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 serves simultaneously as a border, a living space, a place of 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 and making it disappear within its colossal fluid mass, the Great Lakes basin brings together millions of inhabitants along its shores, including Indigenous peoples from numerous First Nations and tribes. An extraordinary surface freshwater resource (among the largest in the world); a place of transit, exchange, commerce, work, leisure, travel, and meditation, but also of exploitation, danger, and vulnerability; this immense basin has been observed from the diversity of its shores by Robert Burley, one of Canada's most prominent contemporary photographers.

Here, the artist creates a body of work that is as unprecedented as it is exceptional, where the grandiose beauty of this elusive ensemble—at times soothing, at times unsettling—transforms into a reflection on the power of the contemporary image. Stripped of any anecdotal distraction and returning the Great Lakes to their primal grandeur, Robert Burley's photographs call out to the viewer like haunting sirens.

In partnership with Biinaagami, Swim Drink Fish, and Canadian Geographic

This project has been awarded the Bicentenary of Photography label by the Ministry of Culture and is part of the official Bicentenary programming from 1 September 2026 to 30 September 2027.

Curator: Catherine Bédard