In 1972, the group Transition, composed of ten students from the Université du Québec à Montréal and the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal, organized the Sculpture Symposium as part of the Festival d’été de Longueuil. Parc Duvernay, renamed Parc Fernand-Bouffard in 1986 and located in the Vieux-Longueuil neighbourhood, was chosen as the site where the work would be displayed. The symposium also included a cultural activities component. The team was made up of ten sculptors (Claude-Paul Gauthier, François-Xavier Cloutier, Denis Désîlets, Daniel Gagné, Honorata Jarnuszkiewicz, Régis Pelletier, Michel Pedneault, Alain Pitre, Michel Racine and Jacques Viens) three hosts (Marie-Claude Chénier, Lucie Daoust and Serge Jacob) and two planners (Roger Otis and Agathe Boivin), all of whom were students. This regional symposium was financed by the city and by the Perspectives-Jeunesse project. Over the years, the pieces from the symposium deteriorated, due largely to inadequate maintenance on the part of the City of Longueuil, the owner of the pieces. For example, several structural modifications were made to the sculptures that did not respect the artists’ approaches. Two of them even disappeared. François-Xavier Cloutier’s sculpture was relocated to Parc Georges-Dor (Longueuil). In 2003, construction work at the park was carried out, and the pieces, with the exception of the piece by Jacques Viens, were adequately restored and reinstalled elsewhere in the city.
References: Serge Fisette, Symposiums de sculpture au Québec 1964-1997, Montreal, Centre de Diffusion 3D, 1997, p. 42.
