EXPOSITION | "Grands Lacs – L’horizon commun des mers intérieures", Robert Burley

Through an unprecedented body of work dedicated to the Great Lakes basin, Canadian photographer Robert Burley explores this immense territory, which is at once a border, a place of life, a space for exchange, and a zone of vulnerability.

Opening on 6 June 2026, as part of Nuit Blanche.

Straddling the border between Canada and the United States, making it disappear into its colossal fluid mass, the Great Lakes basin brings together millions of inhabitants on its shores, including Indigenous people from numerous First Nations and tribes. An extraordinary resource of surface drinking water (among the largest in the world); a place of circulation and exchange, commerce, work, leisure, travel, meditation, but also exploitation, danger, vulnerability; this immense basin has been observed from the diversity of its shores by Robert Burley, one of the most important Canadian photographers of our time. The artist creates an unprecedented and exceptional body of work here, where the grandiose beauty of this elusive ensemble, sometimes soothing, sometimes unsettling, transforms into a reflection on the power of contemporary imagery. Stripped of all anecdotal diversion, returning the Great Lakes to their primal grandeur, Robert Burley's photographs call to the viewer like enchanting sirens.

In partnership with Biinaagami, Swim Drink Fish and Canadian Geographic

This project is labelled Bicentenaire de la Photographie by the Ministry of Culture and is part of the official programming for the Bicentenaire from 1 September 2026 to 30 September 2027.

Curator: Catherine Bédard