Exhibition

Stina Baudin

The Sky Still Carries the Stories

May 16–November 2, 2026

Opening: Saturday, May 16, 2026, at 4 p.m.: click here

Adélard presents The Sky Still Carries the Stories , a monumental outdoor artwork by the artist Stina Baudin. Installed on the roof of the barn at Adélard. The artwork evokes a vast starry sky and transforms the site's agricultural architecture into a memorial dedicated to the historical presence of Black people in the region during the 19th century. Reflective and ever-changing, it comes alive in response to light, the sky, and its immediate surroundings.

Inspired by the assembly techniques specific to quilting, this site-specific installation is composed of hundreds of strips of black and blue textiles and a multitude of hand-sewn mirrors. Through its scale, the repetition of the gesture, and the attention paid to the textile materials, the work articulates a dimension that is both performative and commemorative. It is rooted in the local history of the northern Lake Champlain Valley, a territory associated with the routes of the Underground Railroad, and pays tribute to the Black people who fled slavery in the United States, and whose work, often carried out under difficult conditions, contributed to the development of the Brome-Missisquoi region.

Accompanied by a sound piece by Markus Floats, Stina Baudin's work offers a simple gesture but one full of symbolic significance: Listening and raising our eyes to the sky in recognition of people who have been kept on the margins of official narratives for too long.

On May 9, 1972, Reverend Jesse Jackson appeared on Sesame Street to host a call-and-response game with the children of the popular show. With each refrain, he affirmed the inherent value of everyone's difference. "I am somebody!" he chanted, and the children repeated in unison: "I may be small, but I am—someone! I may have made mistakes, but I am—someone! My clothes are different, my face is different, my hair is different, but I am—someone!"... In the context of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power movement in 1970s America, Black self-determination was gaining momentum. More than half a century later, as artists and cultural figures continue to find new ways to celebrate Black lives, Jesse Jackson's message remains as relevant as ever.
For this project at Adélard , Haitian-Canadian interdisciplinary textile artist Stina Baudin created a monumental public artwork in homage to the historical presence of Black people in the Eastern Townships. The Sky Still Carries the Stories is a vast quilt that covers the entire roof of the barn in Adélard Rectangular pieces—made of black and blue tarpaulins, waxed cotton, denim, and indigo-dyed strips of fabric—are hand-sewn and inlaid with mirrors. A sound composition by Markus Floats accompanies the work, blending names, numbers, and fragments of poetry with the ambient sounds of chimes and bells.
Not so long ago, and not so far from here, in Saint-Armand-Philipsburg, teacher Hank Avery worked tirelessly to ensure that an unmarked burial site of Black people, discovered on private land, would be properly commemorated. Here, at Adélard Another commemoration is underway, thanks to Stina's creative research. As an artist, she is interested in how we organize archives and the meaning we ascribe to this process. These concerns have led her to distance herself from research methods focused on the "search for truth," because, when it comes to Black history in Canada, information is often inaccessible, or even lost forever. What are the names of those left for eternity in an anonymous grave on private land? This question remains unanswered. Faced with the lack of documentation on Black history, Stina has adopted a completely different approach—she has created a work whose contours shape a new story of Black life in the region.
On the quilt's surface, the sun and moon embrace the mirrors, their shimmering reflections creating a visual cacophony. The stars have always formed a map of the sky, a way to orient ourselves toward other, perhaps better, lands. These mirrors, like the stars, pulse with a benevolent celestial presence, a presence that shows us the way. This superior refracted light seems ancient.
It is estimated that in the 1830s, more than 200 Black people lived in this part of the Eastern Townships. The barn of; Adélard dating from this period, it is likely that Black farmworkers were employed there, given their significant presence in the region's rural workforce. The Sky Still Carries the Stories is an iconic testament to their untold history. The artwork covers the barn with an immense quilt, as if protecting a sacred space. In this way, it highlights a past firmly rooted in the local context and testifies to the long-standing Black presence in Frelighsburg and, more broadly, in the Eastern Townships.
Stina often works with abstraction. Here, with the roof of the barn of Adélard Using the blank canvas as her canvas, she undertook her most ambitious textile project to date: a work measuring approximately 10 meters by 12 meters. Each "block" of the quilt measures 5 to 10 centimeters wide and 1.5 to 2 meters long. She crafted over 1,400 blocks to cover the entire roof, and each hand-sewn piece took up to an hour to complete. Stina's work on this project is a true tribute. The days, weeks, and months spent meticulously collecting materials, planning the quilt, cutting, dyeing, and assembling the sections—it is ultimately this work that allowed her to honor the lives of the Black people who once lived on this site. In other words, the historical work of Black people connected to this site finds a strong echo in Stina's work, and if you, as visitors, internalize this echo, it will be possible for you to feel it throughout your body, listening to the voices and contemplating the light shining from above.

Original English text translated by Simon Brown
Cotton is a key element in the history of Black people in North America (obviously!).
WAX COTTON PRINTING is an African textile tradition that makes fabric waterproof, among other things.
Quilts are used for protection: they keep you warm, and can also transmit coded information.
BLUE and BLACK evoke the colors of the sky and Black identity itself.
The STARS represent the infinite possibilities of Black people, those that appear in official historical narratives, as well as those that are excluded from them.
The SOUNDLANDSCAPE in this work features a large ensemble of Black voices, adults and children, as well as the voice of the artist herself. These voices tell the stories we carry within us, witnesses to our past; they tell of the community of stars and the community of Black people who surely worked, laughed, slept, cooked, ate, and sang together right here in this barn.

Soundscape by Markus floats

About Stina Baudin

Stina Baudin (she) is a Haitian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist, currently based between Montreal and the United States. She studied at Concordia University (2012) and the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts (2019). She graduated with an MFA in 2025 and is a recipient of the Gilbert Foundation Fellowship at the Cranbrook Academy of the Arts.

Stina Baudin received the Gilbert Foundation Scholarship in 2023/24 and 2024/25, as well as the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation Materials Award (USA) from Cranbrook. She has participated in residencies at ZK/U Berlin, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada), and Pocoapoco (Mexico). Recent exhibitions include work at the Joliette Museum of Art (Canada), the Clark Centre (Canada), and the Toronto Art Biennial (Canada). Her work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Holon Berlin, and the CALQ (Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec). Québec ).

Thanks

The artist wishes to thank Markus Floats, Yaniya Lee, Christina Mills, Gaia Mills-Péan, Zoë Mills-Péan, Nura Ali, Henry Ali Scrivens, Sandeep Badwall, Mohinder Badwall, Cell Gamez, Coco Courtney, Jumall Mortimer.