(from left to right) Alain Dubuc, Mayor of Beauharnois, Marc Brunet, photographer, Carole Leblanc, Le Marché en Vrac, Jean-Philippe Ménard, photographer, Marie-Pier Béland, Le Marché en Vrac and Maude Carrière, photographer. (Photo: The Sun – Jules Gauthier)
The City of Beauharnois has found an original way to promote its merchants while offering a showcase of choice to its local photographers. This meeting of photographic art and the business world led to the exhibition Art-Affair at the Beauharnois library.
This project was a way of forcing the meeting between two worlds which, a priori, do not have much in common, namely photography and entrepreneurship, explained Anne Bouthillier, acting director of leisure, culture and community life of the City of Beauharnois.
“The photographers were paired with entrepreneurs from Ellice Street for the creation of an intimate photo, allowing everyone to discover the merchants from a new angle,” said the City.
Indeed, this exercise allowed the photographers to bring out the personality, tastes and values of the entrepreneurs. They then worked together in order to find a particular angle and to be able to produce “a speaking work”, explained Ms. Bouthillier.
This resulted in six photographs and an explanatory text printed on canvases which were placed throughout the library.
A formative experience
Marc Brunet, a mechanical engineer by profession, took part in this project. An amateur photographer for a few years, the Beauharlinois has been given the task of magnifying Carole Leblanc and Marie-Pier Béland, the mother-daughter duo who own the Marché en Vrac, a delicatessen and a coffee shop.
“We had a first meeting to get to know each other and we decided on the concept as well as the place where we were going to do the shooting; the goal was really to bring out the person behind the entrepreneur,” revealed Mr. Brunet.
The trio finally opted for a three-hour photoshoot inside the store. “They are warm people. We feel at home in their shop, that’s what I wanted to show in my image,” said the photographer.
The latter was charmed by this experience and believes that it encouraged him to persevere in photography.
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A second edition
Seeing the success of this first edition, the City of Beauharnois decided to do it again by proposing the “Entrepreneur caught on the spot” project. Substantially similar, this second edition will allow photographers to create a work that will summarize, in a single shot, the daily life of a local entrepreneur, explained the City.
The exhibition dates are not yet known. Interested persons can communicate with the City of Beauharnois via their website.
The exhibition Art-Affair is presented at the Beauharnois library until Thursday, April 20, 2023.
