Bertrand
Carrière

Bertrand Carrière

biography

Bertrand Carrière is a photographer and video artist who actively exhibits and publishes his work across Canada and in Europe. In the last 40 years, Bertrand Carrière has put together a large body of photographic work that is varied and very personal. His works can be divided in two main axes. First, there is a documentary approach that encompasses landscapes – small and vast – and portraits. Using time, memory and history, he explores stories that are bound to the land, traces of which persist to this day. Then in a second axe, he explores the intimate life around him. In a daily practice, he explores reality for its fictional potential and autobiographical echoes. All his work goes to produce images that highlight the irregularities and poetical ambiguities in the visible world.

With film and video, he explores the photographic heritage of cinema. He uses a motion picture camera to question time, stillness and movement. He also has directed two documentaries.

Bertrand received numerous awards and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and also from the Conseil des arts de Longueuil.

His works has been exhibited and published across Canada, in the United-States, in Russia, in Europe and in China. In 2005 he received le Prix de création en région from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. In 2018 he received the Prix Reconnaissance-Desjardins from the Longueuil Arts Council. He has published 7 books of his work, the latest one being Le Capteur (2015) with les Éditions du Renard. In 2020 he published Solstice photographies 1971-2019 with Plein-Sud éditions, a monograph spanning 40 years of his work.

His works can be found in many collections – both private and public: the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa, the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec, the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, la Bibliothèque National de Paris, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

He studied Graphic Communications at Collège Ahuntsic in Montreal in 1979. Carrière has an MA in Communications from the University of Quebec in Montreal in 1996. He was a photography teacher at Cégep André-Laurendeau college in Montreal from 1992 to 2017. He now teaches photography at the Université de Sherbrooke. He lives and works in Longueuil, Québec and in the Eastern Townships. Bertrand Carrière was born in Ottawa in 1957. Represented by The Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto and The Simon Blais Gallery in Montréal.

Series

London, 2019

Serie| Residency at the Quebec Studio : "On the eve of the Brexit vote, I chose to return to the streets to photograph Londoners in their immense city, at this key moment of history."

Sound Mirrors, 2019

Serie| Long walks through the fields, along the cliffs of England, in Kent and in Yorkshire, looking for the remaning sound mirrors, those vestiges of a bygone era, between 1916 and 1940.

Don’t go to Glasgow ! 2018

Serie| Back after 41 years in Glasgow, Bertrand Carrière explores identity, youth and the ties that bind us to the places we cross.

Somewhere... in the middle, 2014

Serie| Result of a residency in Loir et Cher (France): "I tried to give a word to the mute things, to what slowly seemed called to disappear. "

The Captor, 2012

Bertrand Carrière has been working for many years on the construction of a photographic journal in several volumes, where the different aspects of his production are combined and collide.

Wanderer, 2011

Series | 24 winter photographs to accompany the 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller and 24 lieder of this cycle.

After Strand, 2011

Series | Between 2010 and 2011, Bertrand Carrière travelled to the Gaspé Peninsula to the places photographed by Paul Strand. Freely inspired by the spirit of his images, he proposes his own vision of the Gaspé Peninsula nearly 80 years later.

London, 2019

Serie| Residency at the Quebec Studio : "On the eve of the Brexit vote, I chose to return to the streets to photograph Londoners in their immense city, at this key moment of history."

Sound Mirrors, 2019

Serie| Long walks through the fields, along the cliffs of England, in Kent and in Yorkshire, looking for the remaning sound mirrors, those vestiges of a bygone era, between 1916 and 1940.

Don’t go to Glasgow ! 2018

Serie| Back after 41 years in Glasgow, Bertrand Carrière explores identity, youth and the ties that bind us to the places we cross.

Somewhere... in the middle, 2014

Serie| Result of a residency in Loir et Cher (France): "I tried to give a word to the mute things, to what slowly seemed called to disappear. "

The Captor, 2012

Bertrand Carrière has been working for many years on the construction of a photographic journal in several volumes, where the different aspects of his production are combined and collide.

Wanderer, 2011

Series | 24 winter photographs to accompany the 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller and 24 lieder of this cycle.

After Strand, 2011

Series | Between 2010 and 2011, Bertrand Carrière travelled to the Gaspé Peninsula to the places photographed by Paul Strand. Freely inspired by the spirit of his images, he proposes his own vision of the Gaspé Peninsula nearly 80 years later.

London, 2019

Serie| Residency at the Quebec Studio : "On the eve of the Brexit vote, I chose to return to the streets to photograph Londoners in their immense city, at this key moment of history."

Sound Mirrors, 2019

Serie| Long walks through the fields, along the cliffs of England, in Kent and in Yorkshire, looking for the remaning sound mirrors, those vestiges of a bygone era, between 1916 and 1940.

