[Winter 2026]
Marie-Alice Dumont. In Conversation with Raymonde April
by Hélène Samson
Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent, Rivière-du-Loup
20.06.2025 — 12.10.2025
[EXCERPT]
What a brilliant idea it was to bring together the photographers Marie-Alice Dumont (1892–1985) and Raymonde April (1953–)! At first glance, they are an improbable duo. And that was precisely the conservator and curator Oriane A.-Van Coppenolle’s reasoning for the exhibition Marie-Alice Dumont en conversation avec Raymonde April at the Musée du BasSaint-Laurent. Beforehand, in 2024, April had an artist residency in the museum’s collection as part of the project.
It was an improbable encounter, in fact, because Dumont is a figure in the history of Quebec photography – the first professional woman photographer in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region – and April is firmly established in the contemporary art scene; she received the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas in 2003. Their visual languages are very different. April’s images refer to her private world, her friends, and her wanderings, without the viewer being privy to their context. In her work, polysemy is poetry. She often works with sequences, plays with autofiction, and is inspired by film and literature.
[…]
[ Complete issue, in print and digital version, available here: Ciel variable 131 – Collecting ]
[ Complete article in digital version available here: Marie-Alice Dumont. In Conversation with Raymonde April]
Hélène Samson, who holds a doctorate from the Université de Montréal (2006), retired from the McCord Stewart Museum, where she had been curator of photography since 2006, in 2022. She has organized numerous photography exhibitions, including Notman, a Visionary Photographer (2016–17), Alexander Henderson – Art and Nature (2022–23), and others on contemporary Quebec photographers. She has published books on William Notman and Henderson and contributed to national and international magazines. Currently, she is working as an independent curator and an associate researcher at the McCord Stewart Museum.