Kourtney Roy, the photographer typically known for the creativity of her alluring fictional worlds, in this point of departure addresses a serious and sombre subject. 

For over forty years, along Highway 16, a road in northern British Columbia, women and girls, mostly of First Nations descent, have been disappearing. From October 2017 to September 2019, Roy visited the region five times and travelled anonymously along the 720 km long stretch known as the ‘Highway of Tears’. In her own words Roy explains: 

“During my travels I met people at gas stations, diners, bars, and truck stops. Disturbingly, many of them had family members or friends who were among the missing and murdered. It was apparent that these crimes left no one unscathed. 

As I became more familiar with the region, I realised that the project was also being shaped by the personal stories of those whom I had befriended, of both Indigenous and white descent. Their lives on the highway vacillated between harrowing and touching. But despite the cruelties and travesties that they had endured, they radiated a sustaining courage. They generously and openly shared their stories and experiences with me. Their knowledge of the region’s vast forests, roadways, and infrastructure was essential in allowing me to identify site-specific locations that were related to the killings and abductions in the region (either of someone directly connected to them or of others they knew). 

I was intrigued by how the architecture of this particular road was influenced by its dark history and chronic violence. How does the vernacular architecture that lines this road and the anonymous people who walk along it connect to create an atmosphere that is both ordinary and sinister. In a region still struggling with a dark colonial past, the national highway system has promoted decentralisation, and, for the sake of functionality and speed, it has engendered anonymity, isolation, poverty and violence. 

The banality of the places I photographed suggests the presence of sinister events as much as it hides it. Their mundane qualities are magnified by the dark past of this highway, adding a note of dread to these supposedly neutral landscapes. I wanted to present a multifaceted image of a complex yet extraordinary place.”

The exhibition presents an excerpt of the project which was developed over a 2 year period. It can be viewed in its entirety in the artist’s Photobook, of the same name, published by André Frère. 

Artist Bio:

Kourtney Roy’s (b.1981, Ontario, Canada) studies in photography, at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and later at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, inspired her to develop her finicky aesthetic, which lends itself particularly well to both glossy paper and film. Instilled with a dark sense of humour, taking their clues as much from the grotesque nature of seemingly placid settings as from the tensions simmering just under the surface, her photographs have received many prizes and grants, including the the Emily Award ECUAD, in 2012, the Prix Carte Blanche PMU/Le Bal in 2013, and a nomination for the Prix Elysée, Switzerland in 2014. Her work has been presented at the 2012 Images Festival in Vevey, at Le Bal, Paris in 2014 and the Moscow photo biennale in 2017 among other venues. In 2018 she was granted a solo show at Paris Photo as part of the Pernod Ricard Carte Blanche Award. In 2019 she won the best experimental film award at the Brest European Short Film Festival with her dark and dreamy short, MORNING, VEGAS. Roy’s work has been exhibited widely in France and abroad.