Artist Alyson Champ is partnering with the Livestock Breeders Association of the district of Beauharnois (LBA) to present her latest art installation, Étalement/Sprawl, during the LBA Fall Rib Festival at the fairgrounds in Ormstown from September 20-22.
As a visual exploration of urban sprawl and its impact on the agricultural land, Étalement will offer festivalgoers a unique opportunity to engage with contemporary art in a space traditionally devoted to celebrating rural life.
Champ says her latest installation was inspired by changes she was seeing in local landscapes where agricultural lands abruptly meet with box stores and subdivisions. It follows on the heels of her previous installation, Marginal Lands, which questioned how we value rural landscapes.
While she was driving around scouting landscapes, Champ says she noticed changes at the intersections between agricultural areas and urban development. “The spaces were visually interesting to me because they weren’t pretty, but they were intriguing in strange ways. The more I looked at them, the stranger they got,” she explains.
Inspired, she began to think about how best to visually express these ideas. Then, one day while half watching a random awards show, she saw someone walk onstage in front of a series of screens. “I thought, ‘Oh, there it is’,” she explains, and the main premise of Étalement was born.
The installation features a 2.3-metre-high by 4.3-metre-long folding screen that combines sculpture, painting, and assemblage to depict agricultural versus developed landscapes. Accompanying this are twelve detailed charcoal drawings that delve into the intersection of farmland and urban sprawl. The scenes were inspired by landscapes observed in six communities, including Saint-Urbain, Sainte-Martine, Saint-Etienne-de-Beauharnois, Ormstown, and Howick.
Champ says that as an artist, it is important to make artwork that creates a meaningful experience for people and that resonates locally. She also believes in breaking barriers to contemporary art by bringing her installations directly to the community. Champ is hoping the timing of the exhibition with the LBA festival will open the installation to an even wider audience.
Supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), the Ministère des Affaires municipals et de l’Habitation (MAMH), the MRC du Haut-Saint-Laurent, the LBA, and other private donors, the vernissage for Étalement will take place at 4 p.m. the Expo Ormstown Dining Hall on September 20.
The installation will then move to Huntingdon, where it will close out the 2024 season at the Salle Culturelle Alfred-Langevin from November 10 to December 8.