INVENTAIRES

artist's book, 2019

My project on pharmacy inventories began in July, 2016, when I first visited the archives at Congrégation de Notre-Dame in Montreal.

I was moved by the lists of plants used for treatments in the eighteenth-century inventories kept by the Congrégation, and strucked by their similarity with today's traditional medecines and herbalism.

However, what interested me the most, in the end, were the words that are no longer used today to designate plants or chemical substances, metrics, utensils and types of medication. I have compiled these terms and looked for their definitions in order to constitute my own inventories; then I read excepts for the History of Congrégation de Notre-Dame corresponding to the inventories' dates, to find snippets about the pharmacies and the names of nuns who had performed this “small office.”

On December 5th, 2019, I presented my artist's book Inventaires to the Congrégation de Notre-Dame community in Montreal. I read a short text on my creative process and on the form and content of this artwork. I had brought the tools and materials used for the production of the book, along with a selection of my previous artist's books. I gave a copy of Inventaires to the community and had informal conversations with the people in attendance.

Inventaires was produced using pyrography and photocopy; the edition is comprised of seven numbered copies, each containing 29 loose sheets in a hand-made folder by Caroline Campeau.

Photographs and poster design : Marie-Claude Fortier