The journal Ciel variable aims to promote and analyze the most significant practices in contemporary artistic photography. While taking a close look at the history of photography and its various uses, the journal is particularly committed to documenting photographic practices that are part of the contemporary art movement and are characterized by an inquiry into their means, their impact, and their position in current culture as a whole.

The thematic dossier of this issue, entitled Collecting, brings together the works of two artists and a writer—Christos Dikeakos, Michel Campeau, and Sara Knelman. Their work allows us to discover portraits of collectors, archives that pay tribute to darkroom practices, and a century of images of women reading. Together, they reveal the importance of the gestures, knowledge, and commitments that shape and disseminate culture.

The issue also includes three essays. The first analyzes Andrew Jackson's exhibition Little Burgundy – Montreal in Flux at the McCord Stewart Museum, a visual investigation into the memory of the neighbourhood's Black Anglophone community. The second explores Paulie B (Paul Baldonado)'s YouTube video series Walkie Talkie, which gives a voice to the street photography community in New York. Finally, a third text traces fifty years of Clara Gutsche's practice through the exhibition dedicated to her at the Image Centre.

In an interview, Michel Hardy-Vallée discusses Mise au point sur la photographie québécoise, one of the first histories of photography in Quebec made available online by a collective working in college education.

The issue also features a selection of recent exhibitions in Quebec, Canada, and elsewhere—Skawennati, Julianknxx, Jacynthe Carrier, Simon Émond, Sébastien Michaud, Patrick Dionne and Miki Gingras, Yan Giguère, as well as Marie-Alice Dumont and Raymonde April—in addition to reviews of three books on photography about John Max, Sandra Brewster, and David Hlynsky.

Winter 2026
106 pages
242 x 292 mm
Montreal, Canada