Encounters 2021

When the Musée d’art de Joliette invited her to create work based on the collection, Desjardins turned to the Musée’s staff members and their inherent curiosity to provide the spark for her artistic process; delegating, so to speak, the task of making the initial gesture for her new body of work. The participants selected and described several objects from the collection, which Desjardins responded to by creating twelve works that were conceived as a series of conversations. By doing so, she insists on making collaboration a central element of her process. This body of work takes roots in the transposition that stemmed from her interpretation of each description, her exploration of the materiality of the chosen objects, and her research on the artists behind these works. It was also informed by her interest in revealing little-known aspects of the collection, namely the storage of art works in the museum’s vaults, thus drawing attention to the constant care they require. — Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre