April 13, 2016 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

From April 15 to September 2, 2016, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris will showcase the work of acclaimed Quebec children’s book illustrator/animation filmmaker Michèle Lemieux in an exhibition entitled The Whole and Its Parts: From Drawings to Animated Films. Organized by curator Angela Grauerholz and produced by the Centre de design at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), the exhibition is presented in partnership with the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC) and the National Film Board of Canada. After Paris, the exhibition will reopen in Montreal at UQAM’s Centre de design from September 15 to October 30. This year, Lemieux’s work will have particular resonance in France, since she also designed the poster for the forthcoming Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 13–18, 2016).

The Whole and Its Parts: From Drawings to Animated Films looks mainly at the sketchbooks kept by Lemieux as she developed the two award-winning animations she made at the NFB: Stormy Night (2003), adapted from one of her children’s books; and Here and the Great Elsewhere (2012). The latter was created on the pinscreen, the legendary tool invented by Alexandre Alexeïeff and Claire Parker and of which Lemieux is one of the few artistic heirs. The artist’s preliminary sketches and pinscreen experiments for her new film Le tableau (currently in production) will also be displayed. Thanks to an exceptional loan from the CNC, exhibition-goers will be able to see an instrument similar to the one used by Lemieux at the NFB studios in Montreal. The pinscreen acquired by the NFB in 1972 is the only one in the world that remains in use today.

To encourage European artists to work with the legendary device, in 2012 the CNC acquired the only other pinscreen still able to create animation. At the behest of the CNC, Lemieux gave a workshop at the Annecy Festival in 2015 that introduced filmmakers to the pinscreen.

In addition to her work as an animator, Lemieux is also a renowned children’s book illustrator. Her works have been translated into some 20 languages and received numerous awards, including the BolognaRagazzi Award (for Stormy Night, 1997), the highest international accolade for children’s literature. She also teaches drawing and illustration at UQAM.

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Associated Links

Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris
The Whole and Its Parts: From Drawings to Animated Films
Centre de design at the Université du Québec à Montréal
Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée
Annecy International Animation Film Festival

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