Travel log

The governments of Canada and Quebec are taking an important step by announcing their joint intention to begin working to expand the boundaries of the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park. This project aims to better protect the biodiversity and ecosystems of the St. Lawrence Estuary, which is home to nearly 2,200 species, some of which, like the beluga, are in a precarious situation.

The announcement was made today by Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, and the Québec Minister of Environment, Climate Change, Benoit Charette.

Protection of the St. Lawrence beluga

The expansion project's main objective is to protect the critical habitat of the St. Lawrence beluga, of which more than 60 percent currently lies outside the boundaries of the marine park. It also aims to preserve a high-quality feeding ground for several species of whales, some of which are in a precarious situation. In 2020, as a first act of protection by the Government of Québec, and while waiting for a legal status of protection, territorial reserves were set aside with the end goal of eventually creating protected areas. This project would help to consolidate the protection of a significant part of these territories. As currently planned, the project could quadruple the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park's area.

Today's announcement is a first step toward expansion of the marine park. In the coming months, the governments of Canada and Québec will jointly meet with regional and municipal organizations, as well as all stakeholders involved in the project, including First nations, research groups and local businesses to exchange perspectives and obtain feedback. Finally, a public consultation phase will be held, during which the proposed limits and the proposed protection measures will be discussed.

Recognized expertise

Backed with more than 25 years of Canada-Québec co-management and participatory governance in the region, the marine park is a unique model for collaboration and partnerships for the conservation of the marine environment. The expertise of its coordination committee and its teams in the fields of marine activity regulation, education, awareness, visitor experience and scientific research makes it a privileged protection tool, mainly for marine mammals, adapted to the context of the St. Lawrence estuary and the Saguenay Fjord.

The governments of Canada and Quèbec recognize that the protection of an environment as extensively used as the St. Lawrence Estuary requires strong joint cooperation, close collaboration with all members of the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park Coordination Committee and consultation with a multitude of regional stakeholders.Quotes:

''As a joint Québec-Canada marine protected area, the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park has a 25-year history of collaborative conservation and public education successes. Its expansion will allow our governments to work together on several shared priorities, including the protection of marine biodiversity and the recovery of species at risk such as the St. Lawrence beluga. This collaboration between our governments is a clear sign that protecting biodiversity and endangered species is a shared priority. At COP15, we made ambitious commitments, a"nd today we are taking an important step towards achieving these goals."  Declares S teven Guilbeault, Minister responsible for Parks Canada

"The Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park is a source of national pride and a true natural jewel of Quebec. The Government of Québec is proud of this unique partnership with the federal government, which will improve the protection of marine mammals living in the Saint Lawrence Estuary, such as the beluga, which is an emblematic species of the fragility of this habitat. The knowledge gained in recent years sends a clear signal of what we must do to protect it. With extensive experience in co-management and participatory governance, the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park is a model for protecting marine environments that promote sustainable tourism and benefit local communities. I am convinced that the leadership, experience and trusting relationships that have been at the heart of the park's management since its inception will be catalysts for the next steps toward this promising expansion project for our nation!"

Added Benoit Charette, Québec Minister of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks

Highlights

Concerns about the decline of the beluga and its habitat were a determining factor in the creation of the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park (SSMP) in 1998. The SSMP is a unique Québec/Canada joint marine protected area created by Québec and federal legislation, the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park Act.
With a current surface area of 1,245 square kilometres (km2), the SSMP is located on Quèbec public lands at the confluence of the Saguenay River and the St. Lawrence Estuary. Its mandate is to enhance the level of protection of the ecosystems of a representative part of the Saguenay Fjord and the St. Lawrence Estuary for the purposes of conservation and environmental protection of the exceptional flora and fauna and natural resources found there, in addition to promoting sustainable educational, recreational and scientific activities.
The management of SSMP, under the joint responsibility of the Ministère de l'Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs, of the Société des établissements de plein air du Québec (Sépaq) and Parks Canada, is based on a participatory governance approach that is unique in Canada and relies on stakeholders working together at the local, regional and national levels to achieve its objectives. Its coordination committee is composed of representatives of the Essipit Innu First Nation, the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation, the Charlevoix-Est regional county municipalities (RCM), the Saguenay Fjord, la Haute-Côte-Nord, and representatives of the three southern shore RCMs (des Basques, Rivière-du-Loup and Kamouraska), the scientific community, and the interpretation and education community.
Since the creation of SSMP in 1998, significant efforts have been made by the involved parties to preserve marine mammals, including beluga. However, its population has continued to decline since then, at a rate of about 1% per year. It now has fewer than 900 individuals. Since the 2000s, there has been a critical and unexplained increase in mortality among newborns and females of reproductive age, which suggests an acceleration of the beluga's decline in the coming years.

