Images Premières : mutations d’une icône nationale

Produced in collaboration with the McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal, under the artistic direction of Vincent Lavoie, “”Primal Images: Transmutations of a National Icon”” was presented as an official selection of the Mois de la Photo in Paris and as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of the founding of Canada. On November 7th, 1885 the driving of the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway took place during a ceremony held at Craigellachie, British Columbia. Alexander Ross took several photographs of the event. A veritable national icon, one of these photographs embodies the principle of a nation become forever bound by the railway. Taken 18 years after Confederation, this photograph haloes this constitutional act with the symbolic prestige of an image crystallizing the “”birth of the nation””.

Year of publication : october 2004
19×22 cm , 86 pages
Selling price : 22 €. Text in French and English.

Exhibition dates :
from November 10, 2004 to January 29, 2005.

Preface by Robert Desbiens. Essay by Vincent Lavoie: “9:22 am”

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