I was invited to participate at an artist residency at Centre Est Nord Est, near Quebec City, in 2001 as part of a Mois de la Photo project. My only task was to make photographs. I spent most days absorbed in daylong mystery trips by car east along the St Lawrence shore looking for images that came alive for me.
After a day driving and photographing I arrived back to Centre Est Nord Est and found Natalie La Fortune, an administrator at the centre, ready with a gift. A local coffin factory was closing down and Natalie gave me a forgotten coffin, intact but battered and spilling straw. I added styrofoam to it’s bottom and moored it on the rocks next to the Saint Lawrence right outside my rental cottage. When the tide came up, my coffin floated. Le cercueil floats on the Saint Lawrence suspened in time. It reminds me of the liminal and unspecified time that saturates Claude Jutra’s 1963 film, A Tout Prendre.
Le Cercueil was installed on the exterior wall of the Marche Bonsecours, a site dear to me through my early work on Marguerite Bourgeoys, founder of the Congregation Notre Dame and of the chapel Bonsecours.