This text is part of the special Culture Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean notebook
Far from major urban centers, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean is a unique cultural hub where several local artists flourish. It is also possible to complete a complete academic path in the arts, from primary school to university, without having to go into exile elsewhere in Quebec. Portrait of a region where culture is booming.
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean allows artists to use their creativity, both during their studies and once they arrive on the job market. Thus, from primary school, they can begin an arts-studies course at the La Pulperie school, located in Chicoutimi. At the secondary level, the Normandin high school offers music-studies and dance concentration programs; the Wilbrod-Dufour pavilion in Alma, the dance-studies option; the versatile Jean-Dolbeau at Dolbeau-Mistassini, the performing arts profile; the versatile Arvida, artistic concentrations.
They are then encouraged to explore several distinct specialties. And this, from college studies, where the DEC in arts, letters and communication is notably offered with a multidisciplinary option from the Cégep de St-Félicien. “This program offers students the possibility of touching on several disciplines”, which they involves cinema, theater, literature, art history and communication, explains Johanne Vallée, literature teacher at CEGEP St-Félicien.
Areas that make it easy to transfer knowledge from one subject to another, believes the woman who also coordinates the establishment’s Department of French, Arts and Letters. “What students learn in theater to create a character, the vocabulary, will be reused in literature,” she illustrates.
This marriage of techniques also continues in the interdisciplinary baccalaureate in arts at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (UQAC), offered since 1999. “Interdisciplinarity is the meeting of the arts. We invite the disciplines to come together,” summarizes Mathieu Valade, interim director of the UQAC Arts Teaching Unit. Thus, students from four distinct paths — digital arts, visual arts, cinema and video, theater — are grouped into a common core. There they learn digital and media practices, such as photography and video, and have courses aimed at giving them an artistic culture. “We have classes where they will be invited to create works together, between people from different backgrounds. And this, precisely to invite them to this meeting of disciplines, illustrates the man who is also a professor at the establishment and himself an artist. Theater students will work with people who do installation, for example. »
Those who wish can also enroll in the master’s degree in art, lasting three years. “They are really there to develop these reflective bases in their practices,” adds Mr. Valade.
Many collaborations
The regional context also allows the birth of collaborations between different artists, believes Mr. Valade. “There is a particular color. Saguenay is still a place where there is a lot of creativity. Some say that it is the third creative hub in Quebec, he explains. This is perhaps due to the fact that we are far enough from the major centers for there to be an independent artistic and cultural life. »
He gives as an example the artist Carl Bouchard — who notably develops installations with the Montrealer Martin Dufrasne — or the visual artist Magali Baribeau-Marchand, who works on installation sculpture, photography and video. “These are people who were trained here and who have this posture. But not all the artists who study here are necessarily interdisciplinary,” says Mr. Valade.
This is, however, the case of Chantale Boulianne, who works in particular in the visual arts and experimental music. With her studies at UQAC and the Chicoutimi Music Conservatory, she has, among other things, collaborated as a duo with the artist Sara Létourneau to create new musical instruments. “In this project, I designed a giant bellows. This instrument works with pipes and you can connect different sound objects to it. We also have inflatable elements and we can make sounds with different tips. All of this is done in a performative way in live arts on stage,” she describes.
The one who also works as a scenographer and who makes animated films in her personal capacity is used to partnerships with other artists. “We are always looking to find someone who will complement us, who will bring a different aspect to the ideas we have and that we want to put together,” she explains.
This exercise is carried out by sharing the stages of the project from A to Z. “I often work in collaborations where the artists also participate in the tasks of others, even if it is not their specialty. So, there are a lot of encounters with others,” describes M.me Boulianne.
Stay in the region
The fact that the regional cultural scene is so vibrant also allows artists to resist the urge to move to large urban centers. Some young people arrive from all over Quebec to perfect their art in the region. “I come from Montérégie and, when I promote programs, I go all over Quebec, I tour the CEGEPs. Our main basin is Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, certainly. But there is also Charlevoix, the North Shore and even Bas-Saint-Laurent, where we traditionally have a lot of students,” observes Mr. Valade.
Chantal Boulianne agrees. “For me, it’s possible and I’ve been doing it for 25 years. I work equally in visual arts, performance, music and theater,” she emphasizes.
According to Mr. Valade, students choose the region in order to reside in a less urbanized area while still being able to benefit from comprehensive training. “We can have careers, have exhibitions in Europe, the United States, in major centers around the world and live here, in Saguenay. But there is also the possibility of working and staying in Saguenay. We have all the networking and communication tools to do it. »
Study on the territory
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