"On March 2, 1988, along the St. Lawrence River, the Vickers shipbuilding factory officially closed its doors. After working there for 38 years as a machinist, my grandfather was the last employee to leave the premises. Marcel spent his final months at the factory building wooden crates to house the dismantled machines, ready to be shipped down the river to their next home.
At the intersection of our disciplines, Marcel first took the form of a video-performance-documentary, telling the story of my grandfather, his technical knowledge, and his deep respect for machines—his collaborators. In the work, our bodies are connected through our shared love for words, the analog, gestures, and, above all, transmission of technical knowledge.
In 2021, he retraced the border of the factory from memory. These images marked the beginning of the exhibition, where video, moving sculpture, and poetry are intertwined to recount this vanished place and the gestures of collaboration between machinists, machines, and generations."
