Nadine Valcin: Origines

September 11–December 7, 2024
Media Wall
Curator: Gaëlle Morel

In Origines, Toronto-based artist Nadine Valcin compiles and reassembles footage from À Tout Prendre (Take It All, 1963), an autobiographical film by Quebec director Claude Jutra. The film explores the quest for identity of a Black francophone woman, played by Jutra's former partner, Montreal-born actress and model Johanne Harrelle, in Canada.

Origines is a reflection on Blackness and belonging as specifically experienced by Harrelle, but also in the broader context of the implicit whiteness of Canadian society. This dual-channel installation offers a delicate and complex portrait of a woman featured simultaneously as an entertainer, lover, and fashion model.

Presented in partnership with Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Sudbury.

Produced during an artist residency at Library and Archives Canada (research project for Archive/Counter Archive), with the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Film footage from À tout prendre by Claude Jutra (1963) courtesy of Cinémathèque Québécoise, Montreal.

Public Programs

Exhibition Tour: Nadine Valcin
Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024
6 p.m.

Exhibition Partners

Fig.

Nadine Valcin, Origines, double-channel video (French, with English subtitles), 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

Fig.

Nadine Valcin, Origines, double-channel video (French, with English subtitles), 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

Bios

Nadine Valcin

Nadine Valcin (Canada, b. 1965) is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, and writer of
Haitian descent whose documentary and fictional work investigates questions of identity and language. Her documentary projects have been presented in Canada on CBC, CBC News Network, and TFO, among other broadcasting networks. Valcin has directed four documentary projects for the National Film Board of Canada, including the critically acclaimed Black, Bold and Beautiful: Black Women’s Hair (1999) and Une école sans frontières (A School Without Borders, 2008). Valcin was artist-in-residence at Osgoode Hall Law School and Library and Archives Canada through the research project Archive/Counter-Archive. She has been awarded numerous grants and prizes, including two Chalmers Arts Fellowships from the Ontario Arts Council (2005, 2016). Valcin is currently a professor in the Bachelor of Film and Television program at Sheridan College, Oakville.

Gaëlle Morel

Gaëlle Morel has been the Exhibitions Curator at The Image Centre since 2010, during which time she has curated dozens of exhibitions and written and edited numerous publications. Her latest projects include Stories from the Picture Press: Black Star Publishing Co. & The Canadian Press; Mary Ellen Mark: Ward 81; and Lee Miller, a Photographer at Work (1932-1945). In 2009, Morel was the guest curator of the photography biennial, Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal. She is currently an instructor in the Film + Photography Preservation and Collections Management graduate program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Morel holds a PhD in the History of Contemporary Photography from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Installation Shots