Rechercher dans la communauté

http://www.lapresse.ca/arts/arts-visuels/201501/17/01-4836082-une-grande-annee-au-musee-pointe-a-calliere.php Publié le 17 janvier 2015 à 18h00 | Mis à jour le 17 janvier 2015 à 18h00 Le musée Pointe-à-Callière accueillera de nouvelles expositions sur l'hiver canadien, sur la civilisation aztèque et sur Agatha Christie, qui s'est inspirée de ses voyages archéologiques pour créer certaines de ses oeuvres. Éric Clément La Presse Avec son exposition de grande envergure Les Grecs - D'Agamemnon à Alexandre le Grand, qui se poursuit jusqu'au 26 avril, le musée Pointe-à-Callière a entrepris l'année en lion. Et 2015 sera faste pour le musée d'archéologie et d'histoire de Montréal, qui présentera notamment une expo sur les Aztèques et une autre sur les liens entre la romancière Agatha Christie et l'archéologie. «L'année 2015 est assez exceptionnelle pour nous, car nous avons une conjugaison de grandes expositions, dit Francine Lelièvre, directrice générale du musée Pointe-à-Callière. C'est l'année où l'archéologie va être en vedette.» C'est toutefois une exposition historique sur l'hiver canadien, intitulée Neige: source de passion, de créativité et d'ingéniosité au Québec et au Canada, qui débutera dans quelques semaines. Première exposition du genre au Canada, Neige a été réalisée par le Musée canadien des civilisations en partenariat avec le musée J. Armand Bombardier. Articulée autour de quatre thématiques (adaptation, innovation, passion et inspiration), Neige présentera, du 18 février au 3 janvier 2016, 300 artéfacts sur ce phénomène météo qui comble les sportifs, mais ennuie bien du monde! Les Aztèques Dans le grand espace de la Maison des marins, une exposition sur la civilisation aztèque succédera à celle sur les Grecs à la fin du mois de mai. Réalisée en partenariat avec une vingtaine de musées mexicains, dont le Musée national d'anthropologie et le Musée du Templo Mayor, Les Aztèques, peuple du Soleil est présentée actuellement à Sydney, en Australie. Elle fera connaître cette civilisation en présentant l'histoire de la cité de Tenochtitlan, fondée par les Aztèques en 1325 et devenue Mexico en 1521 après la conquête espagnole. Les visiteurs pourront en apprendre sur la migration des Aztèques, leur goût pour l'agriculture, leur quotidien, leurs calendriers et leurs sacrifices humains. Ils pourront admirer masques, statues, bijoux en or, figurines de femmes, d'enfants et d'animaux, objets de sacrifice, boîtes à offrandes, vases et objets reliés au culte du Soleil. «Il y aura des pièces exceptionnelles, comme des chevaliers-aigles et d'autres objets touchant deux siècles de civilisation», explique Francine Lelièvre. L'exposition, qui aura lieu du 29 mai au 25 octobre, comprendra aussi des projections de documentaires, des reconstitutions en 3D et des vidéos. Agatha Christie Enfin, à l'automne, le musée innovera avec une exposition combinant littérature et sciences des fouilles, intitulée Agatha Christie et l'archéologie. En effet, en 1930, la romancière anglaise avait épousé en secondes noces l'archéologue Sir Max Mallowan, qu'elle avait connu sur le site de fouilles d'Ur, lors de sa deuxième croisière au Moyen-Orient. Dans les années 30, elle a ainsi accompagné son mari lors de sept campagnes de fouilles, notamment en Irak et en Syrie, des voyages archéologiques qui vont influencer son oeuvre et lui inspirer bien des histoires, notamment Le crime de l'Orient-Express ou Meurtre en Mésopotamie. «Nous présenterons cette exposition grâce à plusieurs institutions, surtout le British Museum, dit Francine Lelièvre. On y apprendra qu'Agatha Christie était la photographe officielle des fouilles de son mari. Elle le secondait. Elle participait au nettoyage des pièces. On a pu travailler avec sa famille, qui nous a prêté des objets personnels d'Agatha Christie. Au total, plus de 200 objets, dont des vases, des bas-reliefs, des figurines, des bijoux, des plaques de bronze, des objets en ivoire ainsi que des manuscrits, des photos et des films. Donc un sujet qui touche l'archéologie, mais plus grand public.» La directrice du musée se réjouit. Le site internet Archaelogy Travel a récemment établi son top 5 des expositions archéologiques à ne pas rater cette année. Parmi ces cinq expositions, deux sont présentées par le musée Pointe-à-Callière: Les Grecs et Les Aztèques, peuple du Soleil. «Ça nous donne un positionnement international marquant, dit-elle. On construit pendant des années et, finalement, on s'aperçoit qu'on récolte. Alors, c'est une grande année. On espère que le public sera au rendez-vous!»