The Gaspésie and Maritimes regions, covered in this guide, have been inhabited by the Mi'gmaq people for thousands of years. Today, visitors can still encounter many of these First Nation communities across the area.

In Gaspé, a city with a rich history of French explorer Jacques Cartier's interactions with the Mi'gmaq nation, the Gespeg Micmac Interpretation Site showcases the culture of the local Mi'gmaq community. Through interactive exhibits and guided tours, the site offers a fascinating insight into the history and traditions of the Mi'gmaq people. The on-site shop features a range of authentic, high-quality Mi'gmaq crafts and other Indigenous products from Quebec.

Further along the Baie des Chaleurs, Gesgapegiag is a popular spot for tourists eager to experience the unique attractions of Mi'gmaq territory. Visitors can enjoy a picnic in the community park or marvel at the impressive tipi erected by the sea in 2018.

For those seeking a more immersive experience, the community of Gesgapegiag offers cozy chalets and traditional tipis in Anse Sainte-Hélène. Alternatively, guests can stay aboard a replica of Jacques Cartier's La Grande Hermine, an iconic vessel from the age of exploration. Nearby, hikers and snowmobilers can take advantage of Le Relais de la Cache, located close to the Chic-Chocs mountain range.

One of the most exciting annual events in the region is the Pow-Wow, a traditional festival held every July. This vibrant celebration sees Mi'gmaq people from across the region coming together to share their culture and traditions through song, dance, and storytelling. Everyone is welcome to join in the festivities and experience the warm hospitality of the Mi'gmaq people.

Multiple award-winning Montréal-based artist from Mauritius, Kama La Mackerel, is delighted to present their debut exhibition, Who Sings the Queer Island Body? at the Visual Art Centre's McClure Gallery from March 3 to 25, 2023.

La Mackerel’s work, for the past few years, has sought to question and counter-narrativize dominant colonial island tropes through a queer/trans lens. Their photography series Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness (2017-19), for example, calls into question the colonial legacy of the visual representation of “tropical islands” by questioning the aesthetics of the postcard. In this work, La Mackerel reframes clichés of Mauritian postcards, by foregrounding their transgender body at the centre of the frame. In their most recent work in moving image, poetry, textiles and performance ritual, Queering the Is/land Body (2021), presented at 17th edition of MOMENTA, Biennale de l’image, they explore the spiritual relationship that is sustained between the transgender, racialized body and that of the “island body” in order to bring forth ancestral forms of Indo-African spirituality. In their award-winning debut poetry collection, ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press, 2020), they invoke ancestral voices of slaves and indentured labour who worked amidst colonial silences on plantation islands.

In Who Sings the Queer Island Body?, La Mackerel expands on their previous body of work to contend with the question of island sovereignty and ocean mapping. In this new work, they further question ocean and island cartographies as these have been documented, archived and communicated through modernity: The sea as aqua nullius, a masculine space that men traverse in order to to go to islands which were regarded as terra nullius, empty feminine spaces to be colonized. Through hybrid creative forms, La Mackerel explores the unruly interstices between photography, video, sound composition, poetry, textiles and performance to offer a decolonial mapping of “the island body” and its relationship to the ocean. Who Sings the Queer Island Body? opens up new aesthetic spaces where trans and decolonial personal, ancestral, geopolitical, geological and ecological narratives make themselves heard.

This new work body of work is also heavily influenced by the tragedy of the MV Wakashio. In July 2020, the MV Wakashio – a Japanese-owned cargo ship sailing under a Panamanian flag of convenience with a team of Indian sailors and on its way to Brazil – ran aground the coral reefs of La Mackerel’s native-island, Mauritius. More than 1,000 tonnes of heavy oil were spilled, impacting the entire south-eastern coastline including ecosystems of wetlands, mangrove forests and a marine reserve. More than 50 melon-head whales and dolphins washed up dead on the island’s coast. For the inhabitants of the south-eastern coast of Mauritius (“the people of the sea,” as they are called), this signaled the end of their traditional way of life.

