In 2018, at the McCord Museum, she curated the fascinating exhibition by Gabor Szilasi The art world in Montreal (1960-1980)). Curator Zoë Tousignant continues her substantive work on photography in Quebec with a presentation of the project Disraeli, produced in 1972 by the Photographic Action Group (GAP). To do this, she carried out considerable research on this imposing work produced over two months in this small town in the Eastern Townships.
Claire Beaugrand-Champagne, Michel Campeau, Roger Charbonneau, Cedric Pearson and even Gabor Szilasi, who came to see them, were part of the adventure, accompanied by two researchers, Maryse Pellerin and Ginette Laurin. “These carried out interviews with the citizens which were to make it possible to develop a publication, where text and image would meet, as well as a video montage, with photos and an audio tape. »
These two projects were ultimately not edited and “we thought the audio recordings were lost”. But Tousignant had the good idea to question Cedric Pearson. “In the basement at his mother’s house were 11 cassettes of 90 minutes each in which we hear the photographers working and interacting with the citizens for 15 hours…”
For this exhibition, Tousignant produced a visual montage of the contact sheets accompanied by a 17-minute extract from the soundtracks, “in order to add the voices of the people of this city to this project, of which only images were published in 1974”.
A collective trauma
This project, carried out 50 years ago, “allows us to reflect on the challenges of the ethics of representation in photography”. It must be said that some claimed that the Disraelois had been exploited by the artists… The reactions in the local newspapers in Estrie were strong. Henri Barras, Pierre Dessureault and Pierre Vallières added their voices in The duty and The Press.
Tousignant organized all the documents in chronological order in order to follow the development of the controversy. “Vallières read it on the class struggle in the regions. But after the photos were exhibited at the Cinémathèque québécoise, he wrote a second text on the artist’s responsibility to represent reality at all costs… And that’s where the debate ignited. It became a collective trauma. »
It will be one of the big events of the new school year, which will include 50% unpublished images.