Isabelle Hayeur's recent work takes an ecological and urban planning perspective. Having lived in the suburbs for some twenty years, she has witnessed the spread of urbanization and the many disappearances that accompany it. Her approach is linked to this experience and draws on the discourse surrounding environmental issues and land use planning. She is particularly interested in feelings of alienation, uprooting, and dislocation. In this publication by Centre Sagamie, the artist presents works from the Maisons Modèles (Model Homes) series (2004–2007). These images were created from photographs of suburban homes and model homes. The collection is presented as an investigation of today's suburbs, but also serves as a portrait of society. The artist photographed various homes at a prefabricated house manufacturer and in new housing developments on the outskirts of Montreal. Using computer graphics, they were then transformed and relocated to new contexts. Each of these new models develops a different aspect of our societies' relationship to their territories and thus becomes a witness to our current occupation of the world.
Model Homes
Isabelle Hayeur
Isabelle Hayeur was born in Montreal in 1969. She studied at the Université du Québec à Montréal, obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1996 and a Master of Fine Arts in 2002. Since the end of the 90s, she has devoted herself to the visual arts full time. An image artist, she is known primarily for her large-scale digital montages, but has also created several site-specific installations, public artworks, videos and some internet artworks. Her work has been shown at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoca), the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Casino Luxembourg forum d'art contemporain (Luxembourg), Neuer Berliner Kuntsverein (Berlin), Southern Alberta Art Gallery (Lethbridge), Oakville Galleries (Ontario), Agnes Etherington Art Center (Kingston), Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art (Toronto), VOX image contemporaine (Montreal), and Les Rencontres de la photographie à Arles (France). She participated in La Triennale québécoise du Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal in 2008. She is represented by the Pierre-François Ouellette Gallery in Montreal.
