sight lines: comme le lever du soleil, le changement est parfois si lent qu'il n'est pas immédiatement visible
video of sunrise, 21:46, L’écart, Rouyn Noranda, 2025
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video of sunrise, 21:46, L’écart, Rouyn Noranda, 2025
Stepping outside at -35 into the pastel sunset over lac Osisko takes my breath away,
and a taste fills my mouth: metal, astringent.
“ça goût comme la mine”
(It tastes like the mine)
This is what people say when the air is unmistakably haunted by the carcinogenic emissions expelled from the Horne Smelter—currently owned by the multinational, mining company Glenc0re.
You can stand at the end of any street in the quartier Notre-Dame and see the massive, century old, industrial spectacle that continues to spew 33x the legal level of arsenic and cadmium into the air. Before 1970s there was no regulation– the toxins so strong that the paint would peel off cars.
“Imagine what it must have done to our bodies?”
Community members have had to take measures into their own hands to prove that the foundry is poisoning their home, their community.
Paying out of pocket to have the fingernail clippings of their children tested to discover that arsenic levels are 13 X higher than they should be.
Forcing inhabitants from their homes around the Smelter as a method of mitigating contamination—making peoples lives “zones tampon” (buffer zones).
“it’s home. It’s my community”
Grief, contamination; a slow violence is not always immediately perceptible.
and a taste fills my mouth: metal, astringent.
“ça goût comme la mine”
(It tastes like the mine)
This is what people say when the air is unmistakably haunted by the carcinogenic emissions expelled from the Horne Smelter—currently owned by the multinational, mining company Glenc0re.
You can stand at the end of any street in the quartier Notre-Dame and see the massive, century old, industrial spectacle that continues to spew 33x the legal level of arsenic and cadmium into the air. Before 1970s there was no regulation– the toxins so strong that the paint would peel off cars.
“Imagine what it must have done to our bodies?”
Community members have had to take measures into their own hands to prove that the foundry is poisoning their home, their community.
Paying out of pocket to have the fingernail clippings of their children tested to discover that arsenic levels are 13 X higher than they should be.
Forcing inhabitants from their homes around the Smelter as a method of mitigating contamination—making peoples lives “zones tampon” (buffer zones).
“it’s home. It’s my community”
Grief, contamination; a slow violence is not always immediately perceptible.
