Born in Lévis, Québec, Richard Baillargeon has been a visual artist and photographer for more than four decades. An anthropologist by training, he worked for a number of years with various Inuit and First Nations communities in Québec. His artwork and research, both conceptual and visual, are based mainly on the encounter between the photographic image and text.

Baillargeon has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Québec, Canada, and abroad. He has produced a number of publications, including Comme des îles (1991), Carnets de voyage (1994), Le paysage et les choses (1997), and Marges et chansons (2008) and his work is found in both public and private collections. He has received a number of honours and grants and was the first recipient of the Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography, awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts (1987). He has also attended artist residencies in Québec, Canada, Mexico, and India.

Among his activities in the arts and culture field, Baillargeon participated actively in the foundation of VU, centre de diffusion et de production de la photographie (Québec City). He was the director of the photography program at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta) from 1989 to 1994; artistic director of the Centre de sculpture Est-Nord-Est in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli (Québec) from 1995 to 1997; and a lecturer and then professor at the School of Art at Université Laval (Québec) from 2000 to 2019. A speaker and author of numerous essays and articles, he lives and works in Québec City (Canada).