Don’t go to Glasgow ! 2018

Serie| Back after 41 years in Glasgow, Bertrand Carrière explores identity, youth and the ties that bind us to the places we cross.

Somewhere... in the middle, 2014

Serie| Result of a residency in Loir et Cher (France): "I tried to give a word to the mute things, to what slowly seemed called to disappear. "

The Captor, 2012

Bertrand Carrière has been working for many years on the construction of a photographic journal in several volumes, where the different aspects of his production are combined and collide.

Wanderer, 2011

Series | 24 winter photographs to accompany the 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller and 24 lieder of this cycle.

After Strand, 2011

Series | Between 2010 and 2011, Bertrand Carrière travelled to the Gaspé Peninsula to the places photographed by Paul Strand. Freely inspired by the spirit of his images, he proposes his own vision of the Gaspé Peninsula nearly 80 years later.

Multimedia

Everything is impossible, 2018

Multimedia | Produced during a residency at the Cinémathèque, this video is part of a work on the connection between cinema and photography.

The Path of Ashes, 2018

Multimedia | Video inscribed in the register of the contemplative questioning the photographic heritage of cinema.

The light of Places, 2017

Multimedia | Installation of the architectural integration work “The light of Places” at the Laurie-Ève Cormier Aquatic Centre in Boucherville.

Looking for Fletcher Wade Moses, 2016

Multimedia | When he was bequeathed a mysterious album of photographs from the First World War, Bertrand Carrière decided to provoke an encounter with History by setting out on the trail of the owner.

913, 2004

Multimedia | On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Dieppe raid, Quebec artist Bertrand Carrière installed 913 male portraits over the course of an entire day.

Interviews

Jubilee
Centre Culturel Canadien de Paris
—
2020

Bertrand Carrière talks about the “Jubilee” and “Caux” projects he directed in Dieppe between 2002 and 2004.

Talks: Bertrand Carrière
Street level Photoworks
—
2018

Bertrand Carrière gave a lecture as part of his residency at Street Level Photoworks in 2018.

Bertrand Carrière
Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie
—
2014

Interview of Bertrand Carrière on the work done during his residency at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie in 2014.

Jubilee
Art Souterrain
—
Interview by Jolen Côté-Croteau, 2014

Bertrand Carrière is interviewed by Jolen Côté-Croteau to talk about his installation “Jubilee” exhibited at Art Souterrain in Montreal in 2014.

After Strand : Bertrand Carrière, Gaspé
Macleans Magazine
—
A film directed by Roger Lemoyne, 2014

This mini documentary was directed by Roger Lemoyne about photographer Bertrand Carrière’s photographic love-affair with the Gaspé peninsula was created for Macleans Magazine’s “10 places in Canada you must see” series.

Ce qui demeure.
L’Historial de la Grande Guerre
—
2011

Interview of Bertrand Carrière on his series “Then and Now” at the Historial of the Great War in Péronne, France, between September and December 2011.

books

Solstice

Plein Sud - 2020

Le Capteur

Les éditions du renard - 2016

Après le Strand

Musée de Rimouski / ABC Art Books Canada - 2011

Those Places

Instant même - 2010

Ground Level

Sagamie - 2009

Dieppe, paysages et installations

Les 400 coups - 2006

Winters

Les 400 coups - 2004

Signes du jour

Les 400 coups - 2002

Voyage à domicile

Images, les 400 coups - 1997

Témoin de l'ombre

Images, les 400 coups - 1995

Solstice

Plein Sud - 2020

Le Capteur

Les éditions du renard - 2016

Après le Strand

Musée de Rimouski / ABC Art Books Canada - 2011

Those Places

Instant même - 2010

Ground Level

Sagamie - 2009

Dieppe, paysages et installations

Les 400 coups - 2006

Winters

Les 400 coups - 2004

Signes du jour

Les 400 coups - 2002

Voyage à domicile

Images, les 400 coups - 1997

Témoin de l'ombre

Images, les 400 coups - 1995

Solstice

Plein Sud - 2020

Le Capteur

Les éditions du renard - 2016

Après le Strand

Musée de Rimouski / ABC Art Books Canada - 2011

Those Places

Instant même - 2010

Ground Level

Sagamie - 2009

Dieppe, paysages et installations

Les 400 coups - 2006

Winters

Les 400 coups - 2004

Signes du jour

Les 400 coups - 2002

Voyage à domicile

Images, les 400 coups - 1997

Témoin de l'ombre

Images, les 400 coups - 1995

awards

Reconnaissance Desjardins Award (Canada)

For the quality of his work and his artistic approach

2018

Lux – Grafika Award (Canada)

For his book “Lieux Mêmes”

2010

Lux – Grafika Award for the “Grand-Prix of the photographic book” category (Canada)

Applied Arts: Canada’s Visual Communication Magazine (Canada)

For his book “Dieppe, Landscapes and installations”

2007