The tragedy of the MV Wakashio – the biggest ecological disaster in the history of Mauritius – is in many ways embedded in this exhibition. On the one hand, watching this oil spill from afar demanded that the artist work through a deep process of grief for the ecologies, the people, the “island body” in relation to their own queer Mauritian body. On the other hand, the lack of international geopolitical accountability and the failure of any country to take responsibility and take action for this oceanic environmental disaster reinforced the dominant trope of disposability with which islands have been historically construed.

Who Sings the Queer Island Body? then, is an exhibition that is a call for reframing our relationality to island territories, to bodies of water, and to the ecologies of which we are part. At the core of this work, La Mackerel grounds us in an imperative to heal our hearts, to repair our relationship to the island body, to soothe the spirit of the ocean. Through the retellings expressed in the different pieces of this exhibition, Kama La Mackerel reactivates the work of the imagination, so that we can reinvent ourselves, with purpose; so that we can reclaim the very integrity of our human life; so that we can leave a roadmap of beauty, joy, of being in relationship differently, for generations yet to come.

ABOUT KAMA LA MACKEREL

Kama La Mackerel is a Mauritian-Canadian multilingual writer, visual artist, performer, educator and literary translator who believes in love, justice and self and collective empowerment. Their practice blurs the lines between traditional artistic disciplines to create hybrid aesthetic spaces from which decolonial and queer/trans vocabularies can emerge. At once narratological and theoretical, personal and political, their interdisciplinary method, developed over the past decade, is grounded in ritual, meditation, ancestral healing modalities, auto-ethnography, oral history, archival research and community-arts facilitation.

La Mackerel is a firm believer that artistic and cultural practices have the power to build resilience, to heal and to act as forms of resistance to the status quo. With wholehearted engagement in ocean narratives, island sovereignty, transgender poetics and queer/trans spiritual histories, their body of work challenges colonial notions of time and space as these relate to history, power, language, subject formation and the body.

La Mackerel has lectured, performed and exhibited their work internationally in museums, galleries, theatres and universities. In 2021, they were awarded the Canada Council for the Arts' Joseph S. Stauffer Prize for emerging and mid-career artists in Visual Arts. Their award-winning book ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press) was named a CBC Best Poetry Book and a Globe and Mail Best Debut. Kama La Mackerel lives and loves in Tio’tia:ke, also known as Montréal.

KAMA LA MACKEREL & THE MCCLURE GALLERY

The McClure Gallery at the Visual Arts Centre in Montréal is an independent not-for-profit gallery operating for over twenty years. The gallery has a history of hosting high-quality, professional exhibitions by early, mid and late career artists working in a variety of disciplines. The programming is chosen by a jury made up of professional artists (one from the previous season, two from the teaching staff, one from the community) and board members (many of whom are also artists). The jury was particularly taken by La Mackerel’s exhibition proposal and their interdisciplinary work. The McClure Gallery is committed to supporting this work, particularly given the ongoing systemic barriers that the artist has faced as a racialized, transgender immigrant who is also self-taught.

Photography, video, textile installations, multilingual poetry and audio compositions combine for a debut multimedia exhibition

March 3 to 25, 2023
McClure Gallery

What happens when you’re caught between bittersweet memories of youth and the realities of middle age, with only a couple of opinionated old gay friends to lend you an ear. From the writer of the hit play Mambo Italiano, another sharp-witted look at what it means to be an Italian/Canadian gay man in an ever-changing world.

https://youtu.be/ZIMZTgcIkF4

Three old friends gather and reminisce about the past — the good, the bad, and the outrageous. They talk about everything from boyfriends to Sunday night dinners, backed by a soundtrack of Blondie, the B-52s, and the Village People. Everything bubbles to the surface while memory and loss stir up questions about healing and moving on.

With an open heart, Galluccio has penned a story about his own loves and losses in an unabashed love letter to Montreal. How do you remember your past? At the beginning of time… when everything is fresh and new. Galluccio’s newest play reminds us that memories are like a good shot of espresso: best shared among friends.

“​​At the Beginning of Time is my most personal play since Mambo Italiano. It seems only fitting that 20-some-odd years later I am back at Centaur to share this new chapter. In 2018 my life exploded, and I was forced to re-imagine my existence. I was a gay man in my late 50s who thought his life was settled. Overnight I found myself at the beginning of time, in a new chapter, in a new world, and a new reality. New beginnings are frightening and overwhelming, but if you surrender to the journey, the destination will ultimately be… spectacular. Thank you Centaur Theatre for taking my broken heart and turning it into art. Theatre, much like time, heals all wounds.”

