Isabelle Hayeur: Contrast and Indifference

Canadian Cultural Centre

Isabelle Hayeur, installation view, Borderlands photographic series. Copyright Vincent Royer, Open Up Studio/Centre culturel canadien

Larissa Fassler, Cécile Hartmann, Isabelle Hayeur, Capucine Vever
A two-part exhibition, co-produced by the Canadian Cultural Centre and the Grantham Foundation for Art and the Environment

Curator: Catherine Bédard

Exhibition: Until May 16, 2026
Late-Night Opening: Tuesday, March 31, until 9:00pm
Guided Tour: March 31, April 7, May 14, May 16
Special Screening Event: May 16
Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France

The artists brought together in the exhibition Contrast and Indifference travel the world, constantly confronting foreign contexts into which they allow themselves to enter, gently and attentively, and bear witness to what happens there. Travel is essential to their approach, as is a form of solitude conducive to observation and encounters. Guided by a critical awareness and a sensitivity to others, they reveal some of the staggering disproportions affecting humanity here and there on our planet. Avoiding the spectacular, by constantly connecting surface issues and deeper ones, they recount the tensions of the contemporary world.

Isabelle Hayeur, installation view, Borderlands photographic series. Copyright Vincent Royer, Open Up Studio/Centre culturel canadien

Isabelle Hayeur’s art practice investigates the complex relationship between nature and the built environment, focusing on the conflicts and tensions that arise within these evolving territories. In Contrast and Indifference, she presents a selection of documentary photographs created between 2012 and 2024. Together, these works reflect her sustained engagement with themes of environmental transformation, urban expansion, and the social dynamics that shape our landscapes.

Foreign Body (2012–2013) explores the European Quarter in Strasbourg, where the sleek, disembodied glass architecture of EU institutions stands in stark contrast to the city’s historic core. Through these images, Hayeur reveals the coexistence of marginalized communities and a pervasive sense of social disenchantment within a seemingly detached urban environment.

In Fault Line (2022–2023), she turns her lens to the Salton Sea in California—a once-thriving but now shrinking and contaminated lake poisoned by agricultural runoff and industrial waste. Hayeur captures its haunting, fragile beauty as the desert slowly reclaims its shores, exposing the irreversible marks of human intervention on the landscape.

Her most recent series, Borderlands (2024–2025), centers on the US–Mexico border near Jacumba, California. The photographs depict the barrier’s intrusion into the arid landscape, traces of migrant crossings—discarded belongings, torn clothing—and the uneasy intersections of natural wilderness, artificial division, and the human cost of political and ecological pressures.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Isabelle Hayeur, Copper Dream, from the Fault Line photographic series (2022 – 2023)

Guided Tour

The Canadian Cultural Centre is organising a guided tour of the Contrast and indifference exhibition. Take advantage of this opportunity to immerse yourself in the heart of this exhibition. The guided tour, offered in French, lasts about 45 minutes and is free of charge. Please register on the Canadian Cultural Centre website and arrive 15 minutes before the tour begins.

March 31 / 6pm – 7pm
April 7 / 6pm – 7pm
May 14 / 6pm – 7pm
May 16 / 6pm – 7pm, 8pm – 9pm, 9:30pm – 10:30pm

European Night of Museums: Special Screening Event

Contrast and Indifference will conclude in grand fashion with the European Night of Museums on Saturday, May 16, from 6:00pm to 11:00pm. On this occasion, guided tours will be led by the curator, and films by Isabelle Hayeur will be shown alongside those of the other artists.

Isabelle Hayeur, from the Foreign Body photographic series (2012 – 2013)

About the Artist

Since the late 1990s, Canadian photographer and video artist Isabelle Hayeur has critically examined the environments and territories she encounters, exploring how contemporary societies appropriate, transform, and inhabit them. Her work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and institutions across Europe, the United States, and Asia. She has also participated in numerous artist residencies. Hayeur received the Prefix Prize in 2025, the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts in 2021, the Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography in 2019, and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Photography Award in 2015.
isabelle-hayeur.com

About the Canadian Cultural Centre

The heart of Canadian cultural diplomacy in France, the Canadian Cultural Centre aims to promote the most innovative contemporary Canadian artforms through public and private institutional partnerships, and collaborations with various French festivals and events. With its unique programming focusing on the diversity and vitality of artistic voices, the Canadian Cultural Centre is a point of convergence for disciplines, languages and living cultures from all the provinces and territories of Canada.

Canadian Cultural Centre Paris
130, rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris, France
01 44 43 21 90
info@canada-culture.org
canada-culture.org

Opening Hours: Monday to Friday, 10am – 6pm

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