McCord 2022: Disraeli Revisited

 

DISRAELI REVISITED - Chronicle of an Event in Quebec Photography

McCord Stewart Museum

Presented by La Presse

October 28, 2022 - February 19, 2023

This exhibition commemorates the 50th Anniversary of a focal chapter in Quebec’s photographic history. The public is invited to learn about the Disraeli project and the heated debate that caused a deep reflection on the ethics of photographic representation and image rights. Through 144 photographs, including over 67 that have never been exhibited before, 44 archival documents and a video, the exhibition chronicles heated debate that took place in the 1970s that sparked a deep reflection on the ethics of photographic representation and image rights.

The exhibition celebrates and revisits the original body of photograph works by bringing together images and documentation that tell the story from multiple points of view, thus focusing on the major issues and consequences that stemmed from the original Disraeli Project.

In the summer of 1972, four young photographers - Claire Beaugrand-Champagne, Michel Campeau, Roger Charbonneau and Cedric Pearson (in the photos above) - spent three months in Disraeli, a town located in the Municipalité régionale de comté des Appalaches in Quebec, Canada. Along with researchers Ginette Laurin and Maryse Pellerin, they set out to produce a collective documentary portrait of Disraeli and its residents’ everyday life. The group, officially known as the “Collectif de l’Imagerie Populaire de Disraeli,” lived in a farmhouse on the outskirts of the town. Throughout their stay, they photographed and interviewed local residents and developed certain friendships. This closeness made it possible for the photographers to take portraits of their subjects in action and posing nonchalantly in places where they lived and worked.

The Controversy

In the months and years that followed the group’s stay in Disraeli, the photographs were widely distributed in various publications and exhibitions. In 1974, controversy broke out when the popular French-language magazine Perspectives published an article and a selection of 18 images. This magazine was inserted inside La Presse, La Tribune, Le Soleil, Le Droit and other French-language newspapers and was distributed in more than 550,000 copies. Influential people from the Disraeli community expressed their disapproval in local papers, stating that the photographs unfairly and negatively represented the town.

Some Montreal journalists, including writer Pierre Vallières in Le Devoir, came to the group’s defense. This article triggered a strong reaction from prominent residents of Disraeli, creating a real media storm. While this debate brought the Montreal photography community to reflect on the social impact of documentary photography, it also raised such broad questions as the manipulation of information by the media, the idealization of rural life by the younger generation, and the subjectivity of photography as an art form.

In addition to the photos, the exhibition also includes a 16-minute video that combines audio clips and a selection of the photographers’ contact sheets creating an amplified experience of some of the better-known image. This video was produced by researchers Ginette Laurin and Maryse Pellerin.

Click on images to enlarge them.

All Photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For more information about current exhibitions and activities, visit the McCord Museum website.