The thematic dossier of issue 128 presents recent works by Geoffrey James, Louie Palu and Jinyoung Kim which highlight a feeling of disorientation and relative strangeness evoked by the exploration of different aspects of Canadian reality. A journey across the country by train, taming the inhospitable Arctic territory and the upheavals caused by emigration to a new homeland all challenge the idea of here crossed by the elsewhere.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Esther Bourdages | Artists: Virginie Laganière
Virginie Laganière’s exhibition at Occurrence revisited the “silence of the walls,” inspired by an old nuclear power plant in Switzerland that has been converted into a storage facility for cultural goods belonging to museum institutions.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Essays
Authors: Pierre Dessureault | Artists: Marlene Creates
In this text dedicated to Marlene Creates, Pierre Dessureault explores forty years of image-making in which territory, memory and language intertwine. The Newfoundland artist, whose early work is rooted in the tradition of land art, has never ceased to draw inspiration from her experiences of nature.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Essays
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: Michael Torosian
On the occasion of the summer 2024 exhibition paying tribute to the publishing work of Toronto-based Michael Torosian, Michel Hardy-Vallée takes a look at some of the books he has devoted to photography. The Lumiere Press titles, which focus on eminent photographers, are deeply rooted, he notes, within a broader print culture, as Torosian placed great importance on aspects such as image reproduction, typography, presswork, and bookbinding.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Essays, Focus
Authors: Claudia Polledri
Conceived by two Le Monde journalists, Tu ne meurs pas gives a key role to images in the political resistance being waged by the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran. Claudia Polledri’s essay describes the context behind the uprising unfolding both in the streets and on social media, and invokes the concept of “citizen journalism” to assess amateur images not by their aesthetic value but by their informational significance.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Portfolios
Authors: Gabrielle Sarthou | Artists: Jinyoung Kim
Jinyoung Kim’s journey is one of emigration, from South Korea to Canada. Although the places are briefly mentioned, it is the very idea of displacement, and the upheavals associated with such uprooting, that forms the core of his works.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon
Editorial by Jacques Doyon for Ciel variable no. 128, on the idea of a change of scene.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Portfolios
Authors: Jill Glessing | Artists: Louie Palu
Louie Palu has traveled to the Canadian Arctic several times, a part of the country whose strategic importance is well known, yet largely inaccessible to most of us due to its inhospitable nature. From his travels, Palu has created a critical project on the militarization of this territory.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Portfolios
Authors: Kenneth Hayes | Artists: Geoffrey James
Geoffrey James’s Canadian Photographs offer a paradoxical perspective on the vast country that is Canada. Cities and landscapes appear torn between a not always glorious past and an uncertain future.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Doyon
Thematic presentation for Ciel variable 128: Change of Scene.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Stephen Horne | Artists: Thomas Struth
Thomas Struth’s exhibition at the Marian Goodman Gallery brought together photographs from the last fifteen years, including those from his visits to the European Organization for Nuclear Research, a place marked by the measurement of time.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Earl Miller | Artists: Sandra Brewster
For the exhibition Lullaby of Birdland, Sandra Brewster presented images printed by gel transfer. This technique, specific to analog photography, involves a number of imperfections that the artist accentuated by crumpling the paper and giving it an illusion of wear.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Richard Mosse
Richard Mosse is known for his use of technologies originally designed for non-artistic purposes. For his project in the Amazon, he used a device that reproduces the thermal signature of the human body, aiming this time to capture natural ecosystems. While he imitates companies seeking to exploit land, the Irish artist does so in order to denounce them.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Exhibition reviews
Artists: Anna Lois Dawson Harrington, Ewa Monika Zebrowski
The encounter between nature and culture, inherent to the Reford Gardens, resonated in the exhibition Light and Fog. Curator Hélène Samson used the representation of the landscape to create an encounter between two eras, between the photography of Ewa Monika Zebrowski and the watercolors of Anna Dawson and Lois Harrington.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jean-Michel Quirion | Artists: Yann Pocreau
The second iteration of a project on color and light, Yann Pocreau’s exhibition at the Centre Sagamie took the form of a collection of photographic, cinematic and expographical atmospheres. The content was not the result of taking photographs, but of collecting found images and intervening on them in various ways.
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Ewa Monika Zebrowski | Artists: Paolo Roversi
In her first piece of writing, photographer Ewa Monika Zebrowski reflects on the work of Paolo Roversi, whose retrospective she attended. The exhibition celebrated the experimentation of this fashion and portrait photographer skilled in the techniques of Polaroid.
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 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Readings
Artists: Érika Nimis
A magazine founded in the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Soлomiya addresses a diversity of issues through texts and photography. After reviewing the third issue (2024), Érika Nimis notes that “a tone ranging from hard-hitting articles on the emergency to in-depth reflections on the many challenges raised by the war.”
Ciel variable 128 – CHANGE OF SCENE | Entrevues
Artists: Jean Gagnon
At a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is infiltrating the creative process, the artist-run center Sporobole, whose expertise encompasses digital realities, advocates for an active and pragmatic stance, “neither technophilic nor technophobic.” In an interview, its director, Éric Desmarais, comments on the role of art and copyright in a context where AI would be in control.
The thematic dossier of issue 128 presents recent works by Geoffrey James, Louie Palu and Jinyoung Kim which highlight a feeling of disorientation and relative strangeness evoked by the exploration of different aspects of Canadian reality.