The artist booklet Lieux communs : Commonplaces reveals the poetry of place names found in a Canadian toponimic atlas. On digital maps scanned from the atlas, I erased all information with meticulous care, keeping only a few evocative names: Fortune, Little Paradise, Come-by-Chance, Déception …, as if, between the pages of the atlas, archetypal concepts had found their exact geographic position. The place names are either French or English or are the same in both languages. The booklet is designed to remind of the original atlas, with the title and a maple leaf embossed in golden on the cover. The binding is conceived with a professional bookbinder to look like a Canadian passport, inviting the reader to an imaginary trip into these real places imbued with poetry.
Published by Terrain vague inc. and Emmanuelle JacquesISBN: 978-2-9812419-0-0
5×3.875 in, 28 pp, color laser, saddle-stitched, 2012
Edition of 100
$12 CAD
More info: http://emmanuellej.wordpress.com
Based in Montreal, Emmanuelle Jacques earned a Bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Université du Québec à Montréal in 2004. She has participated in residencies at several Canadian artist-run centers and presented solo and group exhibitions in and around Montreal. Her next solo show will be at Martha Street Studio in Winnipeg. Emmanuelle Jacques is interested in issues of territory: urbanism, astronomy, great explorations, psychogeography and toponymy. Her work is mainly project-based — some of them have evolved in parallel for several years. By pursuing endless tasks, like mapping areas that are too vast and compelled to relentless transformations, she challenges the absurdity of human condition. Her practice comes from drawing and print media, but she will use any media her projects demands. For its pictorial and semantic qualities, the language of cartography is the base of her research on territory — an open notion that she addresses freely, as a dilettante.
Terrain Vague is a small bookbinding company located in L’Anse-Saint-Jean, Québec. The owner, Ève Breton-Roy, has completed her Masters in visual arts at Université du Québec à Montréal with the artist book as her subject. She mainly makes blank books and utility books, but she also work with artists to conceive bookbindings for artist books. Terrain vague inc. published a few artist books.
