Civilian Birds: Literature and Image

In 2011, Daniel Canty, illustrator Stéphane Poirier and Studio Feed dreamt up a booklet entitled Costumes nationaux, inspired by Émile Gallois’ monographs of the same title from the 1930s. This modest initiative evolved into an online serial, costumesnationaux.com, dedicated to the travels and travails of Anatole, a magazine correspondent who sets his sights on the world’s rich pageant. Following a sentimental incident, Anatole resolves to dive beneath the veneer of appearances and inch closer to the heart of things. The lands and events of his adventures hold a mirror to our own lives, with hope in the offing. The interface mingles two strands, one documentary, and the other fictional, weaving a ladder of possibilities, which, at the end of a five-year cycle of publication, has provided the DNA for a book project, Civilian Birds, and its sequel, Black Dot Island. Daniel Canty’s visual stalwarts, Léon Lo and Stéphane Poirier, travel to Green College to discuss this uncanny journey, words and images, page and screen, affirm their kinship, and challenge, in fluid, birdlike motion, certain acquired notions of reality.

Daniel Canty’s visual stalwarts, Léon Lo and Stéphane Poirier, travel to Green College to discuss this uncanny journey, words and images, page and screen, affirm their kinship, and challenge, in fluid, birdlike motion, certain acquired notions of reality.

Léon Lo was born in Brussels to Taiwanese parents and grew up in a suburb of Montreal, where he listened to his father’s classical music records and his older sisters’ new wave cassettes, rode bicycles, and waited for buses. He studied graphic design at UQAM alongside Anouk Pennel and Raphaël Daudelin, who would go on to establish Studio Feed. At Feed for the past ten years, Léon has worked on several branding, publishing and exhibition design projects, some garnering awards, others, curious glances. In the past, Léon has co-run a CD-R label, composed music for short films and animations, and performed experimental, improvised, free, electronic, folk and dance music at festivals in Canada, the U.S. and Japan. Presently residing on the island of Montreal, he enjoys reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek about once a year, pickling turnips, sober raving, working pro bono for eco-terrorists, and raising his son Eliott. studiofeed.ca instagram.com/studiofeed.mtl costumesnationaux.com

Stéphane Poirier is an illustrator living and working in Montréal. The luscious documentary picture books that, as a child, he read constantly, exerted a lasting fascination on him. He thought his passion for understanding things would lead to a scientific career, but he ended up becoming an illustrator. In his work, he takes a project-based approach, his style combining the graphical with traditional illustration, and taking care to adapt to the idea at hand. Stéphane has worked on a multitude of editorial assignments, from magazine and book projects, to museum installations and signage systems, animations and interactive designs. spoirier.com costumesnationaux.com