Culture pour tous

L’Écart: A Gold Mine for Arts and Culture
in Rouyn-Noranda

According to Matthieu Dumont, artistic coordinator of the artist-run centre L’Écart, in recent years culture has played a growing role in the development of Rouyn-Noranda, a mining town in northwestern Quebec, near the Ontario border, 600 km from Montreal.

There has been a surge in cultural activities, whose success extends beyond the region itself. These new activities, such as the Festival du DocuMenteur, the Emerging Music Festival, the Biennale d’art performatif organized by L’Écart and the Festival des guitares du monde, add diversity, innovation and quality to the cultural offering. It was no doubt the Festival du cinéma international en Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the vibrant venue offered by Le Théâtre du cuivre under Jacques Matte that spearheaded this cultural affirmation and regional mobilization.

Emergence of a cultural district in Vieux-Noranda

L’Écart is located in the area known as Vieux-Noranda, the working-class neighbourhood that grew up on the shores of Osisko Lake near the old copper mine in the 1920s. Other cultural organizations are also concentrated in this district, including the Cabaret de la dernière chance, Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux-Noranda and the Agora des arts, a performing arts space created in the former Église Notre-Dame. Many nearby stores add to the quality of life in the neighbourhood. The municipal government recognizes Vieux-Noranda as a cultural district and supports this consolidation through political, financial and concrete measures. This has encouraged a number of organizations to purchase buildings in Vieux-Noranda, including L’Écart, which inaugurated its premises in March 2011, after a three-year effort to acquire the building where it had been based for close to 20 years.

L’Écart has been at the forefront of the current arts scene in Abitibi-Témiscamingue since 1992. It is an artist-run centre that puts on visual arts exhibitions, offers artist residencies, acts as a publisher and organizes interdisciplinary events like the Biennale d’art performatif. Its parent organization, the Centre des artistes en arts visuels de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue (CAAVAT), was the offshoot of a painting symposium held in Rouyn-Noranda in 1989. The artists’ desire to have an exhibition space resulted in L’Écart not long after.

Sustainable land use

In the old building that now belongs to CAAVAT, L’Écart has three galleries: two main ones and a smaller, glass-fronted one facing the street. L’Écart is also a social economy enterprise that rents out six artist studios and office space for two festivals (Emerging Music and DocuMenteur) as well as eight 3½-room apartments for various tenants, including one for visiting artists or artists in residence.

L’Écart also has adjacent commercial space which it rents to another organization, Sédiments actifs, which manages Espace Noranda, a multi-purpose venue (studios, dance, theatre, launches, etc.).

The complex process involved in purchasing the building was shouldered by Geneviève Crépeau, L’Écart’s project manager, a member of its board of directors since 1998 and Matthieu’s partner in the music/performance duo known as Geneviève et Matthieu. The pair are also co-directors of the Biennale d’art performatif de Rouyn-Noranda, which held its fifth edition in October 2010.

Matthieu Dumont’s involvement in L’Écart dates back to 2000, when he became a volunteer and then a contract employee of the artist-run centre. He has been its coordinator since 2005, when he oversaw TRAFIC Inter/nationale d'art actuel en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, a multidisciplinary event that was initiated by the centre and held in different performance and exhibition venues throughout the region. In addition to L’Écart’s galleries, the artists used a church, a hotel, the roadside, a pool hall, and even an abandoned house in Malartic, which has since been demolished to make way for a gigantic open-pit mine.

In spreading its activities throughout Abitibi-Témiscamingue, L’Écart demonstrated its desire to “treat the territory as an asset,” as stated in the organization’s general orientations. Dumont uses the word “intrusion” when describing certain activities conducted during TRAFIC. In referring more generally to L’Écart’s work, he speaks instead of proximity.

“We promote close relations at all levels – with the public, the private sector and the municipal authorities,” he says. “That seems to be easier in the regions because everyone knows everyone. Through the Centre local de développement (CLD) or the city’s culture committee, we participate in joint committees with other active members of the community, entrepreneurs, elected officials, municipal employees or other representatives of organizations like us, and we discuss strategies to improve the quality of life and development of the city. In a region like ours, that is far from urban centres like Montreal or Quebec City, if we want something, we have to get together and organize it. That’s the key to success. We’re far away so we have to do it ourselves.”

“At L’Écart, we also work hard at educating the public. When planning events, we try to create happenings to get people to come. We invite the artists to give a talk, to present their work at the vernissage. We forge partnerships with the local media, like Radio-Canada, the weekly La Frontière, or L’Indice bohemien, which covers cultural news in the region. We want to attract a diverse audience to our activities.”

Working together for a vibrant economy and culture

Beyond the dynamism of L’Écart and its promoters is a broad-based desire in the community to contribute to Rouyn-Noranda’s vibrant economic and cultural development. In 2012, the city will host the annual meetings of the Les Arts et la Ville network and the Regroupement des centres d’artistes autogérés du Québec (RCAAQ). It is also competing for the designation of Cultural Capital of Canada for 2012 and is eagerly awaiting the announcement of the winner in the fall of 2011. Over 40 activities proposed by the local arts community are listed in support of its application.

All these efforts to promote arts and culture have resulted in a cultural gold rush for Rouyn-Noranda!