Ontario's economic engine sputters RICHARD FOOT, Canwest News Service Published: 7 hours ago As Canada's industrial heartland struggles with a reeling automotive sector, high dollar and foreign competition, innovative value-added manufacturers - like Kitchener's Christie Digital - have found a way to thrive in the global economy When Barack Obama accepts his party's nomination for the U.S. presidency at the Democratic convention in Denver next month, his image will be displayed on giant screens at Mile High Stadium by digital projectors made in Kitchener, Ont. Christie Digital's projectors - highly engineered cubes of optical technology that sell from $20,000 to $100,000 apiece - also have been used at the Academy Awards, and are exported from Canada to cinema chains around the world as movie theatres discard their traditional projectors in favour of new digital equipment. Christie and its 400 employees are a manufacturing success story in a province, and a country, where factories are closing and Canadian-made products are steadily being killed off by foreign competition, a high dollar, soaring energy costs and a stagnant U.S. economy. "These are anxious times," Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty declared during an economic speech in May. Ontario's most severe manufacturing losses have come from the auto sector, which once fuelled the province's economic wealth but has shed more than 25,000 jobs over the past five years, according to the Canadian Auto Workers union. This summer, in particular, has brought an avalanche of bad news for the cities across southern Ontario whose fortunes are tied to those of the big North American automakers and their suppliers: S Three thousand jobs cut at General Motors' plants in both Windsor and Oshawa. S Two thousand jobs cut at Progressive Moulded Products plants near Toronto. S Another 400 jobs lost at the Magna International plant in St. Thomas and 720 at the city's Sterling Trucks. As the Ontario economy bleeds, Canada's resource-rich provinces - including two traditional have-not players, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland - are growing rich off the global commodities boom and surging exports of oil, potash, uranium and grain. Consider their sudden affluence relative to Ontario: In 2002, according to the TD Bank, Ontario had Canada's second- highest nominal GDP per capita, after Alberta, including a seven-per-cent advantage over the national average. By 2007, Ontario's per capita GDP had dropped to fourth among the provinces and was two per cent below the national average. This year, it's expected to fall to four per cent below the average. The TD Bank also predicts Ontario could become an equalization-receiving province as early as 2010. Despite the hardships facing the Ontario economy, there are enclaves of economic strength and good news, where innovative companies such as Christie Digital offer a way forward for manufacturers and resource-rich economies as well. "Selling resources during a commodities boom is great while it lasts," said Ihor Stech, vice-president (operations) at Christie. "But we need to be more intelligent about how we use our resources. Selling more value-added products would create a more permanent, global force out of our economy." Stech works at an old factory in the heart of Kitchener that was once filled with low-skilled workers churning out small electric motors, television sets and other consumer appliances for Electrohome, once one of Canada's most famous companies. While the Electrohome name still hangs on the outside of the building, and company CEO John Pollock keeps an office inside, globalization and low-wage Asian competition have pushed it to the sidelines. Pollock, whose grandfather founded the firm 100 years ago, is winding up Electrohome's affairs. "I have three employees today," he said, "compared to 4,300 in the 1980s." In 1999, Electrohome was a major player in the commercial-projection business, but lacked the cash necessary to purchase new technology, update its assembly line system and compete in the emerging digital-projection market. Rather than watch the business die a slow death, Pollock sold the projection arm, one of Electrohome's last operations, to U.S.-based Christie Digital, whose Japanese parent, Ushio Inc., had the deep pockets to renovate the Kitchener plant and pursue the necessary technology that would allow the operation to survive. "At the time (of the sale), this factory was very tired," Stech said. "It was a dark place - an old, historical building that required a lot of investment. The infrastructure of the plant is now almost completely changed." Today, the inside looks more like a modern surgical unit than a manufacturing plant. Workers in lab coats, hair nets and slippers circulate quietly around the clinically clean, brightly lit assembly floor, where high-tech projectors are pieced together by technicians following blueprints on computer screens. While a high school certificate was enough for most of Electrohome's former workers, many of Christie's employees have college diplomas in electronics, material sciences, plastics and optics. The company also employs 150 engineers on site, who design the projectors and discuss technical changes directly with the production staff. In the eight years since Christie took over, sales at the Kitchener plant have grown from roughly $100 million a year to $280 million and are expected to rise as markets for the company's product continue to expand. Christie's successful formula - a sophisticated, high-end product on the cutting edge of technology, built by a relatively small but well educated workforce - cannot be easily duplicated in the low-cost industrial factories of China or India, a fact that insulates Christie somewhat from cheap overseas competition. It's a business strategy shared by a handful of other thriving, high-tech manufacturers in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, including Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry wireless device. David Johnston, president of the University of Waterloo, which supplies many of the young engineers at both companies and fosters a climate of innovation in the local business community, said manufacturers can thrive in Canada in the face of overwhelming global pressures, as long as they remember the lessons of RIM and Christie: relentless innovation and investment, plus a focus on technology as a path to prosperity. "It's not just a challenge for manufacturing centres like Ontario, but for the whole country," Johnston said. "Resource booms come and go. Even in provinces like Saskatchewan, Alberta and Newfoundland, we have to work smarter." Said John Pollock: "The products made in our future factories will require little labour, but they will also require sophisticated components and be assembled in very sophisticated ways. The technology will make it successful, as opposed to low labour rates." Stech agrees that brains and technology are the keys to surviving low-wage foreign competition, but said competing merely with the developing world is not enough. "The threat from low-cost countries is only half the story. Canada also needs to be mindful of competition from countries just like us. A lot of our competitors come from Japan and Norway - not exactly the cheapest markets. "Is Canada really prepared to succeed against the most developed countries? I think we have a long way to go, specifically in terms of government policies." For example, Stech said southern Ontario's transportation infrastructure pales in comparison to what's available in Europe or Japan. He said a fellow executive at Christie's parent company in Japan, who lives in Kobe and works in Osaka, commutes by train every morning, working on his email or catching up on the newspaper, "and comes into the office fully prepared for his day." Stech, who lives in Mississauga and commutes a similar distance each morning, faces only one choice, an hour-long drive on a crowded highway. Stech said Canada's manufacturing heartland is undergoing a similar process of change and adaptation that shook England during the industrial revolution. "Steam engines were putting people out of work, and people said it's the end of living standards because no one will be able to make money. Well, that didn't happen," he said. "Industries and labour reapplied themselves to new technologies. "I believe we are going through that same stage as well. The key to industry in Canada is to keep in mind that we are competing on all fronts - against cheap-labour countries, but also against higher-labour-cost countries, developed countries with secure infrastructure. We need to be mindful of that competition as well."