Place des Arts du Grand Sudbury has unveiled the exterior design of its future multidisciplinary arts centre of excellence. The building, which will be home to eight French-language cultural organizations at the corner of Elgin and Larch north of Medina Lane in Sudbury, has bold, dynamic lines in a design that is both modern and airy, with reflections of Northern Ontario’s past and industrial present.

“This is a flagship building with a long story to tell,” said Stéphane Gauthier, President of Place des Arts du Grand Sudbury. “It was inspired by the driving force of the Nouvel-Ontario cultural movement and carried along by a whole generation’s will to make it happen. Nouvel-Ontario was the birthplace of French Ontario’s oldest cultural centre, first creation theatre, first publishing house, first provincial music festival and first art gallery. So we had to imagine an edifice emerging from the landscape as if certain shapes had always been there, naturally, forming part of the urban panorama. It is a memorial, a shared space, contemporary and open to great hopes for the future,” explained Mr. Gauthier.

The outside of the building will be made of a rich material with colours typical of ore from Northern Ontario: corten steel. When exposed to the elements, it oxidizes naturally and stabilizes to form a patina that ranges from golden yellow to orangey brown. This unique patina protects the material and makes it durable and strong.

“Corten was almost an unavoidable choice, inspired by the 300 years of existence and creation shared by the seven founding members of Place des Arts. It heralds a new building with unique architecture, but with an external façade that pays tribute to a celebrated past that will continue to support the vitality of the Franco-Ontarian community,” said Louis Bélanger, a Sudburian and senior architect at Yallowega Bélanger Salach Architecture.

The consortium of Yallowega Bélanger Salach Architecture and Moriyama Teshima Architects designed the future four-storey multidisciplinary arts centre, whose 40,000 square feet will house a concert hall, a multifunction studio, a contemporary art gallery, a bistro with a seasonal sidewalk terrace, a gift and book shop, an early childhood arts centre with a playground, and office space. “We are proud of the result and the challenge of optimizing spaces in more than one way without losing anything in the process. It is a great honour to design this inviting, shared space for the entire community, a space that blends seamlessly into the urban dynamic of the downtown area,” added Jason Philippe, a native from Sturgeon Falls and the senior architect at Moriyama Teshima Architects.

The Place des Arts project will cost a total of $30 million to complete. Phase 2 of the construction work will begin in late spring, with the official opening expected during the 2020-2021 performance season.

Place des Arts will house the seven founding arts and culture organizations: the Carrefour francophone de Sudbury (1950), the Centre franco-ontarien de folklore (1960), Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario (1971), Éditions Prise de parole (1973),  Concerts La Nuit sur l’étang (1973),  Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario (1995) and the Salon du livre du Grand Sudbury (2004).

HIGHLIGHTS

• Place des Arts will provide Greater Sudbury with Northern Ontario’s first multidisciplinary arts and culture centre.
• The building will have four storeys and 40,000 square feet of floor space.
• A western façade with laser-frosted, low-solar-gain glass to keep the building’s energy costs down.
• An early childhood arts centre accommodating 15 children per day, with an outside terrace and playground on the west side of the building, facing Elgin.
• The bistro’s seasonal terrace extending out onto the Elgin Street sidewalk.
• More than 10,000 square feet of office space for the founding organizations.
• A creative space for kids.
• A 120-seat, black-box style multifunction studio.
• A concert hall with nearly 300 seats.
• A contemporary art gallery and gift and book shop with windows overlooking Larch Street.
• 850 activities expected annually.
• 50,000 visitor admissions per year.
• The $30 million project is supported by funding providers such as Canadian Heritage, FedNor, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport of Ontario, and the City of Greater Sudbury.

The Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario is proud to welcome Maude Bourassa Francoeur as the new Communication and Development Agent.

Established in Sudbury since January 2018, she has acquired a training with Prise de parole. She has been a coordinator for a movie festival and as always shown interest in the visual arts and literature.

We take this opportunity to wish the best to Chloé Leduc-Bélanger in her new career.

In 2018, we have…

• Hosted four original exhibitions
• Successfully organized the sixth edition of the FAAS
• Repainted the gallery three times and made hundreds of holes for the Nouveau Louvre artwork
• Broke a hammer, a level, three brooms and some other stuff
• Carried rocks, chalkboards, tools, furniture and even more rocks
• Lost our heating system; regained a heating system
• Eaten approximately 25 liters of chili
• Said goodbye to three pets
• Welcomed two new board members
• Worked with over thirty amazing volunteers
• Created a festive Christmas video
• Earned a well-deserved vacation time!

