AUTOBIOGRAPHIE COLLECTIVE
As is the case with human cells, each interpersonal interaction is unique, but those separate events are what allows for individual growth in society. That perspective seems to create a parallel between cellular and human interactions, and underlines their importance and necessity for symbiosis.
Nicole Haché’s installation, Autobiographie collective/Collective autobiography (2019), is imprinted with her reflection and sensibility towards those interpersonal relations and the meaning of a collective symbiosis.
Her work celebrates diversity and brings one to reflect on the important role each of us plays in society.
(See complete artistic process below.)
Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton (NB) (photo credit: Mathieu Léger)
Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton (NB) (photo credit: Mathieu Léger)
Galerie Bernard-Jean, Caraquet (NB)
Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton (NB) (photo credit: Mathieu Léger)
The installation Autobiographie collective (Collective autobiography) was created during an intercultural creation residency that brought together artists from New Brunswick’s three main cultural backgrounds. The travelling residency made stops in three communities: Metepenagiag (First Nations), Caraquet (Francophone), and Saint John (Anglophone).
Autobiographie collective is part of the exhibition Elisgenooasig; Entre : Croiser, Lacer, Lier; Inter: Fuse, Lace, Relate, created during the residency. The three artists’ works are displayed and provoke conversations about shared experiences while immerging oneself in another community.
For this installation project, Nicole Haché pushed herself to develop an artistic methodology that was based on laboratory procedures. She wanted to examine the imperceptible links of human connections in society through the lens of a microscope looking at the human body’s cellular life.
A long time ago, Nicole worked as a medical lab technician, and she now circles back with this artistic process that merges histology and art, technical knowledge and creativity. Her old textbook and samples, showed in the exhibition, tell the story of her medical background and share her personal archives. Masson’s trichrome, used in laboratories for cell coloration, becomes a color-scale inspiration. The originality of Nicole’s process directly reflects her lab work and fuses her scientific and artistic studies.
In every community, Nicole met people and took pictures of them. These photographs became data points and the basis of her artistic research, but were mostly a pretext for her to meet, talk and interact with the communities’ populations.
Nicole Haché’s installation, Autobiographie collective, is imprinted with her experience and sensibility towards human relations and speaks of the importance of a collective symbiosis, while also celebrating diversity.
This exhibition was curated by the 3E Collective, namely Emilie Grace Lavoie, Emma Hassencahl-Perley, and Erin Goodine. The project was supported by the financial contribution of the Province of New Brunswick, ArtsLink NB, the Association acadienne des artistes professionnel.le.s du Nouveau-Brunswick (AAAPNB), Mawi’art: Wabanaki Artist Collective, the Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation, the Saint John Arts Centre, and the Metepenagiag Heritage Park.