Espace DesPrés
Mission
Rooted in the Sutton community, DesPrés' mission is to support the creative journey of professional artists by offering them residency opportunities and creative spaces that combine arts and nature, while fostering educational encounters with the public.
In dialogue with cultural circles and the region's driving forces, we design artistic experiences that bring contemporary art closer to citizens: participatory workshops, meetings with artists, and the festival Pour la suite du monde.
DesPrés welcomes and supports artists whose approaches explore forms of creation in partnership with the living world, thus contributing to renewing our ways of inhabiting the land.
Mandate
As a service organization, DesPrés supports creation by enabling artists to explore new avenues and deepen their practice in an inspiring and collaborative context.
Artists who frequent our facilities, our team members, residents of Sutton and the surrounding areas, as well as visiting guests are invited to take part in the experience DesPrés offers: an artistic research environment that creates communicating vessels between nature, community, and the living world.
Through its dissemination activities — notably the festival Pour la suite du monde — DesPrés deploys a multidisciplinary program that makes works rooted in the issues of the living world accessible and fosters encounters between artists, audiences, and the territory.
The aim is to reach a wide audience while engaging those who are interested, closely or remotely, in questions of the living world.
Vision
DesPrés envisions art in symbiosis with nature and community as a lever for rethinking our ways of inhabiting the world.
As a creative laboratory, we open spaces where artists experiment, meet audiences, and develop their practices in contact with the living world.
Through projects that connect art, territory, and the living world, we cultivate regenerative creativity, capable of nourishing environments and opening new imaginaries for the future of the world.
Values
Openness
Welcoming the diversity of practices, disciplines, and perspectives, and fostering cross-pollination between artistic, social, and territorial environments.
Creativity
Supporting bold, sensitive artistic expressions that are in dialogue with the living world.
Accessibility
Facilitating encounters between audiences and artworks, by multiplying opportunities for participation, discovery, and sharing.
Care
Caring for the living world — human and other-than-human — by cultivating respectful, attentive, and regenerative practices.
History
In 2015, Nicole Côté, Henri Lamoureux, and Joanie Leroux-Côté founded D’Arts et de rêves, with the mission of creating a unique multidisciplinary creative space. The project came to fruition with the acquisition of a vast property in the heart of Sutton, including an ancestral barn that belonged to Mr. Henri Després, who arrived in Sutton in 1919.
From 2015 to 2022, Nicole Côté served as president and executive director of the organization, playing a decisive role in its structuring and development.
In 2015, D’Arts et de Rêves hosted the international sculpture symposium Monumentum, bringing together four sculptors selected through an international competition. Their works, inspired by the theme of nordicity, are now part of the permanent collection.
In 2016, the organization obtained charitable status and officially inaugurated its park and residency, in the presence of personalities such as Liza Frulla and Clément Richard.
The following years were marked by major artistic projects: Entremaille (2016), a cultural mediation project supported by the Ministry of Culture and Communications of Quebec and the Town of Sutton, and Les Chemins de l’histoire (2017), carried out in collaboration with Héritage Sutton and artist Louis Lefebvre.
In 2018, the organization presented La traversée indigène by the Zoné Vert collective, with the support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, as well as an interdisciplinary residency, Les bras croisés, in partnership with La Fabrique culturelle and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, CALQ, and the Town of Sutton.
In 2019, D’Arts et de Rêves welcomed fourteen artists in residence and offered eleven cultural mediation activities.
In 2020, the barn was redesigned by the architectural firm EBA and renovated by Boivin. Despite the challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization continued its mission by supporting artists and successfully completing these renovation and expansion works.
In 2021, renovations were completed, allowing for the opening of two large studios accessible to the public and the installation of universal accessibility facilities.
In 2021, D’Arts et de Rêves launched Samedis DAR, a series of outdoor events dedicated to the organization's flagship disciplines, fostering encounters between artists and the public. These events were a great success, attracting a large and diverse audience.
In 2023, the organization awarded six creation grants and welcomed fifteen artists or collectives in residence, each contributing to public meetings, workshops, or artwork presentations.
In January 2023, Joanie Leroux-Côté became president of the board of directors. Under her presidency, in October 2023, the administrators invited Jasmine Catudal to take the reins of the organization's general and artistic direction.
In August 2024, D’Arts et de rêves hosts the first edition of the festival Pour la suite du monde.
In June 2026, D’Arts et de rêves changes its visual and nominal identity. The organization will henceforth be named Espace de création DesPrés.
Eco-responsible Policy
DesPrés is committed to developing its activities in a relationship of care, reciprocity, and cohabitation with the living world. Rooted in the territory of Sutton, DesPrés considers art as a relational practice capable of transforming our ways of inhabiting the world.
Our commitment goes beyond reducing impacts: it aims to regenerate. Through our projects, we seek to restore connections between humans and living environments, to nourish cultural and natural ecosystems, and to activate imaginaries capable of supporting ecological and social transition.
Vision
We believe that artistic narratives are active forces. They shape our perception of the world, influence our actions, and open up possibilities.
