Catalogue > At random

Soleil différé thrusts us into the ghostly world of the Canadian islands of Sainte Hélène and Notre-Dame, sites of the Universal Exposition hosted by Montreal in 1967. Being an ambitious, extravagant showcase for technological advances of the day, a universal exposition always represents a major event for the host country, on the same scale as the Olympic Games, for example. In anticipation of this event, Sainte-Hélène and Notre-Dame were considerably enlarged, indeed created from scratch with the rubble from excavations for the Montreal metro system, then under construction. The site symbolized the utopian aspirations of a period when ?man-made? rhymed with ?progress,? with the future, with human supremacy. Expo 67 was a huge success, and on the crest of this wave the mayor of the day, Jean Drapeau, decided to keep the site open under the name of Man and his world, recalling the title of Expo 67. The theme park closed for good in 1981, however, due to lack of business. Born in 1975, Grandmaison never experienced the heyday of Man and his world; rather, he witnessed its decline. Today the site still bears the stigma of its past and functions as a recreational park. It includes strange-looking, neglected features of Man and his world along with natural overgrowth that is steadily superseding manmade nature.