– Steve Galluccio

Centaur Theatre

February 21 - March 12, 2023

Built along the port, the formerly walled off old city has a gastronomic tradition that goes back to the colony’s beginnings. A time when hostels welcomed visitors from all over the continent and across the Atlantic. The Maison Pierre-du-Calvet, which was constructed in 1771, today still attests to this tradition, as it is the oldest building in Montréal still welcoming visitors and offering them its copious cuisine in the style of 18th century inns. Since that time, the gastronomic propositions have of course evolded and become more diversified – there are many great restaurants to be discovered in historic Old Montréal.

Near Notre-Dame Cathedral, you can begin or end your evening at L’Assommoir, with its trendy atmosphere and emphasis is on products of the terroir. On De la Commune street, just next to the Old Port, Da Emma is à Montréal Classic. From the decor to the plate, everything here transports us to Italy. More specifically, to one of those dining cellars that you only come across in Rome, which seems almost frozen in time. Located in a basement, the intimate space seats 140, plus another 70 on the terrace in front of the restaurant, weather permitting.

At the entrance, the celebrity wall confirms the reputation of the establishment with a numerous photos of stars from all over the world photographed with Emma. White tablecloths, period paintings, stone walls and wooden ceilings… the Italian charm is immediately felt, and most welcome.
With the urban re-development of the Faubourg aux Récollets west of Old Montréal, McGill Street has become a sought-after stretch of great restaurants and bistros from the Old Port to Victoria square. With its warm décor and friendly, laid-back ambiance, Ikanos invites you to rediscover some of the classics of Greek and Mediterranean cuisine, reinvented by the chef and owner Constant Mentzas. The seafood and fish is carefully selected and grilled in wood fire ovens. Located on the site of the old Soeurs Grises nunnery near the Old Port, the Bistro Brasserie Les Soeurs Grises offers a selection of home-brewed beers and a menu composed of local products.

You can’t talk about Mile End gastronomy without talking about Montréal’s Jewish and Eastern European heritage. It is the centre of the emblematic institutions of this legacy in the city, where immigrant Jews, most of them from Eastern Europe, brought us the bagel, the smoked meat sandwich and cured sausages in the early 20th century. In Mile End you’ll find the two temples of bagels that are Fairmount Bagel and Saint-Viateur Bagel. The story goes that the Montréal bagel is sweeter and more delicate than its New York cousin, a probable result of adapting to local taste. Try out a sausage sandwich at Wilensky’s on Fairmount Street. Smoked meat fans will definitely want to wait in line to try Montréal’s famous smoked meat sandwiches at the restaurant Schwartz on St-Laurent, just south of the Mile End.

The specialties of bagels and sandwiches associated with the Mile End neighbourhood are most probably linked to its being a favoured brunching destination. This tradition has been well established by the restaurant Beauty’s on Mont-Royal Avenue, where bagels are a specialty. Restaurants such as B & M or Fabergé, located on St-Viateur and Fairmount respectively, offer their own updated version of the Mile End brunch. The Syrian restaurant Kazamaza on Parc Avenue even proposes a Middle Eastern version of it.

The multiethnic character of the neighbourhood is, of course, also reflected in the more refined eateries of the area, with some fine cuisine from all sides of the Mediterranean basin. In the intimate décor of bistro Barcola on Parc Avenue, you will discover authentic Northern Italian cuisine. At the limits of Outremont on the corner of Van Horne and Hutchison, the Caffé Della Pace prepares a variety of Italian coffees and offers healthy, homemade vegetarian dishes composed of fresh ingredients. The prices are very reasonable and the atmosphere is friendly, with a piano in one corner and sofas in another. Both families with children and queers rub shoulders here. The fancy bistro Chez Lévêque on Laurier West has remained a very popular spot for the past 45 years. There is a humorous, slightly irreverent tone here, and a religious theme is displayed in reference to the patronymic of chef and co-owner Pierre Lévêque (L’évêque meaning Bishop). This chic Parisian brasserie with a distinctive Montréal touch has never deviated from the concept that made its success: good food and wine, in a trendy but casual ambiance. Their “faim de soirée” menu becomes available after 9pm, with more affordable prices attracting a younger clientele.

