A Montréal, presso il Centre Canadien d’Architecture (CCA), fino all’8 aprile del prossimo anno è possibile visitare una mostra curata da Stefano Graziani e Bas Princen, architetti e fotografi, che riflette sulla fotografia, sulle sue implicazioni artistiche e sul suo essere anche strumento di documentazione e ricerca. 
Il CCA introduce così il lavoro di Stefano Graziani e Bas Princen:

How do photographers select, order, and display their images to make visual arguments about built and natural environments? Conceived as part of a long-term project at the CCA to examine the contemporary role of photography in the study and practice of architecture, “The Lives of Documents — Photography as Project” prompts reflections on the idea of the documentary as an embedded quality of photography. Tracing the research materials, archiving practices, and production processes of diverse authors, photographers Bas Princen and Stefano Graziani highlight a selection of photographic projects that model our visible world by investigating notions of landscape and its destruction, global infrastructure, intimacy and interiority, and conditions of urban and domestic space and life.

La mostra si intitola The Lives of Documents. Photography as Project e presenta opere d’arte, materiali d’archivio, video e pubblicazioni inedite:  si basa sulla collezione di fotografie del CCA, iniziata ancor prima della costituzione del Centro nel 1979 e arricchitasi in seguito con nuove acquisizioni. La mostra viene presentata anche da Il giornale dell’arte in un articolo di Mario Alberto Ratis.

«Si tratta di un’ampia collezione apparentemente incentrata sull’architettura, ma abbiamo subito scoperto che molte delle opere non si riferiscono strettamente agli edifici, bensì mettono in luce connessioni più ampie tra ambienti sociali, naturali e costruiti. Abbiamo così iniziato a considerare come i fotografi usassero le loro macchine fotografiche in modi più intenzionali, soggettivi o concettuali per avvicinarsi e documentare il mondo che vedevano attraverso l’obiettivo», afferma Stefano Graziani in merito a una concezione più estesa di fotografia di architettura. Per cui anche il contesto documentario può racchiudere posizioni autobiografiche («molti autori presenti in mostra per buona parte del loro tempo si sono occupati dei luoghi a loro più prossimi, che conoscono meglio», aggiunge il curatore) e divenire un «luogo di pensiero», quando implica un interrogarsi su come potrebbe evolvere il mondo, sulla scia del lavoro di Lewis Baltz (Newport Beach, Stati Uniti, 1945-Parigi, 2014) sui nuovi parchi industriali.

Connor Harrison su CultMTL ne parla con entusiasmo:

If you are young and unprepared and suddenly it dawns on you that you’re an artist, the next step is probably going to be rooting through previous lives. How, for example, did Sylvia Plath arrive at her poetry, and what made her think she could write it? And from where exactly does a painter like Rembrandt come from, gathering light in a portrait’s eyes? But since the precise chemistry can never be replicated, we are led eventually to details, to talismans like used paintbrushes and stationery bought. To the early drafts of a poem written on an envelope, and the particular time of day dedicated to work. In other words, what we come to obsess over is the process.
The CCA’s latest exhibition, The Lives of Documents – Photography as Project, is a show about that process. Curated by architects Bas Princen and Stefano Graziani, it takes as its premise “the production and thought processes behind photographic projects, exploring the distinct methodological approaches that transform photographic works into visual arguments.”

Harrison ci racconta come questi progetti esposti siano una sorta di introduzione formativa al lavoro di molti artisti:

In providing the dossiers and interviews beside the work, the show makes no assumptions about prior knowledge, and does not push us towards any necessary interpretation. Marcopoulous’s DIY booklets and zines, for example, are arranged as if on a large coffee table, some of which we are able to flick through. Further in, there are prints from Luigi Ghirri’s Atlante (1973), his play on symbols and the imagery of landscape, laid out beside Ghirri’s artist statement. Others are presented instead on the gallery walls, like the black-and-white prints from Marianne Wex’s Let’s Take Back Our Space, a tongue-in-cheek critique of the learned postures of men and women, and how they inform our idea of gender. The exhibit carries a tactile quality, most literally in the case of the reissued postcards from Armin Linke’s 4Flight, which are stacked loose, to be rummaged through, drawing us into direct contact with archival research.

Infine su youtube è disponibile il video  Curators Talk: The Lives of Documents—Photography as Project (i lunghi ringraziamenti iniziali terminano al minuto 6.45 quando prendono la parola i curatori):

A Talk by Bas Princen and Stefano Graziani curators of The Lives of Documents—Photography as Project (03.05.2023 to 03.03.2024) on their research process and on how this exhibition embraces the idea of the documentary as an embedded quality of photographic language. As the inaugural show introducing a long-term investigation on photography, the CCA begins a renewed exploration of the medium that aims to put forward new methodological approaches to the study of photography and image-making practices as research tools. This exhibition is an open reflection on how past and contemporary image-making practices serve as critical tools to read our built environment and design today’s world. How does one reconcile the author’s perception of reality within the photographic record? What is the life of photographs as visual arguments?