BY VIRGINIE HAMEL
Once again this year, the cultural sector of the Association franco-yukonnaise (AFY), in cooperation with École Émilie-Tremblay, is hosting an exhibition of visual arts with multimedia presentations, which will focus on students’ creativity.
It is an opportunity to raise awareness of visual arts among young people.
To this end, the AFY youth branch and Émilie-Tremblay school held a Day of Arts and Culture, in March, in which the students could explore artistic worlds of their choice.
To mark the occasion, local Francophone artists hosted workshops in their area of specialty: sewing and dressmaking with Marie Boucher, cartoons and comics drawing with David Samson, watercolour painting with Virginie Hamel, photography with Tony Aird, clay mask making with Yvette Bourque and collage with Geneviève Bordages.
“The youth were very attentive from the start to the end of the workshop and with a hunger to create,” says David Samson, who taught a drawing course of various basic techniques used in observational drawing, outline of human face and body.
The purpose of the program was to turn the students on to art.
“They were asking for more: comic drawing receives quite a bit of attention among high schoolers.”
Educator France Robert, who is responsible for visual art exhibitions, says, “These workshops provide an excellent approach to promote new media and innovative ways of ‘doing arts’, differing from how it is actually taught in school. They contribute to opening the school to the community.”
We will thus be able to see those talented and creative 7th and 8th grade students at the exhibition.
The opening will be held on May 1 in AFY’s community hall and the exhibit will be accessible to all visitors until June 11 throughout the opening hours of the Centre and on Friday evenings during Cafés-rencontres.
This column is courtesy of the Association franco-yukonnaise.
Virginie Hamel is a regular contributor to What’s Up Yukon who keeps tab on events in Yukon’s francophone community.
