The shores of the world

This photographic series describes a rural plot biting the shoreline of Baie des Chaleurs and stamped with the hot iron of human signature. It will appear contradictory to those who have an idealized, melancholic and pastoral vision of the countryside. The photographic reading I propose differs from it and blurs the usual perception.

Except for the legend which represents a cadastral number designating the owner of the land, whose surface may extend over several hectares, these photographs have almost no reference point. They are only fragments observed as I go back and forth in unknown places, neglected by the gaze, as if they only existed vaguely, in the distance.

We can observe the creeping effects of development on the territory, leading to changes in which I am particularly interested. Sometimes reborn plants show clumsy and obstinate life as a sign of hope, despite repeated attacks of new changes in the world’s shoreline theatre.

The expansion of a commercial sector, the layout of a future road link, the paths traced by the passage of time under the weight of footsteps and wheels, the motorcycle ride of children at the pace of an explorer and conqueror, it is in these margins of an expanding or contracting village that the way it shapes its inhabitants is revealed, forming networks that bind it to people. In return, they develop their attachment to the village in the face of the waves of time that break through and influence the perception of the place.

Children, men and women place themselves in a causal relationship that is difficult to understand since behind each decision there are antecedents.

This land must be called New Richmond.