Photographic art book and exhibition
at La Galerie Espace
From July 20 to August 2, 2022.
Well known to the world of television and Quebec cinema, director Charles-Olivier Michaud has launched DEUX KILOMÈTRES CARRÉS, the photographic story of a fictional day in the Portuguese district of Montreal, where two square kilometres trace the imaginary border of the entire universe of this book composed of 37 photos and anecdotes. Sixteen of them will be the subject of an exhibition at La Galerie Espace – Centre de diffusion en art actuel (4844, boulevard Saint-Laurent). Opening with an invitational vernissage on July 20 at 5 p.m ., the exhibition will be held there until August 2, 2022.
Initially interested in the technical aspect of large-format film photography, the filmmaker embarked on a journey where the end of the world is within walking distance. With a camera on his shoulder and his son well installed in the baby carrier, he explored various places, and met people he knows, before deepening his approach and going to neighbours, and strangers. Letting him enter their intimacy, his subjects revealed themselves to him without artifice, talking about their lives, art, family, pleasures or the worries of the moment. The obligatory slowness of the photographic technique used will allow him to gently integrate into their environment, to be forgotten and capture images of disarming authenticity.
In a mixture of the codes of fiction and documentary, Charles-Olivier Michaud proposes with DEUX KILOMÈTRES CARRÉS a free reflection on the relationship to the other, on the beauty and unusualness of what surrounds him, on the daily life that has become invisible.
The print run of the framed photographs is limited to three copies for each and will be available at La Galerie Espace. The book, limited to 200 numbered and signed copies, is also available there. All the work of making the book and photographs was done in Montreal.
Charles-Olivier Michaud was born in Quebec City and spent his teenage years watching movies and experimenting with his photo and video cameras. During his university studies, he travelled around the world. He learned to speak six languages during extended stays in Europe and Asia. In the late 2000s, he gave up a career in international business to devote himself to his childhood dream. In Los Angeles, he began studying film. He spent two years living only for cinema, photography, and visual arts in all their forms. He wrote and directed his first feature film which won the Grand Jury Prize at the prestigious Slamdance Festival. The film has a long life in festivals and theatres around the globe. In the years that followed, Charles-Olivier wrote and directed four other films set in Haiti, the United States, Nepal, Thailand and Quebec. In his works, both cinematographic and photographic, he poses as an observer and translates the nature of his characters into images rather than dialogues. Charles-Olivier also directed several television series (Boomerang, Prémonitions, M’entends-tu, Moi non plus). His most recent film, currently in post-production, is an adaptation of Kim Thúy’s novel RU. Charles-Olivier lives in Montreal with his wife and two sons. (Source: MVA)
DEUX KILOMÈTRES CARRÉS
At La Galerie Espace
From July 20 to August 2, 2022
4844, Boulevard Saint-Laurent
Montreal (Quebec) H2T 1R5
Tel: 514 284 6720
