Ève Cadieux
in Paspébiac

Using a photographic approach that generates poetic documents, Ève Cadieux revisits the phenomenon of World’s Fairs. For over 10 years the artist has travelled around North America, Europe and Asia to capture what remains of these fabulous events. She photographs the remnants of sites that are still active, sometimes abandoned, or still looking for a future. 

What remains of these many Universal Exhibitions? Traces, relics, mostly transformed “pavilions.” Some architecture disappears as nature reclaims its rights, while other examples leave hopeful gaps or make way for present-day realities that are undoubtedly less fake than the Expos. These events are monumental inventions, fabricated and idealized visions of the world. They are dazzling artificial paradises that claim to be universal, but which are certainly full of shortcomings and even incomplete utopias. 

The phenomenon of World’s Fairs has fascinated Ève Cadieux ever since she was a child visiting the few remaining pavilions of Man and his World in Montreal in the 1980s. And it was slides made by her father at Expo 67 that were the very first milestone in the visual research for J’ai vu le futur (I have seen the future). Today, however, the artist photographs the absence and takes a critical look at the ideological – and above all the human and environmental – failings of the Expos. She is interested in the paradoxes of these events, which have always showcased technical prowess, particularly in architecture and photography, while at the same time inventing futures that have never or may never happen. 

I have seen the future is a work in progress. For the Rencontres de la photographie en Gaspésie, a new version of the project is being proposed. The body of work brings together a large number of images bearing witness to what remains of several Universal Exhibitions across the world.