Art Windsor-Essex respectfully acknowledges that we are located on Anishinaabe Territory – the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, comprised of the Ojibway, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. Today the Anishinaabe of the Three Fires Confederacy are represented by Bkejwanong. We want to state our respect for the ancestral and ongoing authority of Walpole Island First Nation over its Territory.
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Sylvie Bélanger: Le regard du silence
July 18, 2024 - October 20, 2025
Third Floor
In 1997-98, Sylvie Bélanger, an artist then living in Windsor, had a solo art show at Art Windsor-Essex titled De la séduction à la résistance. Her work, Le regard du silence (1997), was featured in the show, and later purchased by AWE. This “video sculpture” hasn’t been shown publicly since it was acquired in 1999.
Le regard du silence shows Bélanger’s interest in technology and the human body. THe work depicts a woman’s face fading in and out of focus as oversized book pages turn. Bélanger, like many artists in the 1980s and 1990s, used ephemeral materials to create time-based art. Bélanger aimed to illustrate how technology struggles to capture human experiences, against the growing influence of emerging technologies like the Internet. The artwork’s theme contrasts the allure of the woman’s face with the fear of her disappearance. This reflects our concerns about merging our real and virtual selves in today’s complex world.
Art Windsor-Essex is currently digitizing its collection of new media artworks to preserve them for future generations. We have started with Le regard du silence, which was originally on a looping VHS tape. The digital transfer shows the wear from being displayed at multiple galleries over the years. Our role is now to determine how much of this visual “noise” is original to the work and reflects the intentions of the artist, and what can be restored to ensure that our experience of the work is true to its first presentation in the late 1990s.
Curated by: Emily McKibbon
Installation view of Sylvie Bélanger, Le regard du silence,1997, multimedia installation, dimensions variable. Purchased with financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Acquisitions Assistance program, and Art Windsor-Essex.
About Sylvie Belanger
Sylvie Bélanger (1951-2020) was a Canadian interdisciplinary artist who worked primarily in lens-based and installation practices. Her work was the subject of major exhibitions in Canada and internationally. In addition to her career as an artist, she was a prominent educator at the University of Windsor, the San Francisco Art Institute, and at SUNY Buffalo.