Of course, this neighbourhood’s culinary spectrum is much larger than what we can possibly cram into this page, and Local Montréal Tours can design customized gourmet tours that allow for rich and diverse Mile End discoveries.

The Mile End neighbourhood’s name seems to have come from a 19th century racing track that roughly covered the zone delineated by St-Joseph Boulevard, Mentana Street, Mont-Royal Avenue and Berri Street. Indeed, a 1 mile distance separated the racing track from the former limits of Montréal. Thus, Mile End.
Although the neighbourhood is officially part of the Plateau Mont-Royal district, Montrealers differentiate the two, as Mile End is situated in one of the most bilingual and multiethnic sectors of the city, in the western extremity of the mainly French speaking Plateau. It had long been the heart of Montréal’s Jewish community and Hassidic Jews are still very much present, though many have migrated slightly to the west, spilling into Outremont. Both the Fairmount and St-Viateur bagel factories, true Montréal institutions that have popularized bagels in the city, are emblematic of the neighbourhood. The Greek community is also very much present, especially on Avenue du Parc.
Since the 1980s, Mile End is known as a neighbourhood of largely artistic inclinations, and many artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers have elected residence here. The streets are peppered with many art galleries, designer workshops, specialized boutiques and cafés. Mile End’s transformation was reinforced by the establishment of big-time multimedia enterprises in former factories. Take a stroll along St-Laurent Boulevard, Parc Avenue, Fairmount, St-Viateur and Bernard streets and discover the eclectic diversity of this neighbourhood.
The bohemian nature of the new Mile End opened a space where gays, lesbians and the queer folk could flourish. Today, Mile End is considered Montréal’s second most dynamic area for LGBT culture and the preferred neighbourhood of the queer community in particular. Mile End has also appealed to the lesbian community, a portion of which has migrated to the north out of Plateau Mont-Royal, where it had previously maintained a strong presence for decades.
In the last few years, Mile End has emerged as the centre of the Montréal independent music scene, with internationally renowned band Arcade Fire electing residence there, among others. Other celebrated Mile End dwellers, such as filmmaker Xavier Dolan and singer/songwriter Ariane Moffatt, can often be spotted here. In fact, it is the main filming location of Dolan’s film Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats).

A few kms from Saint-Sauveur, the small town of Sainte-Adèle stretches along 120² km on both sides of Rivière du Nord, in the heart of the legendary Pays d’En-haut. Claude-Henri Grignon had set his cult classic novel Un homme et son péché here, bringing fame to the village throughout French Canada. The story unfolds right before the arrival of Curé Labelle’s legendary P’tit Train du Nord, which finally linked Sainte-Adèle to Montréal in 1891. This was just before the region started welcoming skiers and tourists, which since have become the main economic engine of the city.

Sainte-Adèle owes its name to its founder, Augustin-Norbert Morin, a lawyer, journalist and politician. He founded the newspaper La Minerve, became the leader of the Parti Patriote, and later deputy of the Parti Rouge. In 1855, he named the new village in honour of his wife, Adèle Raymond. As the Prime Minister of Lower Canada from 1851 to 1855, we owe this reformer the social abolition of the seigneurie inherited by the French Monarchy in 1854. He also contributed to the foundations of Morin-Heights and Val-Morin, a few years before the arrival of Curé Labelle.

Only 64 km away north of Montréal, Sainte-Adèle has since become a renowned and unique crossroads for lodging accommodations and fine dining. In 2013, the cultural life here was stimulated by the opening of Place des citoyens, presenting exhibitions, shows, musical concerts and conferences. This performing arts venue offers an extensive, year-round program. In the heart of Claude-Henri Grignon park, the Place des Citoyens also hosts the Marché public de Sainte-Adèle in the summer. For the past 65 years, Pine Cinema has been an institution in Québec, giving an important place to independent cinema. Lastly, the art galleries and museums complete the cultural visits in Sainte-Adèle.

But Sainte-Adèle is first and foremost a place to enjoy the outdoors, reputed for its magnificent Lac Rond, a real gem located in the heart of town, as well as its impressive hiking trails and bike path circuit, its equestrian and golf centres, its snowmobile tracks as well as 3 ski resorts.

