Nicolas Belayew gets fired up against climate scepticism
News from Chicoutimi
Nicolas Belayew is an indefatigable creative: at once a graphic designer, illustrator and printer, he is also a facilitator, teacher and workshop leader. Twenty years after graduating from ERG in Brussels, he has forged a career that is both varied and coherent, regularly moving from one project to the next across the full range of printmaking techniques. If his name is not yet familiar to you, you will probably already have heard of him through the renowned Festival Papier Carbone, which he has co-organised at the BPS22 every two years since 2016.
On 15 June, following a 5,000-kilometre flight, he set down his bags and felt-tip pens for a three-month research residency in Chicoutimi. Since then, he has been criss-crossing the landscapes along the Saguenay River on foot, by bicycle, car and bus, only parting from his sketchbook and vintage film camera to cool off in the lakes and waterways. Having impressed the jury drawn from Centre Bang’s artistic teams with his practice, he is devoting the summer of 2026 to observing how living things inhabit and transform the Quebec landscape. His journey forms part of the continuing exchange programme between the BPS22 and Bang, supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
By methodically documenting the surroundings of his exile in Chicoutimi and comparing them with those of his home in Charleroi, Nicolas Belayew observes the scars left by human activity and sets the two against one another. He explains: “Both are cities in which industry plays a central role: it has shaped how they are organised. Everything in Charleroi is structured – or deconstructed – around industry: transport, the layout of the built environment and even the shape of the landscape, with its slag heaps, for example. Here, activity revolves around aluminium and pulp and paper, with water serving both as a means of transport and a source of energy […]. There are no slag heaps, but there is, for example, a bauxite lake that occupies a large area of the landscape, yet can only be seen in satellite images. Then there are the dams interrupting the flow of the rivers, which clearly alter the landscape. Railway lines also cut across it and are there solely to carry freight for industry. Most of the forests are plantations used for logging.”
For a few days, he also ventures to the other side of the St Lawrence River, towards Montreal, Trois-Pistoles and Bic National Park. As he travels, his senses alert, he sees the whimsy in his everyday surroundings spring to life and transfers it to paper through his nomadic and assiduous drawing practice. His snapshots in pencil or felt-tip pen, sometimes enhanced with washes, reveal vibrant, delightfully off-kilter forms. At the same time, he follows a precise protocol to photograph invariably deserted scenes that nevertheless bear eloquent witness to the human presence.
Like a virtual archive or a weekly serial packed with anecdotes, Nicolas Belayew’s travel journal also allows him to share the turmoil of his thoughts. Line by line, a Quebec emerges that is far removed from picture-postcard clichés and shaped by human appetites. Alongside the mischief and humorous reflections in his illustrations lies a melancholy tinged with anxiety.
As the days pass, his work ceases to be contemplative and becomes explosive. The fires and drought brought by this summer’s heatwaves are fuelling a series of drawings that unfurl in Indian ink across sheets of paper which grow in size as the fires spread around the globe. No longer light-hearted, these depictions become instruments of protest, their sometimes fluorescent glow intended to jolt viewers into awareness. Pairing them with texts expressing his growing eco-anxiety, he confides: “I have begun a series of large-format drawings that convey my psychological state in the face of this summer’s environmental events, which I describe as ‘an end-of-the-world summer’. This is the first time I have allowed myself to show how deeply these fires, floods and heatwaves affect me. I am trying to find a way of conveying these emotions while nevertheless retaining a little humour.”
The partnership between the BPS22 and Centre Bang, which has spanned the ocean since 2017, has fostered an industrious and close-knit artistic community. In Quebec, Nicolas meets other visual artists with whom he maintains an ongoing dialogue, some of whom he has previously met in Belgium: Magali Baribeau-Marchand, Sara Letourneau, Mathieu Valade… There is also Karine Locattelli, who spent last spring in Charleroi before returning to Charlevoix, Quebec, immediately after the Festival Papier Carbone. This summer, she in turn showed him her studio, one of her current exhibitions and a number of inspiring – and sometimes secret – places. She shares her network and experience with her fellow Charleroi artist and also invites him to sample several local specialities, including the intriguing ice cream with “Belgian-style dips”… Like his predecessors, Nicolas Belayew arrived with his own perspective, tools and concerns, but is allowing himself to be gently transformed by the landscape and the people who bring it to life. Following in the footsteps of Pauline Debrichy, Jérôme Giller, Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer and Martin Wautié, François Winants, his work adds a new chapter to a history of transatlantic artistic exchange.
We invite you to follow in Nicolas Belayew’s footsteps and explore Quebec. Through the words he shares, the silences of the places he has captured and the spontaneous lines of his drawings, you will see the region he travels through with such sensitivity gradually take shape. In a few days, a residency presentation at Centre Bang will showcase his legendary multidisciplinary approach, featuring drawings, photographs, zines and perhaps other printed objects. The artist will soon return from his Indian summer with suitcases full of new projects bearing unmistakable Chicoutimi accents, and we cannot wait to hear them. We have slipped in a few examples of his beautiful studies to illustrate this article. From June 2027, an exhibition will take over the BPS22’s galleries, celebrating artists who have taken part in the reciprocal residency1 programme between Charleroi and Chicoutimi, following in the footsteps of Lettres de Misarchie, held here in 2021. Finally, a reminder that if you are a professional French-speaking Belgian artist resident in Belgium, the call for applications for the next residency at Centre Bang remains open. Applications will be accepted until 6 September.
1. The featured artists will be: Stéphanie Auger, Magali Baribeau-Marchand, Julien Champagne, Pauline Debrichy, Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer, Jérôme Giller, Jonhatan Roy, François Winants.