Normand Rajotte

For years, Montréal photographer Normand Rajotte has been exploring an area of a few square kilometers at the foot of Mont Mégantic, near La Patrie,a village in south-eastern Québec, Canada. Produced between 2004 and 2010, the series Comme un murmure (Like a whisper) reveals the profound connection that the artist has established over the years with this woodland. Little by little, image after image, Rajotte has taken root in these several hectares of woods, to the point of merging with them. Observing the growth of vegetation or traces of animal activity, he photographs the perpetual transformation of “his” forest. Comme un murmure testifies to the powerful feeling that unites man and animal, when one rejoins the other as he immerses himself deeply into nature.

From the early 1980s, Normand Rajotte, a self-taught photographer, turned his photographic practice to landscape to undertake an introspective process centered on self-awareness and a new relationship with nature. A forested plot of land acquired in 1997 became his only territory of investigation.
Alexis Desgagnés Alexis Desgagnés is a Montreal-based photographer and writer. He teaches History of Art at Cégep Édouard-Montpetit.