Nicole DEXTRAS
www.nicoledextras.com

Home Style Apples
A skirt/house made out of apples around a tree trunk. 
One can enter on all fours in order to have the inner experience of the enchanting natural world of the orchard's. The tree flaunts its appley beauty and creates a shelter for our soul.

Stacy LEVY
www.stacylevy.com

BlueGrass
A blue line imprints a flow path onto the orchard floor. Small blue clumps follow the movements of the wind and evoke the flow of water in the underground space. While the components are dry, plastic, and often used in construction, the work demonstrates the presence of natural forces on the site.

André BOISVERT
www.andreboisvert.ca

Epurarium
In the Middle Ages, after the ravages of the plague, all kinds of devices appeared in order to improve water quality. The most effective of these was invented by a French botanist by the name of Chênevert who had the good sense to incorporate coal and peat moss into the funnel of the vessel; the first filter was born.

Later, the addition of fern roots and camphor raised his invention to the medical level. At the time, every good apothecary needed his own Epurarium. Of this invention were born medicinal waters and later elixirs.

David MOORE

Artery #4
Ulysses is not dead.
Ulysses never made it to Ithaca.
Ulysses travels now and forever.

My proposal is the transformation of our visual habits by a shaken perception: this is not an ecological statement. I introduce a surprise element to the forest. I am fascinated by the formal issues of direction, energy, colour, continuity and discontinuity of the ship line. But also, this is a metaphor, my little iconoclastic gesture vis-à-vis the first Land art practitioners who had little interest in this possibility. Here, the 225 small and vulnerable pages torn from a copy of The Odyssey are the real engine of transformation of the pinewood space, especially with the energizing red (arteries) of the ships.

Pages become sails, boats directional arrows. Everything changes by thinking about this text. The forest, black, mysterious, silent, gloomy, threatening depending on the light... gradually becomes full of vague emotions, an almost painful nostalgia.

Luce PELLETIER
www.lucepelletier.com

Fleece
With my visual creations, I suggest associations between the forms and structures of living things: human and vegetal. And I try to increase our awareness of the fragility of life and the necessity of maintaining a harmonious relationship with nature. In the orchard, I decided to work close to deer. I want to take advantage of their daily presence to develop hybrid forms that evoke both the animal and plant kingdoms. 

My creations foster a kind of dialogue with the location. Thus, the project that I propose will take shape day-by-day in situ, because the location is, in my opinion, an essential component in the development of the concept. A track, since one is needed, the title "fleece". Fleece refers to what I have seen while visiting the orchard: diversity in tree bark; animal pelts; carpets of leaves and pine needles; apples...

I intend to continue my reflection on these deep ties that bind us. The balance of ecosystems depends on the harmonious duel between the living things and the elements that make up the landscape. Through my work, I offer an intimate look at nature in order to capture at best our identity.

Michael MCGILLIS
www.michaelmcgillis.com

Seigneurial Chandelier 
I have a keen interest in our relationship with nature, and in the relative position we occupy in our environment. Modern digital portals like Google Earth make us almost omniscient, a phenomenon unique to our era and extremely revealing. I am drawn to the beautiful complexity of the marks carved into the landscape, such as the ravages of insects that eat the leaves off trees. The consumption patterns are driven by instinct, culture, impulse... all natural. 

In Québec, the seigneurial system has left an indelible mark on the landscape. This is the legacy of a cultural hierarchy imprinted onto the landscape and easily visible from the sky. I am interested in these unique signatures left on the ground and how these modes of land use continue to dictate their influence.

Jolanta SPRAWKA

Water Memory
For two years I have worked with cellophane which I explore in different ways by creating in situworks, primarily in water. This is therefore the continuation of my approach with this flexible and translucent natural material, which beautifully captures light. I chose the pond for my project because of its appearance and its particular location; a little bit out of the way, bordered by various plants and old willows, the surface entirely covered with algae. It creates an intimacy that provided me with a guideline. 

For this project Water Memory, I created several elements with simple forms that could suggest the first life forms. I placed them on the surface of the pond so that they float freely in the breeze and appear light and intangible. I would like to invite the viewer to reflect on what life represents in all its forms, on its unknown aspects and its relationship with evolution, ecology and humans.

Linda SWANSON

Pommes de la terre (Earth Apples)
We know that the apple tree takes water, earth and the sun's energy to create an apple. Yet the process of the apple coming into being is still somewhat mysterious. I am interested in the way one thing becomes another and the ability of materials in our world to transform.

In the orchard, I planned to reproduce apples with ingredients like the trees use. I started with the local clay that contains both water and earth. To this I added the energy of a wood fire in round pits in the ground. Making these apples was an attempt to tap into the mystery of metamorphosis. Visitors to the orchard were invited to partake by picking an apple.

Olivier LEFEBVRE
www.olivierlefebvre.com

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

W. Gary SMITH

Against the Grid
Food production being an industrial activity, the dominant shape in agriculture is the grid. This geometric pattern - a sequence of repeating lines and squares - is the product of machines, rather than human hands. Orchards are configured in grids, because this arrangement of trees provides improved agricultural productivity. With Against the Grid, I insert organic curves made of apple tree branches to contrast with the regular grid formed by the fruit trees, thus raising questions about the traces left by human hands compared with traces of the industrial machine.

IN COLLABORATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF SHERBROOKE

Pedro MENDONÇA

Apple Trees in Osmosis
In its broadest sense, the word harmony traditionally refers to one of the four components of music - the other three being rhythm, melody and timbre.

For Apple trees in osmosis, harmony emerges from the deliberate use of simultaneous frequencies, in order to give prominence and depth to the work: it therefore represents the vertical aspect of the work while the melody will represent the horizontal aspect. 

The timbre will be provided by the vivacity and spontaneity of the In Situ, Live experience.

Carrefour des Arts

Apple-timers
Deposited on bouquets of branches, small leaf beds are crossed by artistically modified apples that roll and tumble. They seem eager to take the coloured path that leads to the seasonal dial and mark the time. Timeless apples associated with autumn festivals and masquerades disguised by workers fiddling with art!