A Taste for Enduring
“A Taste for Enduring germinated during my first experience as a thanatopractitioner. I traveled to Douglastown to arrange the church basement according to the last wishes of a woman who wished to have her viewing in her home village. Struck by the versatility and appearance of this enormous basement, which served as a community hall, I made a note of indicators of the functions associated with the place and decided to undertake a photographic narrative there. I returned to Douglastown in the fall of 2019 to take hold of those indicators with the point of view that characterizes my photographic work, and I used this material to ‘relate’ an inspired, living and singular story.
“Newcomers (annual and seasonal) came to settle in the Gaspé and imbued their new region with diverse customs and cultures. In Douglastown, those encounters between tradition and innovation, heritage and modernity, disorientation and familiarity, are palpable. New sociocultural and economic practices took root, interweaving with an existing and heterogeneous cultural heritage. In taking over that church basement, in flooding it with a tangible feeling of belonging, this community asserts its identity. It is precisely that resolve that interests me. I turned up traces of collective and group activities that took place there so that the sense of community persists. Without seeking to document the appearance of the places, I allow that resolve to be seen, or ‘read,’ in a poetic manner.” ‒ Judith Bellavance
Having first worked as a painter, Judith Bellavance has always been interested in the details and materiality of objects. In focusing on them, she brought her experience as a painter to the photography that she practices. Her photographic work is the result of a process that consists in collecting, archiving and then bringing closer, to finally show and relate both at once.
The artist is fascinated by everything that escapes us: memory, sensations, ability… So she did studies in thanatology in the spring of 2019 and since then has been working in a funeral home at the same time as doing her creative work. The funeral complex laboratory became a neighbor to the artist’s studio. That closeness opens the doors for her to numerous rituals that she can explore and invent, something reflected in her creative work, itself further fueled every day by her thinking about otherness, about loss, about absence and about desire.
Judith Bellavance earned a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Université Laval in Québec City. Her work has been supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts, and can be found in several public and private collections.
Judith Bellavance at Forillon National Park
Exhibition
A Taste for Enduring
Grande-Grave Heritage Site | Forillon National Park
Judith Bellavance, Montreal, Québec | judithbellavance.com
