Pour l’exposition inaugurale de l’automne 2019, TOPO présente The Great White North in its display window at the Gaspé Distribution Center, an installation created by artists Eduardo Perez and Sophie Kuijper Dickson.

With the participation of the public, the storefront is transformed into a souvenir shop where mugs are designed, produced, and sold in order to question the narrative structures of Quebec identity conveyed by the souvenir industry. Through this playful engagement, the two artists question the way in which commercialized souvenirs and the images associated with them construct and export the idea of belonging, incorporating certain stories and concealing others.

The Great White North offers a space for reflection and questioning of the aestheticization, commodification, and simplification of the Quebec experience as mediated by these souvenir objects. The installation presents some of these cultural artifacts, such as those that accumulate on shelves in homes, in variety stores, and at garage sales, as persistent and familiar relics that constitute both an archive of myths from the past and a tool in the construction of an imagined present.

The boutique installation offers an initial collection of original mugs created by artists who remix and reinvent iconic images of Quebec culture. To expand this collection, the artists will open the boutique's doors to the public, inviting them to join them in creating new mugs, in an attempt to remember differently.

All mugs will be on sale for $20. (cash only).

Throughout the exhibition, we invite you to use #legreatwhitenorth to share your own Quebec archives, as well as your mug designs and your experience with the installation!