Canada: Student protest captured in photo exhibit

Photojournalist puts 40 of his 40,000 shots on display in an evocative gallery exhibition

Pascal Dumont, right, chats with Joel Lemay, left, and Camil Tang at the vernissage
 of his exhibition Le Grand Souffle, at Galerie Kozen.

For Pascal Dumont, Quebec’s Printemps érable came down to a series of fours: 40,000 digital frames shot, 400 hours spent selecting the best, 40 photographs printed up for display and sale.


Oh, and more student debt.

The Université de Montréal graduate student became a photojournalist during the massive demonstrations against tuition hikes that rocked the province last year.

It cost him thousands of dollars in digital camera gear — a whack of new expenses on a credit card already overloaded with fees he’s paid for his studies and supplies.

But at least Dumont has something to show for it.

He’s framed his favourite photos for a 10-day exhibition at a Plateau Mont-Royal gallery and printed up a glossy colour catalogue.

Each limited-edition photo is accompanied by a short text by a classmate or other UdM student, as well as professors like Daniel Turp, the former federal MP and PQ MNA.

Partly subsidized by UdM’s student federation, the show is called Le Grand Souffle — like a breath, or blast, of fresh air, as the student movement was called.

The images show a surprising maturity for an inexperienced photo-reporter, many of whose pictures were exclusives when first published last year.

One reveals a huge red square that briefly hung from UdM’s main tower last March (Dumont was tipped before it was taken down). In another, from April, cagouled students try to batter down the rector’s door with a wood billboard (they failed). In another, security guards are framed against a classroom blackboard that says “Scabs!”

Some pictures offer glimpses into the personalities of well-known public figures: Newly elected Premier Pauline Marois gives a derisive smirk at a news conference last November announcing a summit on higher education, and UdM rector Guy Breton holds up a censorious hand last February to prevent his picture being taken.

There are action shots of police and demonstrators, young families banging pots in the street, SQ and TV helicopters in the skies above downtown, a bird’s-eye view of the massive March 22 demonstration along Sherbrooke St. (Dumont got that one by outrunning a security guard to get to the top of an apartment tower).

And there’s a coy self-portrait, showing Dumont reflected in the ski goggles of a masked protester staring at a long line of helmeted riot police.

“This was one of the biggest student movements in Canadian history, and for me it was important to take stock of it in photos,” said Dumont, 28, who shoots for the UdM student newspaper Quartier Libre and is doing his master’s degree in international studies, specializing in Russia.

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