For a couple years now, Dr. Jean-Paul Brutus, a Belgic hand and wrist surgeon, currently residing in Canada, has been trying to put together a project that would connect his admiration of hands as a tool of everyday communication and also his desire to help people with mental health issues. What came out of this project is a book entitled “Tendre La Main” (“Helping Hands”) that will soon be available for purchase, which is a collection of a number of beautiful photographs of over 40 personalities from the Quebec area, focusing on their hands and all the work and communication they allow them to make happen. Among these personalities were for example singer Marie-Mai, professional boxer Jean Pascal or Simple Plan’s lead guitarist Jeff Stinco.
“The hand, that sophisticated instrument that allows us to accomplish a multitude of tasks and achievements, is also a tremendous tool for provising support, mutual help and solidarity. The expressions “taking someone by the hand”, “lending a helping hand” , “providing a hand”, “having your heart in your hand” are great illustrations of that wonderful quality. Helping Hands (Tendre La Main) is a tribute to the beauty of people’s hands and to the philantropic commitment of forty or so Quebec personalities as well as about fifteen Montreal photo artists.”
All proceeds of the sale of this book, which was put together solely on volunteer basis, will be used to support the activities of the Les Impatients Foundation, which assists people sufferring from mental health issues through artistic expression.
Below you can watch a short video presentation of this project, which also shows us the first picture of Jeff’s involvement with the project (which you can also see at the top of this post). One more image from the making of this photoshoot can be found in the gallery.
More information about the Tendre La Main project can be found here.
