Thomas Bouquin, a Montreal-based artist himself an expatriate from his country of origin, draws from the story of his great-grandmother, a native of Southern France’s Ercé Valley, who, in the late 19th century, was caught up in a wave of emigration from her home region to New York, where many of her compatriots worked as bear handlers. With Le Roc d’Ercé, Bouquin shares four years of creation centred around an introspective exploration of family stories, consulting family archives and traversing the two regions in the search of these erstwhile migrants’ traces and vestiges of their unique history. In this project, which was initially published as a book, reality meets fiction, together forming a sort of poetic reenactment. Now taking the form of a meticulously designed exhibition, Le Roc d’Ercé shares tangible aspects of Bouquin’s exploration, and brings them face to face with other, less rational aspects of the project. Through his use of the photographic medium, Bouquin here opens up the possibility for us to look to a more universal understanding of all that transpires during the migratory experience.
This exhibition is part of our Free Time programming, which positions itself in opposition to productivity, performance, and efficiency, and in which photography appears as a tool for exploration, for making relations and conceiving of new perspectives.
