May 5 to September 3, 2016
The Canadian Guild of Crafts (La Guilde) proudly presented the exhibition Le fléché au bout des doigts, by the Marius-Barbeau Centre which highlighted the transformation that this ancestral weaving technique has undergone over the years. Originally presented at Espace Lafontaine from June 24 to July 20, 2014, Le fléché au bout des doigts relates the history of the Arrowhead Sash and underlines the important role it has played in the construction of a Québécois identity.
From May 5 to June 4, 2016, La Guilde invited its visitors to discover this weaving technique, which had just been designated as an element of Quebec’s intangible heritage by the ministère de la Culture et des Communications. A really unique occasion to admire textile creations made by Quebec artisans who express their creativity through this centenary art form.
the Marius-Barbeau Centre
At the crossroads of Canadian cultural heritage since 1977, the Marius-Barbeau Centre is one whose mandate is the conservation of folk arts and their interpretation. Founded in 1967 by Jimmy Di Genova, director and founder of dance troupe Les Sortilèges and incorporated in 1977, the Centre specializes in the area of immaterial culture. Its mission is to preserve, promote and encourage recognition, conservation, passing on and spreading of Quebec folk arts and traditions including those of the First Nations and the ethnic communities. It privileges, amongst others, the acquisition and conservation of patrimonial collections, of publications and oral documents (music, songs, tales, legends), as well as the conservation of costumes and other artifacts related to folklore and dance. The Centre encourages research by enhancing its documentation related to ethnology and folklore. It also organizes exhibitions from its own collections. For the last few decades, the Marius-Barbeau Centre has been opening its doors and its archives to the public, and since August 2014, it is recognized by the ministère de la Culture et des Communications as a cultural organization belonging to the Répertoire de ressources culture-éducation. The Centre is devoted to various cultural mediation activities and has been offering, for almost four years now, finger-weaving initiation courses. At a crossroads of folk art and folk traditions, the Marius-Barbeau Centre is a hub of excellence for the intangible culture of Quebec in all its diversity.