The installation consists of six Icone di Luce, one on the end wall of each cell.

These pieces derive from original Quebécoise oil paintings from the 18th and 19th century. The identities of the male figures in the pictures have vanished, they have been burned out by light reflected off the surfaces of the pictures. The location lights for the original paintings have produced a virtual wipe out (strappo). Photography was the medium: light was the cause and the effect.

In dimmly lit cells, each Icon generates it's own light: it's own virtual new identity.

The six pieces vary in size and perspective, thus interacting differently with the light, structure and perspective of the six identical cells.

The whole work involves virtual perception and physical presence of visitors entering the Zone d'Ombre. They can both cross the Picture Gallery walking along the corridor and enter the cells, facing up to each Icon.

The ambiguity of the perspective between location light reflected by the pictures and virtual light generated by the Icons, contradicts the traditional way of displaying pictures in Museums. It challenges the certainty of what we see, where things are, how we perceive them.

The original structure of the jail doesn't conceal nor overwhelm the art work. Instead it reinforces the concept and the perception of the whole work.

Architecture, memory and pictures interact in the definition of a relation-site.

The work finds it's necessity in the very place of it's conception.

La Zone d'Ombre is both an exhibition of contemporary Photography and an installation investigating Museum Language. It defines the premises of a Metamuseum, which desplays itself as a Place of memory and as an Art object of its own as the same time.

Visitors will enter the restored Bloc cellulaire of the "old jail on the Plains", and the Zone d'Ombre of the Musée du Québec simultaneously.

Silvio Wolf, LA ZONE D'OMBRE , Bloc cellulaire, Baillargè Pavilion, Musée du Québec, Quèbec City,  Canada,, 1999