Alliance Francaise Demolition examines the sentimentality that people often find in physical objects, and celebrates their recontextualization when exposed to new light.

On March.31st Thomas Nugent visited and photographed the Alliance Française building while it was awaiting demolition. The photographs were taken with 35mm slide film - which, when processed, becomes a colour-positive slide - a physical archive of that moment.

On May.19th Nugent revisited 6161 Cambie Street with these 35mm film slides and custom fabricated laser equipment. 

 Lasers were focused onto the film’s surface, permanently distorting the image on the film. Simultaneously the laser light scattered, projecting intricate patterns on nearby surfaces. These moving patterns are unique to each photographic slide and each space that they are projected within.

This process was conducted in various rooms of the vacated Alliance Francaise building. The auditorium stage; a classroom; a pile of drywall debris; and the furnace in the building's maintenance room. All integral parts of this building that fostered nearly five decades of education, cultural celebration and community.