As part of the exhibition "The Photobook in Quebec: Current Perspectives"
October 30, 2025 — 6:00 pm
During this conversation, artist photographer Anne-Marie Proulx and publisher Éric Cez will discuss with curator Serge Allaire the current dynamics between publishing and photographic practice.
Drawing on the world of photobooks, they will share their experiences, challenges, and perspectives from their respective fields, exploring the collaborative processes involved in producing a photobook, as well as the roles played by the publisher and the artist in this shared process. This dialogue will offer a critical and enriching look at new forms of collaboration in the field of photographic publishing.
About our participants
Serge Allaire is a specialist in Canadian and international contemporary art history and in the history of photography in the Department of Art History at UQÀM. As an independent curator, he has contributed to several exhibitions and catalogues, as well as collaborated on various publications, including Montréal au XXe siècle : Regards de photographes (Les Éditions de l’Homme, 1995), among others. He has also written articles for local and international specialized art magazines. As an invited curator at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie in Gaspésie, Serge Allaire was responsible for the photography book section during five years. He has also organized exhibitions on photography books in France and in Montreal. As a researcher, he has completed several residencies on the theme of the photobook, notably at Artexte (Montreal, 2016) and the Canadian Photography Institute (Ottawa, 2017).
Originally from Lévis, Anne-Marie Proulx lives and works between Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies and Quebec City, along the great river where she grew up and whose banks have been frequented for millennia by the Wendat, Wolastoqiyik, Innu, Abenaki, and Atikamekw peoples. Active in her community, she has been working as co-artistic director of VU, centre de diffusion et production de la photographie since 2014. Her work has been shown mainly in Quebec, but also in Canada, France, England, and Austria. Her photography book Le jardin d’après was published by Éditions Loco in 2021. Her works are part of the collections of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Hydro-Québec, Méduse, and the city of Montreal. She is the winner of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec’s Prix en art actuel (2025) and was a finalist for the Prix Lynne-Cohen (2019) and the Prix Videre Création en arts visuels (2018). She holds a master’s degree in art history from Concordia University, where she also completed a bachelor’s degree in visual arts that she began at NSCAD University.
After his studies in art history, Éric Cez began a career in the contemporary art world. Following collaborations with galleries, he joined the Paris Audiovisuel team (a precursor to the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris), where he was in charge of collections and helped organize the Mois de la photo. He then worked in the photography department of the Ministry of Culture (Delegation for the visual arts) for two years before joining Éditions Marval, where he remained for many years. In 2008, he founded Loco publishing house with Anne Zweibaum. Loco has built up a catalogue of books dedicated to contemporary photography as well as cross-disciplinary works spanning art, photography and social sciences. The catalogue now includes more than 200 titles. Together with several colleagues, he was behind the creation of the France PhotoBook professional association, which now brings together 30 photography book publishers, and which he currently chairs. He is a regular contributor to the FotoBookMasterclass.