The Sculpture Symposium in Matane took place in the Parc des Îles on the Matane River in 1975. Two professors from the Cégep de Matane, Firmin Firquet and Guy Mercier, began the initiative. The event was financially supported by the city (owner of the artwork), the Cégep de Matane, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec. The symposium took the form of a competition and received over 120 submissions, among which twenty were selected by a jury composed of Jordi Bonet, Firmin Firquet, Michel Hébert, Germain Lefebvre and Pierre Théberge. The models of the twenty selected proposals were then exhibited at the Cégep de Matane’s art gallery where they would be submitted to a popular vote. More than 800 votes were collected and seven proposals accepted: those of Quebec natives Delphis Bélanger, Jean Bélanger, Pierre-Roland Dinel, André Geoffroy, Jacques Huet and Lisette Lemieux, as well as Belgian artist Albin Courtois. A cultural and artistic activities program called “Sauvage Katpat” was developed to coincide with the symposium. This program offered things like exhibitions, theatre, singing, jazz, artisanal workshops and creation workshops for children. In an article from Le Jour (May 24, 1975), journalist Jean-Claude Leblond wrote that the artists of the rejected proposals sought to organize their own sculpture symposium. Director Vice Pelletier shot a short film of 24m 30s on the event entitled Ce que gens pensent (1976).
Reference: Serge Fisette, Symposiums de sculpture au Québec 1964-1997, Montreal, Centre de Diffusion 3D, 1997, p. 43-45.
Symposium de sculpture de Matane (1975)
Lisette Lemieux, Sculpture modulaire, 1975. Fibre de verre. 1,2 x 3,6 x 1,2 m. Photo : Pierre Gagné
