Stéphanie Desmeules

1993, Fresh out of high school, I entered the Arts and Communication program, with a major in cinema at the CEGEP André-Grasset in Montreal and I received a diploma (DEC) with honors.

I was 18 years old when I enrolled on a sailing ship around the world, the SY Concordia, as a gap year. It provided me a boost in my personal development and global knowledge of the world and its inhabitants, as well as a load of magnificent landscapes in my memory and thousands of pictures translated through the lens of my camera.

Upon my return, I was admitted to the baccalaureate in Landscape architecture (4 years) at the University of Montreal. A truly amazing and fascinating adventure! It just felt so easy and inspiring! I worked in different landscape architect bureaus but the call for traveling was louder! With my partner, we cycled from the Red light district in Amsterdam to the Alhambra in Spain filling our buckets with the old countries spaces, architecture, arts, style and design.

4440 km later, back in Montreal, thirsty for more intellectual avenues. I joined the Urban Studies at INRS (National Institute of Scientific Research). My final thesis focused on the specific spatiality of the indigenous village of Oujé Bougoumou, but also the realities and social and cultural issues of northern indigenous environments, the subtleties of urban environmental balance and the fragility and the strengths of minority populations.

I was in the Landscape architecture business for more than two decades and gave birth and co-created a coop, two companies and a non-profit organization: Ici-et-là Coop d'aménagement, Stéphanie Desmeules Paysages Spirituels et Thérapeutiques, le Houppier Espace Intergenerationel and Terra Terra Paysage. Recipient of the Grand Prix Habitat Design 2021 and 2023 in the Single-Family Unit category, I design environmental resilience, sow simplistic and ergonomic landscapes and prescribe connections to nature to all my clients.

In 2018, I joined in the political arena as a candidate in the provincial green party and was offered a position as environmental political attaché when I was defeated! I joined the winning team for 5 years.

And now moving 8 hours from my eastern township home, in Haute Gaspésie, I enter a new adventure... The Art adventure!

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