Michel Campeau

Michel Campeau is a photographer, collector of vernacular iconography and writer. Committed to inscribing his works with an interiority that goes against the grain of the medium and breaks with the formal conventions of the documentary, he explores the subjective, narrative and ontological dimensions of photography. His work is multidimensional, drawing on sociology, anthropology, (socio)biography, the intimate and the collective, and is akin to photo-biographical writing.
Over the past twenty years, his research, work and publications have focused on the material culture of photography. Recently, his works has been the subject of several major exhibitions, including Life Before Digital at the McCord Museum (2018) and Icons of Obsolescence at the National Gallery of Canada (2013). His work has also been presented at the Rencontres de la photographie d'Arles, the Musée Nicéphore Niépce and a number of European galleries as part of the vast series of exhibitions La chambre noire (2005-2010), which took an introspective look at the sites and tools of the traditional photo laboratory.
Michel Campeau received the Jean-Paul Riopelle Career Grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2009, and the Duke and Duchess of York Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2010. His work can be found in numerous collections in Canada and abroad. Michel Campeau was born in 1948. He lives and works in Montreal. [Source: VOX, 2025]
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