THE BODY IN QUESTION?

On the occasion of Pride Month, Galerie Éclats presents Le corps en question ?

A group exhibition bringing together international artists from diverse backgrounds under the direction of the curator, Professor Norman Cornett.
This bold proposition questions the representation of the body through works where light reveals vulnerability, strength, and the plurality of identities.
Between photography, painting, and captured gestures, the artists celebrate the unique beauty of bodies outside the norms.
An invitation to rethink our gaze, to embrace diversity, and to celebrate humanity in all its presence, its flesh, and its truth.

Dorothy W. Williams & H. Nigel Thomas – Honorary Co-Chairs
The exhibition "Le corps en question ?" has the privilege of counting two eminent figures of Montreal’s cultural landscape as honorary co-chairs: Dorothy W. Williams and H. Nigel Thomas.
Their presence embodies the values of diversity, transmission, and openness that run through this project. Dorothy W. Williams is a historian, researcher, and educator. A specialist in Black history in Quebec, she has devoted her career to documenting the Afro-descendant presence in Montreal and Canada. Her reference works, Blacks in Montreal 1628–1986 and The Road to Now, have helped reveal a memory often overlooked.
By founding The ABC’s of Canadian Black History, she created an essential educational space where history becomes a tool of recognition and transformation. Her voice, rigorous and committed, resonates with the aim of this exhibition: to restore to the body all its historical, political, and sensitive charge.
H. Nigel Thomas, novelist, poet, and essayist, is one of the leading figures of contemporary English-language literature in Quebec. Author of novels such as Spirits in the Dark and No Safeguards, he explores in his work questions of identity, immigration, homosexuality, language, and race, with rare psychological finesse. His commitment to teaching and his literary contribution have made him a vital voice of the Black and LGBTQ+ diasporas in Canada.
As honorary co-chairs, Dorothy W. Williams and H. Nigel Thomas embody a living memory, a free voice, and a resolutely inclusive vision. Their support gives Le corps en question ? a broader resonance, rooted in the struggles for recognition, justice, and the beauty of plural identities.

Professor Norman Cornett – Exhibition Curator
Iconoclastic thinker, unconventional educator, and bridge-builder between artistic, cultural, and spiritual worlds, Professor Norman Cornett is recognized for his innovative pedagogical approach, which he calls “dialogic.”
At once a historian of ideas, theologian, and specialist in intercultural relations, he taught at McGill University for more than two decades, shaping generations of critical minds.
His method based on creative dialogue has found a particular echo in the arts, where he acts as exhibition curator, cultural advisor, and moderator of public encounters. He regularly collaborates with visual artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers engaged in transdisciplinary practices.
For the exhibition Le corps en question ?, Norman Cornett signs a bold and profoundly humanist curatorship. His selection of works, at the crossroads of photography, painting, and social engagement, reflects his desire to create a space where bodies express themselves in their plural truth.
By giving voice to the fluidity of identities, embodied memory, and the aesthetic tensions of the present, he makes this exhibition a true place of dialogue, faithful to his conviction that “art is a bridge between consciousnesses.”