Montreal's RÉSO (underground city) is the largest habitable underground network in the world. It connects apartment buildings, shopping centres, Metro stations, train stations, and cultural venues through a network of 32 kilometres of tunnels spanning 41 city blocks.
Much of the network is lively and filled with shopping and food kiosks. Some of the connecting passageways are at ground level and are light-filled during the day. Overall the network is useful and popular and filled with people.
And some of it isn’t.
Some of the underground city is empty and liminal. The lighting is stark and institutional and sometimes you are alone down there. Spending too much time in the non-places of the underground city can distort your perceptions and put you in an uncanny mental state. Things get weird, and you don't know if they are really weird or if you just think they're weird.
These photographs were taken in 2007 and 2008 when I would spend time almost every day roaming the back corners of the underground city. The photographs show you what I saw and how I felt.
