Portrait of Louise Lemieux Bérubé,

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Louise Lemieux Bérubé is a 2024 winner of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.

Video directed by Alix Galdin.

A presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.

The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm’s-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) “to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts.”

For more information, visit: https://en.ggarts.ca

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Transcript:

I’m mostly known as a weaver. I greatly developed my skills, I taught a lot, but now it’s purely creation at any time of day. So, I weave, I print, and I paint on my woven fabric. I started getting interested in etching further to several years of Jacquard weaving.

I photographed dancers, I photographed people, I photographed landscapes that I transformed into Jacquard weaves. The images would appear as I was weaving. You need a fairly complex weaving loom, but I no longer have that loom. So, I have found another way to create images with my weaving, in my artistic work. But I love it. It’s like a new challenge; I need challenges.

I’m not someone who goes walking in the forest too much, but I like to choose a place… If there’s a seat, I’ll stay. I need to be surrounded. They’re not long walks, but it’s about being present in the forest. The trees are there and they’re there for a long time, they’re rooted. That’s what I want for myself: to be there for a long time, deeply rooted in my environment.

I realized, especially with my “Autour du monde” (around the world) exhibition and the connection I have with the artists I’ve met throughout my life, I go back and think about the dancers I’ve met. The community—the communication that comes with community, in a way—is very important to me. The live connection with people is very important. Maybe the forest, the trees, are also my more personal community, that enables me to find myself as well.

I’ve worked hard to have weaving recognized as an artistic technique, one that isn’t purely utilitarian. It was my internal battle of sorts—I didn’t speak of it, but it was about choosing weaving, what I know best, as a means to express my feelings and my perspective.

That may have been my professional battle as an artist: to say that I had chosen textile, that I did not disavow it or disavow fine craft. I’m a fine craft artist.

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