Sept 27

Nancy Chiasson

Nancy Chiasson is a ceramic & mixed media artist, grief peer facilitator, and embodiment practitioner based in Nova Scotia. Her multidisciplinary practice explores the intersection of material, memory, and meaning—often drawing from coastal landscapes, emotional residue, and the quiet rituals of everyday life. With a background in trauma-informed facilitation and yoga, her work bridges personal healing with public reflection. Informed by years of supporting others in grief, Nancy creates installations and objects that hold space for silence, longing, and the invisible threads that connect us. Her recent works invite viewers to move slowly, listen deeply, and engage with what is often left unsaid.

Signals to the Other Side

Spotlight Project

This quiet, glowing path invites you to slow down. Along the ground, a constellation of “message stones” is softly lit, each inscribed with a simple phrase—like “Still with me” or “Are you there?”—as if sent across time or distance. Visitors are encouraged to walk the path gently, reading the messages as they go. At the end, a small shrine-like structure offers a space to pause, reflect, or leave your own silent message.

This installation is inspired by grief, memory, and the deep human need to stay connected with those who are no longer physically near. Whether you’ve experienced a recent loss or simply want a moment of quiet connection, this piece invites you to listen inward and look upward. What messages might you send—or receive—in the dark?

Lumière Arts Festival 2026 // Metamorphosis

Lumière invites artists to explore transformations, growth, and renewal —across beings, identities, societies, and materials – through the lens of artistic expression. In the chrysalis phase, change is unseen, mysterious, and full of possibilities. Artists are invited to create/present works that examine shifts in personal identity, explore adaptation or environmental cycles and the transformation of objects and materials, highlighting not just beginnings or endings, but the unfolding of the process itself.

The Metamorphosis theme delves into the ongoing process of transformation from one life stage to another. Like renewal processes in nature, change unfolds in phases, some visible, and some hidden. How do we hold space for the unknown phases in between growth and reemergence? How do we honour the process of becoming?

In response to an ever changing world, the festival offers a space to reflect on how we adapt, change, and evolve. The festival is a space for collective transformation and activation of unconventional spaces into interactive and imaginative art installations.

Lumière asks: How does art mirror transformations? What guides us forward through unknown processes of becoming? In the glow of shared experience, we celebrate the beauty of metamorphosis, the mystery of the chrysalis, and the endless possibilities of becoming.

Land Acknowledgement

Lumière Arts Festival, on behalf of the board, the artists, and the communities we represent, acknowledges that we work, live and play in the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people, in Unama’ki Cape Breton, who have stewarded these lands since time immemorial.

We are grateful not only for the strong and ongoing stewardship of these lands we call home, but also for the stories, music, and art that Mi’kmaq people continue to create and share, carrying ancestral voices, sacred teachings, and legacies of interconnectedness and resilience forward into the present and on to the future.

We aspire to reflect that sense of connection between past and present in our festival. We are inspired by L’nu artists to foster connection and self-reflection in our work. We will work to ensure that art is accessible, inclusive, and integrated into public spaces so that we can share our collective stories, recognizing the challenges of our past and imagining brighter futures.

We are all Treaty people.