Pierre-Olivier Déry

This installation is the result of two years of research into the cultural impact of the automobile and its place within natural landscapes. Inspired by visits to racetracks and festivals, the project addresses the car as a persistent image of progress, promising efficiency and freedom, yet generating degradation and waste in the landscapes it traverses.

The composition assembles a chassis and fragments of bodywork with a system of pumps containing colored liquids, evoking a wrecked vehicle kept alive. In response to this machinery is the presence of common reed, an invasive exotic species. Found in southern Quebec along the Trans-Canada Highway, its proliferation has been favored by wet ditches and winds channeled through asphalt corridors. This parallel invites us to consider the car as a living, invasive system—on par with this plant, which inadvertently benefits from and contributes to the transformation of landscapes.

Exhibition produced as part of the Hexagram-ELEKTRA 2025 call for projects.