arsenault, Rebecca Belliveau, Rémi Belliveau, Paul Édouard Bourque, Mario Doucette, Yvon Gallant, Vicky Lentz, Christian Michaud, Ronald Ed Nadeau, Carol Pelletier, Thérèse L. Provenzano and Cheryle St-Onge.

Saint Mary's University Art Gallery
Loyola Building
5865 Gorsebrook Ave.
Halifax, NS