Montreal photographer wins Lange-Taylor prize for documentary photography

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University has awarded the twenty-third Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize to Canadian documentary photographer Michel Huneault for Post Mégantic, his project on a small town in Quebec that was the site of Canada’s deadliest train disaster in 150 years.

Huneault, a freelance photographer based in Montreal, has a background in international development and conflict resolution. His graduate research at University of California–Berkeley included an exploration of the role of collective memory in large-scale traumatic recovery.

“Post Mégantic” incorporates photographs, videos, oral histories, and installations to tell the story of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where on the night of July 6, 2013, a cargo train from North Dakota carrying nearly 8 million liters of shale oil derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and effectively destroying the town. From a population of 6,000, one out of every 128 citizens died. The explosion leveled most of the town center, creating a 400-meter-wide area that is still inaccessible. Huneault’s project documents the aftermath of the catastrophe and is a meditation on loss and mourning. As he writes, “This sober and lyrical documentary narrative about life, death, the fragility of existence, is a requiem to the victims,” and he hopes, creates a “visceral sense of empathy, an appreciation based on introspection, imagination, and compassion” for viewers of the work.

The $10,000 prize is given to encourage documentary work in the tradition of acclaimed photographer Dorothea Lange and writer and social scientist Paul Taylor and supports documentary artists—working alone or in teams—whose extended fieldwork projects rely on the interplay of words and images.