Night of Ideas – Facing our time
Blowing Hot and Cold: Climate Change and New Alliances

For its first Night of Ideas, the Canadian Cultural Centre invites the public on a journey to the extremes under the theme Blowing Hot and Cold: Climate Change and New Alliances. Through a narrative of exceptional experiences that take place in a research laboratory, in a stretch of the Arctic, or on a planetary scale, the themes of life and survival will be explored. Artists, researchers and entrepreneurs forge new alliances in which local knowhow (from the most ancient to the most innovative) and global issues are reconsidered in terms of ethics and a practice of exchange. Blowing Hot and Cold is a title that contains contradictions. It evokes encounter and tension, comfort or contraction, and, of course, the issue of climate change. Thanks to the over-exploitation of natural resources, which engenders critical imbalances. In particular those relating to water (which we will examine in all its states, from mist to pack ice, by way of parched and flooded lands). The projects evoked aim to view distant lands in a less idealized manner, to come into contact with their realities and to develop lasting partnerships based on recycling, minimal use of natural resources, proximity and exchange.

An event organized by the Canadian Cultural Centre,in partnership with Canada Goose and in collaboration with the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative of Cape Dorset (Nunavut).

Programme

5:30 pm – Screening of Watermark
A film by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky
2013 / 1 h 32 min / Canada

People tend to take the planet’s resources for granted. No exception to the rule, water is often thought of as unlimited. At a time of global warming and overconsumption, the documentary makers Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky examine our ways of consuming and exploiting the source of all life on Earth. From the premature drying up of vast expanses of water to the use of rivers as open sewers by many companies, Baichwal and Burtynsky paint a rather unnerving picture of these practices, which focus on immediate profit and do not always take into account long-term consequences.

Best Documentary, Canadian Media Awards 2014.

7:30 pm – Encounter: Sky Water

Alternatives Sources of Water, an Artistic and Scientific Collaboration

Water is the essence of every facet of life, and life without water would not exist. As a result of climate change, industrial agriculture and the proliferation of branded bottled water, water resources are diminishing at unprecedented speed. The Mist Collector project, a collaboration between artists and scientists (Ana Rewakowicz, Camille Duprat and Jean-Marc Chomaz), has addressed this problem by looking at an alternative method of collecting water from fog.

This panel will offer a reflection on the laborious journey awaiting humanity in the pursuit of water supplies and alert us to the necessity of creating a shared narrative that we can shape and imagine together.

Mist Collector is being developed in the context of the arts and sciences chair founded by the École Polytechnique, the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and the Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso. The first European chair of this kind, it has three key goals: to foster dialogue between art and the natural, human and social sciences so as to implement hybrid research and creative processes; to develop new ways of working together to produce new forms of knowledge concerning major societal issues; and to develop a shared project for a sustainable future by training students and researchers in complex modes of thinking.

Participants: Ana Rewakowicz is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on the increasing complexities surrounding environmental issues and water in particular. She is currently studying for a PhD in the arts and sciences at the École Polytechnique in Paris.

Annick Bureaud is an independent art critic, curator and event organizer, as well as a researcher and lecturer in art and technoscience. She is the director of Leonardo/Olats, the European sister organization of Leonardo/Isast.

Martine Le Bec edits the magazines Prospective stratégique and H2O.NET.

8:45 pm – Canada Goose Honours the North – Art, Culture and Environment in Canada’s North

Internationally renown parka brand, Canada Goose has been developing a Northern Impact Strategy, focused on culture and environment. As part of this strategy, the brand has initiated a number of programmes aimed at elevating their commitment to the Arctic North. In this session, panel members will discuss existing and new programmes under development including the long-standing partnership with Polar Bears International, aimed at slowing climate change and securing a future of polar bears in the arctic; The retail art programme that makes use of brick and mortar locations to present Canadian and Inuit art to an international audience; and Project Atigi, which combines the existing Resource Centre programme with a new initiative that engages northern sewers to interpret their traditional parka designs using Canada Goose materials with the goal of raising funds for Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national representational organization protecting and advancing the rights and interests of Inuit in Canada.

The panel will discuss the growing space where art, culture and environment intersect, the changing context for presenting cultural initiatives and the leadership role corporations are embracing therein.

Speakers:
Natalie MacNamara, Canada Goose curator.
Alysa McCall, director of conservation outreach and staff scientist for Polar bears International.
Pat Sherlock, President, International, Canada Goose

Moderator: Caitlin Workman, Director, Cultural Services, Embassy of Canada in France

10:00 pm – Encounter: Creativity Today in the Heart of the Polar Cold
The Exceptional Case of the Cape Dorset Community

This session will examine the rise of artistic activity in the Canadian Arctic by establishing a historical profile of the Inuit artistic community of Cape Dorset (Nunavut). It will shed light on the factors that have contributed to the international success of its singular art, produced in an extreme setting in constant transformation, where getting supplies in requires a daily effort. What are the challenges implied by the economic and social model of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative and by the local impact of global warming? The cooperative has been internationally renowned for 60 years for its production of engravings, drawings and sculptures by its Inuit artist members. In addition to its Kinngait Studios, the cooperative has an office in Toronto, Dorset Fine Arts, which manages its exchanges with galleries, museums, arts professionals, lovers of Inuit art and the global art market.

The session will take the form of an interview with a representative of Dorset Fine Arts who shares his time between Toronto, Cape Dorset and the international art scene to promote the artists of this exceptional creative community. This will be the occasion to talk about the new Kenojuak Cultural Centre, which aims to become a major centre for the production and exhibition of Inuit art and attract artists, collectors, curators and visitors from all over the world to Canada’s Far North.

Speakers:
William Huffman is a curator, arts administrator and art critic. Since 2016, he has promoted Inuit art internationally at Dorset Fine Arts in Toronto.

Catherine Bédard is curator of the exhibition programme and deputy director of the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris

From 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm, the Canada Goose Café will welcome visitors in a convivial space where they can meet and talk between sessions.