McCord Museum 2013: Benoit Aquin

Haiti: Chaos and Daily Life

February 28 - May 12, 2013

The Montreal museum McCord presents a documentary photo reportage Haiti: Chaos and Daily Life by a Montreal photographer Benoit Aquin. 40 oversized colour photos offer Aquin's vision of Haiti, the day-to day lives of Haitians as they cope with the chaos caused by the January 2010 earthquake and as they try to recover their lives in the aftermath of that devastating event.

Aquin is not only concerned about the subject matter, but foremost with the formal composition of his images: the colours, lines, light and and how various elements in the photograph interact and support each other for the greatest visual effect.

The exhibition is divided into three general areas. The first one documents the immediate situation just after the earthquake took place. It has a predominant colour of light grey-blue.

In his photo reportage Aquin stresses people's resilience to cope with the hardship they have to endure, as well as the emotional stress of having lost friends and family members, not having a proper access to food, water or even shelter. People even find time to play regardless of shear devastation and dis pare that surrounds them.

The very first photograph at the entry to the exhibition, as well as the last area of Aquin's photo reportage is dedicated to documenting carnivals and voodoo ceremonies.

Regardless of the fact that Benoit Aquin does a photo documentation and reportage works, his photographs are avidly collected by art museums. This attests to a high artistic quality of his work.

To find out more about the exhibition, visit McCord Museum's website.

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en