Photos courtesy of the artist

Dan Bergeron is a Canadian artist known for his photo-based street interventions. His work often focuses on subjects ignored by mass media, seeking to expose the exclusions embedded in architecture and urban geography. In one of his latest projects Gaspesia: Les portraits en papier, the artist has created large-scale portraits of former workers of a pulp and paper mill whose closure in 1999 devastated the town of Chandler, Quebec. These somber black and white images climb up to 30-feet high pressed against the industrial remains of the mill. Click to see more.

Bergeron’s work is deeply embedded in a sense of place. The story of Papiers Gaspesia is a classic tragedy of an industrial boomtown. The mill was founded in 1912 by Percy Milton Chandler. Named after the mill’s founder, Chandler, Quebec was heavily dependent on the pulp and paper industry until its closure in 1999. The widespread unemployment and the ensuing migration of workers outside the city sapped Chandler of its life, breaking up families and leaving the city an urban wasteland rife with economic, social and environmental problems.

Despite government efforts, the deteriorating site of the mill, the only public memorial to those affected by the closure, is now set for demolition. Bergeron has marked these physical structures with enormous images symbolizing the pride, grief and frustration that continue to be felt in the local community. Reclaiming the mill for its long lineage of workers, this series of monumental portraits “literally puts a human face on the industrial remains of Papiers Gaspesia.”

by Kelly Chan

posted in Uncategorized

tagged art installation, Canada, Dan Bergeron, fauxreel, industrial architecture, industry, memorial, Portraits, public art, street art, Wheatpaste

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