Michel Huneault | Changing Horizons: Péninsule & Yukimai — Stories from a Warming World
Sporobole is proud to present the exhibition Changing Horizons: PÉninsule & Yukimai – Stories of a Warming World by Michel Huneault, in collaboration with Johann Mazé, which brings together works created in part during a research and creation residency in our spaces!
An emotional distance: climate change in Michel Huneault’s Péninsule and Yukimai
Michel Huneault is part of a movement of Canadian artists using digital media, such as video, sound installation, and virtual reality, to depict environmental and social crises. Trained with a master’s degree in Latin American studies, where he was a Peace Fellow studying the role of collective memory after large-scale traumatic events, Huneault studied and worked abroad for many years before turning his eye to documentary photography. His artistic practice, like his first career in international cooperation , is focused sharply on urgent issues in local contexts, within a global perspective. The documentary gaze he espouses complicates the human condition — at once increasing awareness, while also generating a resonance with different communities of people, and elucidating a strong sense of empathy.
The exhibition Changing Horizons: Péninsule & Yukimai — Stories from a Warming World gathers two bodies of work about climate change. Each demonstrates how art can evoke a deeper understanding of crises, and also be responsive to the environment, highlighting local ecosystems and the fragility of the landscape. Péninsule (2019—2022) is a project that documents coastal regions in Quebec that are subjected to pressure every day: the Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie, including the northern part of Chaudière-Appalaches. Yukimai (2024— ), initiated in Sapporo in Japan, shows winter video and sound capsules in documentary form: as lyrical, experimental, and playful scenes. During a one-month residency at Sporobole in December 2025, Huneault has woven in new video and sound elements (in collaboration with French artist Johann Mazé) based on winter scenes in Quebec.
The works on view are contrasted in their scenographic treatment in the exhibition — whether dimly lit and highly structured, or whimsical, aerated and interactive, both bodies of work speak to the question: Could representing the emotional as much as the physical impacts of climate change better serve our common understanding and readiness to act?
Vicky Chainey Gagnon, curator
To learn more about Michel Huneault’s residency: https://sporobole.org/en/creation/michel-huneault-creation-realite-virtuelle/