Maude Arsenault

After several years behind the lens in the fashion world, Maude Arsenault, photographer, artist, mother and feminist, forks ten years ago, towards the field of visual arts. Her work invests the themes of female representation, bodies and public/private spaces within the framework of a photographic and material approach which oscillates between abstract compositions, self-portraits, landscapes and documentary images. She explores from the photographic, moving and printed image, collage, sculpture, performance and installation. In doing so, her projects deploy bodies as spaces and unexpected spaces of the body, in a perspective of self-determination for women.

Maude Arsenault has presented exhibitions and public talks in Canada, the United States, France and Japan. In recent years, she has completed various research-creation residencies in the United States, France, Japan and Canada. In 2020, she published Entangled, a first photographic book, with publisher DeadbeatClub Press of Los Angeles and again launched a second book in November 2023, Resurfacing, with the same publisher on the occasion of the PARIS PHOTO fair. Her book Entangled was finalist for photography book of the year at the Singapore Photography Festival (2020) and FELIFA in Buenos Aires (2021) and has just been re-published for a second time.

Maude Arsenault holds a certificate in Art History from University of Montreal and a Master's degree in Visual and Media Arts from l'UQAM. She is the recipient of the prestigious Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Scholarship in Contemporary Arts 2023, the Yvonne L. Bombardier Visual Arts Scholarship 2021, the Women's Center of l'UQAM's Grant 2020 and several grants from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres of Quebec and Canada Council for the Arts. Maude was also awarded the prestigious international photography Hariban Grand Prize in 2020 (Japan), she was selected by Lucy Gallun, curator of photography at MoMA NY, art critic Emma Bowkett @FT Magazine (UK), Felix Hoffman, director of C/O Berlin Photography Museum and Professor Ma Quan (China).

Interview by Dana Stirling

First, tell us a little about your first experience with photography? What made you want to be a photographer?
I started photography as a child, taking photos of my surrounding with my aunt’s camera, I neverthought it was a career option, it is only when I met a friend from high school who became a photographer, while I was at college, that I realized it was something possible to do for me as a way of living. I always felt like photography is not something I chose but it chose me. It has always been an act of survival for me.

How does Resurfacing continue the themes explored in Entangled, and what new aspects of the female experience does it bring to light?
Resurfacing comes as natural continuity from Entangled. While the first book was about how I felt trapped in my life as a cis gender mother, lover, artist and the reality of domestic life in the context of family, Resurfacing came as a response of what one has to change in their life to face the patriarchal roles and structures imposed on us, to find new paths of freedom and new spaces of self-determinations.

Could you elaborate on the significance of the title "Resurfacing" and how it reflects the themes and concepts you explore in your work?
Resurfacing is about finding light, about de/reconstructing oneself, it’s about new surfaces and how to find grip.

How do you believe the tactile and textured design of Resurfacing enhances the feminist visual language conveyed through your images?
My work over the last five years has become much more about materiality, texture and sensuality. First, we wanted the design of Resurfacing to respond somehow to Entangled but also to feel both strong and delicate. Resurfacing is also about texture and layers, about strength and softness. I like to think of my feminist formal language as “the power of softness”, as French philosopher Anne Dufourmentelle would say.

How has your background in the fashion world influenced your approach to photography and visual storytelling?
Definitely, I believe we are completely informed artistically by our own life experiences and our very own standpoint of view. I have been influenced very early on in my life by the fashion imagery world and its codes of representation for women. My relationship to the camera has been highly directed by that very specific gaze of consuming/producing images of women. I have worked very hard to rebuild my set of values when it comes to female bodies and representation and on the notions of seduction in making images. My work now is influenced both by my past relationship with photography and fashion and by my newly informed academic research focusing on women in art history and female representation in photography.

How does Resurfacing challenge traditional notions of female representation and empowerment through its use of abstract compositions, self-portraits, landscapes, and documentary images?
I think Resurfacing challenges those notions by deconstructing and drawing attention to the idea that politics are in play even in the most personal circumstances and relationships.
I also try to push the limits of photography by creating sensory universes and new fields of reflection on feminine identities and their spaces of representation and validation by turning the camera on to myself, an older woman, mother of 3 children. I also like to think that the works in the book reflect on my relationship to the male gaze and how I can re-appropriate my female gaze (object vs subject) after a life of undergoing the world and women’s representation through patriarchy and the male gaze. I believe in creating self-determination and empowerment for myself and possibly others within the frame of making, such as the idea of playing with materials, sensuality and self-performing for the camera.

Could you discuss the role of collage, sculpture, and installation in your projects, and how these mediums contribute to your exploration?
After a life of creating glorified images of women and being surrounded by the idea that youth, sleekness, and a certain idea of “perfection” was the norm, I needed to create works that reflected a rawer version of the world and of female bodies, including mine. With my work I want to offer non-performing spaces and cracked surfaces in the optic of opening up new spaces of possibilities for women. I like to think that I can re-appropriate my subjectivity with the « raw » image. So I intentionally refuse to be too technical, I want the work to feel imperfect, full of cracks, folds and textures. My work opposes the dualities of the fragile, the poetic, the beautiful and the resistance of the frame, or let’s say the structural and the insidious.

How do you envision viewers engaging with and interpreting Resurfacing, and what do you hope they take away from your visual language?
I hope the viewers visit my book with an open mind and a desire to create new spaces of reflection for themselves and their relationship with performing femininity, womanhood, motherhood and female representation in the public and private spaces.

Could you walk us through the process of creating Resurfacing as a book, from the selection of photographs to the design and layout, and how did this process contribute to shaping the final presentation of your work?
I collect images in my everyday life for quite a while and at some point, it becomes obvious that they are revealing something altogether. With Resurfacing, I collected images from 2019 to 2023, anything from self-portraits to details of walls, my kids, objects and landscapes. I print the images and live with them for a long time on my studio walls... At some point I start sequencing them and then I make some kind of scrapbook, I actually really love that process, it often turns into a very crafty object made of poor quality printed images, glued and put together with pieces of tapes ... and it always stays, in a way for me, the original book. My next step is to work with my wonderful publisher Clint Woodside at Deadbeat Club and his team. We then start looking at the dummy in a more serious way. Clint gets infused with the energy of it and what I am trying to say with it. Together we then bring out more images and work on a tight selection of photos for the final book and then from the original maquette we start designing the actual book. I am quite involved in the material selections. I love picking papers, fabrics, and thinking about the sculptural aspect of the book, its sensuality, and its general feel once it’s in one’s hands.
Clint takes care of all the design, printing and production aspects but we work closely together all along.

You choose to weave together images that could be considered “opposite” such as black and white vs. color, and portraiture vs. still life. I find it to bring out a wonderful balance and harmony, could you elaborate on these choices?
It’s hard to explain, it’s something that comes naturally to me. I like to think of my relationship to the world, femininity and to photography as something in constant duality. I seem to always oppose views and point of references, I am ambivalent. I can’t seem to take sides easily. I like to confront ideas, shapes, forms, textures and colors.

You are also a mother, how did motherhood affect your approach to art and photography, if it did at all?
Motherhood has come into my life over 20 years ago. It has been the center of everything. It inhabits my life in all its aspects. My work and artistic journey are both completely imbued with my relationship to motherhood and domestic life. Everything I do, make or say comes from that point of reference in a way.

What has been some of the best advice / feedback / critique you've received that you feel really pushed you forward and that stuck with you and your work?

Work and talk about what you deeply care for.

I also always think about this quote from Leonard Cohen : There is a crack in everything, that’s where the light comes in.