Saved from the waters! Redevelopment of a submerged area

Gallery B-312 is pleased to present, in its two rooms, the latest production by Daniel Corbeil. With Sauvés des eaux!  Réaménagement d’un territoire immergé!, the artist depicts how, in the near future, a small island community that has taken over an abandoned industrial building must adapt to the rapid rise in sea levels caused by global warming. The highlights of this narrative crystallize in three installations that stage, with the illusionist logic characteristic of the diorama, three crucial periods in the destiny of this community. First, the situation before the rise in water levels, then the state of affairs when the floods surround and threaten the complex, and finally, the moment when part of it is submerged. From one diorama to another, we can see the rearrangements made necessary to ensure the survival of this group. In the small room, a series of nine photographs complements and tightens the narrative suggested by the installations. Arranged in sequences to offer a narrative reading of the whole, these images showcase unique moments of efforts to counter the inexorable advance of the waters. The photographic shots required the addition of scenic elements (clouds, backgrounds, aquariums, etc.) that have become an integral part of the initial installations. Arranged in sequences to offer a narrative reading of the whole, these images showcase unique moments of efforts to counter the inexorable advance of the waters. The photographic shots required the addition of scenic elements (clouds, backgrounds, aquariums, etc.) that have become an integral part of the initial installations. According to the artist's habit, who often brings together installation and photography, the dioramas have thus retained traces of the staging devices (notably the trestles, backdrops, and various equipment) that reveal the processes used to ensure the effect of verisimilitude. The entire exhibition highlights various facets of an ingenuity that gives a more cheerful face to a pessimistic fable, in which one can see a playful parable of the changes required to adapt to a rapidly transforming territory. In his installations and photographs, the artist uses the artifices of pretense to serve a projection that is less fictional than one might think.

                                                                                                                                                                                        —Jean-PhilippeBeaulieu