At DesPrés, art becomes a lever for ecological transformation: a space where our relationships with the territory, other living beings, and future generations are reinvented. We hope that each project contributes to enriching the environments it touches, cultivating a sensitive attention to the living world, and giving rise to narratives that foster regeneration.
Guiding Principles
Sobriety and Ecodesign
We favor a sober approach, attentive to the life cycles of materials and artworks. We promote transformation, reuse, and the use of local, living, or biodegradable materials. Create less, but create better, with awareness of impacts.
Territorial Anchoring and Living Sourcing
We work with the resources of the territory — human, agricultural, artisanal. Local collaborations are not just logistical: they nourish the meaning of the works and strengthen the ecosystem in which they take shape.
Conscious Mobility
We encourage gentle and collective modes of travel, consistent with our desire to slow down, reduce our footprint, and foster connection.
Coexistence with Ecosystems
We conceive our artistic interventions as sensitive presences in the landscape. In situ works and land art are designed to be reversible, respectful, and attentive to the dynamics of the living world.
Transmission and Culture of the Living
We consider each project as a learning space. We share knowledge related to ecodesign, regenerative practices, and relationships with the living world, with artists, audiences, and communities.
Social Justice and Plurality of Narratives
We recognize that ecological transition is inseparable from issues of social justice. We value a diversity of voices and knowledge, particularly Indigenous, to foster plural, situated, and transformative narratives.
Continuous Learning
Regeneration is a process. We evaluate, adjust, and evolve our practices over time, in dialogue with the territory and communities.
Pour la suite du monde
The festival embodies this vision by offering a program where works dialogue with the living world, the seasons, and the knowledge of the territory. It becomes a meeting place between art, agriculture, thought, and community, a place where narratives capable of transforming our relationship with the world are woven.
Through its participatory forms, local collaborations, and attention to natural cycles, it aspires to become a model of a regenerative festival in the Eastern Townships.
Conclusion
At DesPrés, we envision creation as an act of care, relationship, and transformation.
Through this policy, we affirm our commitment to actively participate in the regeneration of cultural, social, and ecological environments and to open, with the community, paths towards a habitable, sensitive, and living future.
Team
Co-founders
Nicole Côté
Henri Lamoureux
Joanie Leroux-Côté
Board of Directors
Activity Reports
Joanie Leroux-Côté
President
Expert advisor for Investissement Québec International. Retired circus artist.
Catherine Binette
Vice-President
Senior Advisor, Creative Industries Export for Investissement Québec International.
Julien Lassonde
Treasurer
Partner, Government Incentives Support, BDO Canada
François Bérard
Secretary
Criminologist and UQAM professor. Retired Director of the Montreal Transition Centre
Pascale Chassé
Administrator
Strategist, communications-marketing project management, partnerships and philanthropy
Édith Cochrane
Administrator
Actress and host
Joanne Comte-Btesh
Administrator
Director and screenwriter
Dildel Lavoie-Caceres
Administrator
Creative Director
Mélanie O’Bomsawin
Administrator
New Media Designer and Artist
Jasmine Catudal
Administrator
Executive and Artistic Director
Permanent Team
Jasmine Catudal
Executive and Artistic Director
direction@espacedespres.ca
Jasmine Catudal co-founded and directed the performing arts festival OFFTA for 18 years, which evolved into LA SERRE - arts vivants, an incubator for emerging artists. She served as co-artistic director at Usine C and artistic director at Théâtre de la Ville de Longueuil. She acts as a curator for various national and international events. Jasmine is also co-founder and training director of Écoscéno, an organization dedicated to the development of ecodesign in the artistic sector. Since September 2023, she has been the director of Espace DesPrés in Sutton.
Lydie Baillargeon-Gagné
Administration and Production Manager
administration@espacedespres.ca
With a rich and varied background in cultural animation, at Radio-Canada radio, event coordination, and horticulture, she settled in the region about fifteen years ago to get closer to nature and anchor herself in her environment. Passionate and creative, she wishes to be fully involved in the regional cultural dynamism. Since 2024, she has been working at Espace DesPrés as Administration and Production Manager.
Honorary Committee
President
Catherine Binette, Export Advisor for Creative Industries - Investissement Québec International and Vice-President of Espace DesPrés.
Members
Pierre Boivin
Founder and President, Boivin Domus Moderna
Nicole Coté
Sculptor-Ceramist, retired lawyer, co-founder of D'Arts et de rêves
Dominique Day
Communications and Marketing Specialist, co-founder of Cavalia and founder of Equiosity
Rita Dionne-Marsolais
Economist and notably Member of the National Assembly (1994-2008) and Minister of the Quebec Government
Nassib Samir El-Husseini
President and CEO - Les 7 doigts de la main and Chairman of the Board at Supply and Demand Studio
Stéphane Lavoie
Consultant and Manager in Cultural Management
Stéphane Mongeau
Show Producer
Audrey Murray
President and CEO of the Commission de construction du Québec