The GNO will be closed from December 23rd to January 7th. We’ll be back at the gallery on January 8th!

Happy Holidays!

Over the course of the last week, artist Jérôme Havre, the GNO’s team and happy volunteers have been working on making and installing the daub on the wire mesh. The materials had to be mixed by feet in a large wooden bin. Havre also experimented with the composition of the natural concrete, using sand or saw dust to create textures.

The sculpture will be completed this week. Contact us if you want to give us a hand (or a foot!).

In parallel, the artist keeps working on the ceramic pieces. The sculptures will go to the oven this week, thanks to Sudbury Basin Potters, our exhibition sponsor.

See you at the opening on October 23rd, at 6 pm!

Since September 20, the GNO is hosting Jérôme Havre, our newest artist-in-residency. The gallery has been transformed into a workshop, where the pieces of the Interior exhibition are slowly taking shape. The main piece will consist in a large architecture-inspired structure that will look like a wattle and daub hut. Wattle and daub is a composite building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material, usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, and straw.

Gérald working on the structure of the architecture-inspired piece

The structure in a glance

In addition to this structure, the artist will also present some ceramic sculptures that that will inhabit the space. The surface of the walls will also be put to contribution.

A sculpture taking shape

The installation should be completed on October 12.

To be continued!

The GNO is happy to welcome Chloé Leduc-Bélanger on its team as the new Communication and development agent.

Chloé has been working in the cultural field for several years, especially in the book industry as well as in artistic medias.

The GNO’s team thanks Daniel Aubin for his science and the meticulous work he accomplished over the past five years. We wish him success and happiness in his new career.

ALLERS-RETOURS (Back and Forth)

There are many forms of “back and forth”. Whether it’s traveling through time, exploring landscapes, the play between night and day, returning to origins, or the simple back and forth of conversation, each artist in the GNO’s 2016-2017 Season presents us the fruit of their travels, the result of their “back and forth”.

Aside from thematic considerations, the idea of back-and-forth fits with the kind of project the GNO chooses to coordinate. Since its 20th anniversary in 2015-2016, the GNO encourages artists to make a series of prospecting and creative trips leading up to their exhibitions. As a consequence, the projects presented at the GNO are often created in reaction to the particularities of the local landscape.

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NOUVEAUX TROGLODYTES
PHILIPPE BLANCHARD
August 11 to September 24, 2016

Artist Philippe Blanchard seeks to restore animation’s fundamentally marvellous and magical nature. Bridging the distant past with the future, Nouveaux Troglodytes will transform the gallery into an animated psychedelic space with stalagmites and stalactites that are lit with strobe lights and projectors.
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SE FAIRE AVOIR COMME UN BLEU (Hook, Line and Sinker)
SASHA PHIPPS
October 7 to November 5, 2016

Through his art, Sasha Phipps explores and reinterprets so-called “vernacular” cultures. At the GNO, he intends to stage an installation inspired by the lakeside landscapes of Ramsey Lake. Parts of the installation will be covered with original, regionally specific camouflage patterns made from photos of the local landscape.
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LE NOUVEAU LOUVRE
November 19 to December 23, 2016

Year in and year out, we are stunned by the quality of the work submitted to the Nouveau Louvre. A hallmark of the Holiday season in Sudbury, this yearly art sale cannot be missed. Each piece at the Nouveau Louvre, representing a wide range of mediums and genres, is sold at the remarkable price of 200$.
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OUT OF THIS LIGHT, INTO THIS SHADOW
JUAN ORTIZ-APUY
February 10 to March 8, 2017

Via the techniques of collage and assemblage, Juan Ortiz-Apuy explores the concept of Junkspace, which advances the notion of junk food to the whole of our built environment. The resulting animated sculptural landscape sets the stage for absurd “characters” that refer to past art histories and design languages.
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LE HOMECOMING
JENNA DAWN MACLELLAN
March 17 to May 5, 2017

Through semiautobiographical storytelling, jenna dawn maclellan’s project will address the challenges of daily life in the North, which she discovered upon her own return to Ontario. Each piece will illustrate the playful survival strategies that she has developed to defend against the four seasons.
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CONSTELLATED __________ TALK
TANYA LUKIN LINKLATER, DARLENE NAPONSE, DEANNA NEBENIONQUIT
June 2 to 30, 2017

This collaborative project will take shape through a series of conversations between and with Tanya Lukin Linklater, Darlene Naponse, and Deanna Nebenionquit. Among other topics, they will explore what it means to be “in the field” as Indigenous artists in Northern Ontario, and how to expand Indigenous conceptual space at the institutional level.