Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Readings
Authors: Sophie Bertrand
Taking stock of photography, its themes, its networks, and its perspectives—that’s the aim of a research group called Formes actuelles de l’expérience photographique. After eight years of existence, its reflection sessions have resulted in seven books.
Ciel variable 124 – SEEING THROUGH IMAGES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Marisa Portolese
[Fall 2023] By Sophie Bertrand [Excerpt] Occurrence, espace d’art et d’essai contemporains, Montréal 20.01.2023 — 11.03.2023 Once upon a time, there was Goose Village – also called Village-aux-Oies or Victoriatown – a working-class district in Montreal, adjacent to the port on one side and the Canadian National Railway train yards on the other. This enclave […]
The Photobook
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Normand Rajotte
[March 21, 2023] By Sophie Bertrand. A few weeks ago, during a Sunday stroll in a park in the Lanaudière region, my eye was drawn to a large lump lying not far from the path I was on. The animal’s corpse, just a few metres away, literally blended in with the winter landscape, like a rock, between the entangled trunks and trees humbly withstanding the passage of the seasons…
Ciel variable 122 – NIGHT ROUNDS | Book Reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Tendance Floue
[Winter 2023] Sophie Bertrand Tendance Floue Paris, éditions Textuel, 2022, 190 p. [Excerpt] Fragiles is the most recent project of Tendance Floue, a French collective founded in 1991 that today comprises sixteen photographers – thirteen men and three women – with varied visual signatures. Although each member practises independently, the collective regularly produces joint projects […]
Ciel variable 122 – NIGHT ROUNDS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Alexander Henderson
[Winter 2023] Sophie Bertrand McCord Museum 10.06.2022 – 16.04.2023 [Excerpt] In 2021, the McCord Museum celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary against the backdrop of COVID-19. As a result of the forced closure of museums due to the pandemic, the retrospective exhibition of photographs by Alexander Henderson – who had fallen into obscurity for more than a […]
Documentary photography
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Adrienne Surprenant
[June 29, 2022] An interview by Sophie Bertrand. Between two trips to Ukraine, where she was covering the consequences of the war that started on February 24, 2022, photographer Adrienne Surprenant talked to Sophie Bertrand about her experience in war zones.
Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Emmanuel Galland
[Summer 2022] By Sophie Bertrand HANGAR 7826, Montréal 6.11.2021 — 28.11.2021 [Excerpt] Max, Brad, Tyler, John, Diego, Erik. These disembodied names, crowded together on the walls of the small gallery HANGAR 7826, wordlessly welcome us to the most recent exhibition by Emmanuel Galland, « Mes Dates / Close Friends ». At first glance, the grouping […]
Documentary photography
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Caroline Hayeur
[December 21, 2021] By Sophie Bertrand. “Radioscopy,” a term borrowed from medical imagery, suggests the observation of internal movements of the body. Here, though, it is a question not of X-ray techniques but of infrared photography that captures the motions of sleeping bodies. Radioscopie du dormeur, Caroline Hayeur’s most recent photographic project, plunges us into […]
Documentary photography
Authors: Sophie Bertrand
[October 27, 2020] By Sophie Bertrand One summer, photojournalist Valérian Mazataud was invited to photograph the tenants of the Corporation d’habitation Jeanne-Mance, situated in downtown Montreal. Mazataud saw this as more than a commission; it was a photographic mission that would enable him to encounter the different Montreal communities residing in what was dubbed […]
Ciel variable 115 - THE MARCH OF THE WORLD | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Léa Magnien
[Summer 2020] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Parenthèse(s) Du 6 au 30 novembre 2019 Par Sophie Bertrand (In French only) See the magazine for the complete article and more images: Ciel variable 115 – THE MARCH OF […]
Ciel variable 115 - THE MARCH OF THE WORLD | Essays
Authors: Sophie Bertrand
[Summer 2020] By Sophie Bertrand For the last ten years, the Zoom Photo Festival been a mid-autumn feature in Chicoutimi, in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. La Pulperie de Chicoutimi, a national historic site and regular partner of the festival, serves as headquarters and hosts most of the exhibitions, with La Zone Portuaire, and other shows are […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: André Kertész, Bruce Charlesworth, Ellen Carey, Kunihiro Shinohara, Paolo Gioli, Toshio Shibata
[Winter 2020] Le projet Polaroid – Art et technologie Musée McCord, Montréal Du 13 juin au 15 septembre 2019 Par Sophie Bertrand (French only) Purchase this issue
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Essays
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Martin Bureau
March 7, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — Par Sophie Bertrand. “The number of walls has tripled since the Cold War, and it has kept growing since 2001; it now consists of almost 30,000 km of armed borders.”1 This observation, made in 2013 by the researchers of the Chaire Raoul-Dandurand en études stratégiques et diplomatiques at the Université du Québec à Montréal, during a conference on issues around walled borders, conveys much more than a malaise inherited from history…
Ciel variable 112 - COLLECTIONS REVISITED | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand
August 2, 2023 — This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.
Ciel variable 110 - MIGRATION | Portfolios
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Michel Huneault
January 19, 2022 [originally published in CV110 in Fall 2018] — Thanks to their inherent power, images may function to inform or to reinforce prejudices. For a number of years, photographer Michel Huneault has been concerned with deconstructing preconceived ideas about migratory issues. Each of his new series builds on the previous one…