#vanier

After snowstorm 

Vanier, Ottawa

January 2023

JEAN VANIER  |  SEPTEMBER 10, 1928 - MAY 7, 2019

Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, the international community for people with learning disabilities, has died at the age of 90.

In his final message, he said: 

"God is good and whatever happens it will be the best. I am happy and give thanks for everything. My deepest love to each one of you."

In a statement, L'Arche said: "It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Jean Vanier, our founder. Jean died on the 7 May in the Maison Médicale Jeanne Garnier in Paris."

Any new encounter with the object is therefore always its rediscovery and at the same time, “it is never it.” Nevertheless, artistic creation is somehow connected to this void. The objects circulating between the mother and the child will become valued as gifts. These so-called “partial” objects – not a very good term – will become part of the exchange with the Other, they will connect the subject with the Other. They will become gifts, proofs of love. In this way, all demand is fundamentally a demand for love. However, lack remains. Is the object that you are asking for really the one you want? Something beyond the demand questions this lack - and that is desire. In trying to identify them, we produce myths and other discourse, yet both lack and desire remain enigmatic. We therefore have the object of need, essential for survival, the object of demand as a proof of love – am I loved or not? – and the object of desire, which questions the lack that causes it.