“Cuts make the country better” is initially a quote from the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, which appeared on the front page of the Dutch newspaper NRC. Rutte announced an unprecedented series of budget cuts, including major cuts in culture.

The Dutch political economical context is comparable to that of Canada: both countries are based on similar structures for cultural funding. Canada and the Netherlands have a major support from the state, but a small market. Like Rutte’s government, the government of Quebec has heavily cut in culture; one must ask if artists and cultural workers would be better served by self-management, a reappropriation of collective organization.

Motivated by an environment guided by rigor and asceticism, Edith Brunette and François Lemieux collaborated on a research project on the reaction of the Dutch art milieu. After meeting with Dutch cultural workers affected by this context, the artists will document these exchanges and use them as a basis for discussion with local workers, merging Dutch and Canadian discourse. Cuts Make the Country Better will present excerpts from these interviews in projections and video installations, as well as documentation elements.

Edith Brunette is interested in observing the ways in which the power relations that exist in society are revealed through discourse. Combining theory and practice, she considers the language employed by the institutions that govern us as well as that of those who contest or who simply escape them. Her most recent projects deal with video surveillance in public spaces (Caméraroman, Galerie de l’UQAM, 2011), the clashes during the “Printemps Érable” protests at Collège Lionel-Groulx (Consensus, Praxis, 2012), and artists’ discussions about the political aspects of their work (Faut-il se couper la langue?, Skol, 2013). Brunette has published articles in art journals including ETC, Inter, and Cassandre/Horschamp (France). 

François Lemieux holds a bachelor’s degree in Interndisciplinary Studies from Concordia University and an MA in Visual and Media Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada; at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery of Concordia University and at the Banff Centre. He also exhibited at the Springhill Institute in Birmingham, England; at galleries 1646 and Walden Affairs in the Netherlands; at the Kunstverein Leipzig, at the Blumen Gallery and KW Berlin, in Germany; at Fabrica de Vapore, Milan and in the Fondazione Antonio Ratti program in Como, Italy. He also initiated independent projects such as We left the warm stable and entered the latex void, from 2008 to 2010 and publication Le Merle, Cahier sur les mots et les gestes.

Follow all the events via Cuts Make the Country Better's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/cutsmakethecountrybetter

The artists would like to thank Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for supporting their project.

Exhibitions  

Participating Artists: Edith Brunette (Montreal) François Lemieux (Montreal)
Curator(s):
Credits: Image: Platform Beeldende Kunkt, map of cultural institutions affected by public funding cuts, 2014.