Closure activity

The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) describes the work of Francine Saillant and Fanny H-Lévy in these terms : « Between an art film and a documentary, Apparaître presents the meeting of users of alternative resources in community mental health who express themselves on their relationship to art and life. The topics covered are the intimate experience of art, the studio, and being with artists, as well as the perception of oneself as an artist. You will witness exchanges between professional artists and artists from different resources across Quebec on the relationship between art and madness. A participatory drawing device, travels through the experiences recounted »¹.

¹ Translated from French.

Francine Saillant is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at Université Laval and outgoing Director of the Centre de recherche Cultures-Arts-Sociétés (CÉLAT) (2009-2015). She was director of the journal Anthropologie et Sociétés for ten years (2000-2010). She has published, alone or in collaboration, nearly thirty books on various an­thropological themes. As a specialist in the anthropology of human rights, she conducts research on discrimination based on the idea of race or linked to the social construction of differences. She is interested in the various uses and interpretations of the notions of justice and rights. She is a member of several national and international research networks and collaborates with various civil society organizations related to intercultural dialogue and recognition. She is a member of several scientific organizations, including the Royal Society of Canada and an emeritus member of the Canadian Anthropology Society. Finally, she participates in the work of the committee of the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures of Unesco and participates as an anthropologist and artist in networks on art and anthropology as a documentarian and artist.

Visual artist Fanny H-Levy holds a Master’s degree in visual arts from Paris- Sorbonne (2006) and received a Master’s degree in visual arts from Laval University in 2020 as well as several recognition awards. She is at the origin of polymorphic creations, cultural medi­ations (2016-2020) and participatory drawing devices presented in different contexts in Montreal and Quebec City. Her voluntarily simple drawing practice values the uniqueness of the creative process and seeks to create an art space that infiltrates public and community space. Her other artistic contributions are coaching in the mental health field (since 2014), art direction and film­making on art. In 2019, she co-directed with artist-anthropologist Francine Saillant the series of films Créateurs de liens (MNBAQ, Maison pour la danse, cinéma Cartier, La Fabrique cultur­elle). The two filmmakers collaborated again on the film Apparaître, in which the action of art on well-being is the main focus (broadcast in 2021).

Mona Trudel is a professor at UQAM’s School of Visual and Media Arts since 1999 and holds the UQAM Research Chair for the Development of Innovative Practices in Art, Culture, and Well-being. She simultaneously pursues two fields of research: artistic and pedagogical practices with a social purpose in the community with vulnerable and marginalized people and the integration of the intercultural and inclusive dimension in the visual arts classroom. Her interest in the transformative aspects of art echoes her university teaching practice at all lev­els. She is currently co-authoring a follow-up book to the research La contribution de l’art au rétablissement et à l’inclusion sociale de personnes marginalisées (SSHRC-2016-2019) involving women researchers in the arts, urban psychiatry and addiction medicine. She is a member of the research group ArtEspaceSocial.

Ève Lamoureux is a professor in the Department of Art History at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Her research focuses on art and politics, particularly on engaged art, community arts and cultural mediation. She is a member of the Centre de recherche Cultures – Arts – Sociétés (CELAT), the Observatoire des médiations culturelles (OMEC) and the ArtEspaceSocial research group. She has recently co-edited the following books: with Francine Saillant, Noémie Maignien and Fanny H.-Lévy, Médiation culturelle, musées, publics diversifiés. Guide pour une expérience inclusive (Écomusée du fier monde, 2021); with Julie Paquette and Emmanuelle Sirois, Arts. Entre libertés et scandales. Études de cas (Nota Bene, 2020), with Francine Saillant, InterReconnaissance. La mémoire des droits dans le milieu communautaire au Québec (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2018); with Magali Uhl, Le vivre-ensemble à l’épreuve des pratiques culturelles et artistiques contemporaines (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2018), and with Nathalie Casemajor, Marcelle Dubé, Jean-Marie Lafortune, Expériences critiques de la médiation culturelle (Presses de l’Université Laval, 2017).

Lourdès Rodriguez del Barrio is a titular professor at the School of Social Work of the Université de Montréal. She is the director of the Action-Research Team in Mental Health and Culture (ÉRASME) and the International Research Alliance University-Com­munity Mental Health and Citizenship (ARUCI-SMC). She is also the Scientific Director of Social Research at CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’île-de-Montréal (NIM). Her research program focuses on the development of alternative practices in mental health and is based on the experience of the people concerned in order to understand suffering, exclusion and strategies for coping, as well as their relationship to politics and citizenship. Her work is coupled with a critical reflection on qualitative methods in action research and in pluralistic and formative evaluation. She led the working group on the quality of mental health services in the community of the Comité de la santé mentale du Québec. The result of her work (Rethinking the Quality of Services in the Com­munity: Changing Perspectives) was nominated for the AGIDD-SMQ Orange Prize.