In June 2022, at the invitation of TOPO and Basque Country partner, Bitamine Faktoria, Michel Huneault completed a creation residency during which he and his colleague Johann Mazé developed a new work about life at the border of France and Spain.
The two versions of the work—on-site and online—present a succession of more than 200 one- to two-minute videos, each paired with an asynchronous soundscape. The slow and contemplative nonlinear experience offers a nuanced reflection on cross-border realities.
The title of the project, 4 Hours, comes from a migration flow-control arrangement between France and Spain: “An agreement signed between Madrid and Paris allows French authorities to expel migrants up to a maximum of four hours after their arrival in France.” 2021, Infomigrants.
The artist’s residency in Basque Country was made possible by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, as part of the Accord de coopération Québec-Euskadi.
Michel Huneault
Michel Huneault is a documentary photographer and visual artist. His work focuses on development issues, trauma, migration and complex geographical realities, including the impacts of climate change. His artistic practice combines still images, oral histories, video and immersive elements, giving his projects both a humanistic and aesthetic dimension. Her works inform while questioning the act of documentation and representation.
Michel Huneault holds a master's degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Rotary Peace Fellow, studying the role of collective memory in the aftermath of major trauma. Before devoting himself to photography in 2008, he worked for over a decade in international development.
In 2015, his work on the Lac-Mégantic tragedy was awarded the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize, and published the following year under the title La longue nuit de Mégantic by the Dutch publisher Schilt. In 2016, the Travers Fellowship enabled him to further his research into migration issues across five countries, in collaboration with their diasporas in Canada and their families in their countries of origin. In 2018, he adapted Roxham - his visual and sound project about the passages of asylum seekers from the United States to Canada - into a virtual reality experience with the National Film Board of Canada. In spring-summer 2020, he was commissioned by the McCord Museum to document the impacts of Covid-19 in Montreal.