In 1991, 100 years after its arrival in Sainte-Adèle, the layout of the P’tit Train du Nord train tracks gave way to the longest linear park in Canada, with a 230 km bike path linking Montréal to Mont-Laurier up in Hautes-Laurentides. The project was inaugurated in 1996, more than 25 years ago.

the Lachine Canal, you can discover some of the oldest neighbourhoods of the city, the only ones outside the faubourgs east of Old Montréal (now the Village) that were massively built back when horses ruled the streets. As in the Village, there are still carriage gates that lead into stables. This was before the very British urban concept of alleys was introduced, in the second half of the 19th century.

The redevelopment of Griffintown profoundly transformed Notre-Dame St. which had been the area’s main commercial artery in the 19th century. This was preceded by the restructuring of Little-Burgundy, which had largely gentrified the neighbourhood. It’s where the black Anglophone community was concentrated in the early 20th century, and the birthplace of Montréal’s jazz scene. Also, the redevelopment of the outskirts of the canal south of Notre-Dame further transformed the artery where antique dealers elected residence. Cafés, restaurants and trendy bars began appearing, breathing new life into Notre-Dame St. This renewal stretches to the limits of the downtown area, Peel St. and down at Atwater market in Saint-Henri.

In Pointe-St-Charles, you should definitely visit the Saint-Gabriel house. It’s one of the rare 17th century buildings still standing on the island of Montréal, and the oldest farm house as well. Built by François Le Ber around 1660, this beautiful home hosted the King’s daughters until the year 1673. It was also used as a sewing room and small school. The house was largely destroyed by fire in 1693; only the creamery and the outhouse where untouched by the flames. In 1698, it was rebuilt on the foundations of the original buildings’. Today the house is a museum reminding us of Montréal’s lifestyle during the New France era.

Many people of the gay community have chosen to elect residence in Verdun, south of the canal. First in Ile-des-Soeurs, where many artists and creators moved into the new housing developments along the river. Then others moved to the very heart of Verdun, a former suburb now annexed to Montréal, attracted by the affordable prices. This has largely contributed to revitalizing of Wellington St., the main commercial artery of the neighbourhood.

The Musée national des Beaux-Arts in Québec City will be presenting this fall the long-awaited retrospective of the seminal Canadian artist Evergon, born Albert Jay Lunt in 1946 in Niagara Falls, Ontario. This major exhibition will span his entire career, from 1971 to the present, with a view to shedding contemporary light on the artist’s long-term output. More than 200 works will be assembled for the first time to highlight this colourful individual and his multifaceted work.

Evergon is regarded as a genuine cultural icon in Canada. He is an artistic and social pioneer who focuses on contemporary questions concerning cultural and body diversity and diversity of identity. For nearly 50 years, the artist’s career has centred on bold photographic, technological, and aesthetic research. His always moving and occasionally irreverent striking imagery is often an extension of classical painting. The simultaneously political and sensualistic nature of his work raises questions on sexual orientation. He revisits with rare vitality genres such as portraits, landscapes, or nudes. Through collages, the art of photocopy and an entire array of exploratory photographic approaches, including the Polaroid, Evergon deepens the terms of queer masculine and feminine identity, thereby shaking up fixed ideas.

Numerous striking works underpin Evergon’s career, in particular the immense colour Polaroids from the 1980s, for which he is internationally recognized. Critics and several artistic institutions in the world have also paid tribute to his award-winning work in holography. His series devoted to his mother Margaret renews the representation of the ageing body as few artists have done and has received widespread recognition. Evergon is an immense creative force: identity, body diversity, love, desire, and ageing are at the root of his work. Like death and life, it is the latter in all its facets that the artist celebrates. Evergon grafts on to life notions of autobiographical fiction and extimity, a revelation of the intimate in the public sphere that is common today but that he explored early in his career. The artist deems all his works to be love letters.

Evergon’s concerns encompass social and artistic issues that go beyond the body’s socially constructed limitations. He thus abandons clichés by representing atypical bodies and goes beyond the canons of standardized beauty while relying on the seductive powers of photography, capable of inventing fictional worlds or theatres as is true of another major series in his career, in which he imagines the life of an entire community, that of the characters the Ramboys. Evergon continues to be in perfect synchronicity with the emancipatory challenges of photography: he has forcefully called into question the notion of the author by creating various alter egos. He disrupts the foundations of the photographic image through an astonishing baroque aesthetic and brushes aside the conventional canons of beauty by representing atypical bodies that he invests with panache.