The Illusory Immobility of the Forest with Normand Rajotte
The Illusory Immobility of the Forest with Normand Rajotte
Wednesday, November 1st, at 7 pm EDT on Zoom
As a photographer, Normand Rajotte has been continuously exploring the same forest in southeastern Quebec, Canada, for over twenty years. Little by little, image after image, Rajotte has taken root in these woods, to the point of merging with them. Observing the growth of vegetation or traces of animal activity, he photographs the perpetual transformation of the forest.
“I became attuned to the transformations – because nature moves…with the seasons, with light conditions, depending on the time of day,” he says. Rajotte may walk for two hours but travel only a short distance. If he feels inclined to go left, he goes left; then he may turn right, and then choose to retrace his steps. “I follow the forest’s own movements,” he says.
Join us for an intimate conversation about the importance of feeling a place both visually and physically and how witnessing long-term changes can alter what we believe we recognize. Together we will explore the importance of embodied place-making and the unique power of creating bodies of work over long periods of time.
Normand Rajotte lives and works in Montreal and the Eastearn Towships, Quebec, Canada. A self-taught photographer, his practice began in the social documentary genre and its direct approach would endure throughout his practice. In 1978, Éditions Ovo published an essay, Transcanadienne Sortie 109, on the daily life of a working-class city—his own, Drummondville— of which he is co-author. This project was among the rare publications of its sort for the time.
In the early 1980s, through landscape photography, he adopted a more introspective approach focused on self-awareness and a renewed relationship to nature. From this, several series were developed. They would be the focus of several exhibitions, and many excerpts of these works later went on to be included in a book titled Marcher sa trace (Walking in my foot prints), published in 2004 by Éditions Les 400 coups (Montreal). The series, Comme un murmure (Like a whisper) (2004-2011), presented notably at Mois de la photo de Montréal 2011 and published by Editions Kehrer in 2016 (Heildelberg). More recently, Rajotte has completed two new series: Le chantier (2010-2014) and Carcasse (2015-2017).
Since 1997 Rajotte’s photographic project has persistently focused on Lot no126, a single area of forest at the foot of Mont Mégantic in the Eastern Townships. A new series is currently in progress.
His work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, since the late 1970s. His works appear in many private and public collections in Quebec and throughout Canada, including the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (Ottawa), the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec (Quebec), and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Rajotte is also well represented in major corporate collections.
Normand Rajotte, Like a whisper
Normand Rajotte, Le chantier
Normand Rajotte
Normand Rajotte
Normand Rajotte
Normand Rajotte
