Paper, please
Ink on vinyl, inkjet print on paper, paper cuts | MAADI, Musée de Beaux Arts de Montréal, QC - commissaires Stanley Février, Laura Delfino, 2022 | Parcomètres 02., GHAM & DAFE Gallery, Montreal, 2017 | acquired for MAADI collection in 2019

Paper, please comes from a reflection on the belonging of territories, on social inequalities and migration, as well as on the impact of political decisions upon the freedom of movement. This work is based on a questioning of the obligation to ask for permission to move, a fact which derives solely from the nationality of an individual and the passport that represents them.



This reality is rather foreign for those who are born in the developed countries of the Western world. But it is an inescapable aspect of the lives of thousands of people from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.



The work is composed of seven fake passports: Canada, France, Russia, China, Iran, Mexico, United States. Inside the passports is the image of the world map printed on each page with some territories absent on the map, cut out across all pages. These gaps vary from passport to passport, corresponding to countries that do not allow free movement for the holders of the respective passports*.

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* according to the laws in force at the time of creation of the work