Vernissage photos!

So we had our exhibition vernissage last night and it went wonderfully! We took some great shots so I thought I would share them with you here.  Thank you so much to the Department of Art History at Concordia for supporting this exhibition and our research endeavors!

 Jessie, a member of our group who has written about the Maguire Meadow produced a map outlining the island of Montreal and placed each of our sites on that map.

 We showed each intervention on a piece of white vellum and each had a pile of "stuff" that referenced our project.  A last minute decision was also made to allow people to write on the ends of the vellum however we will see how this goes :)

 One of the many group photos we took that night, we are sitting in front of our respective interventions.

VERNISSAGE PHOTOS

 

 Both the Art History Graduate Program Director: Dr. Johanne Sloan, and the Chair of Art History: Dr. Loren Lerner were in attendance

 We had a bit of live entertainment provided by Patrick Lehman, his website is: www.patricklehmanmusic.com

And, our final group shot - not including everyone unfortunately but we were all there in spirit.  Thank you so much for enjoying this blog and we will continue to update on our interventions and sites in the future!

Email us if you would like to be a part of this blog, we would love to hear about your own interventions you do in public spaces you live around and would more than love including your own project in our blog!

Keep intervening and situate yourself within your object of research!

The exhibition will run until the end of august so come by the Concordia Art History Department 3rd floor (art history wing) in the EV building to check it out!

-Situated Knowledges.

Le Petit parterre: Marking the Past

The park at the south east corner of Ontario West and St Urbain in downtown Montreal has been reduced to a 10,000 sq ft sliver of its former self. Le Petit parterre is a prettyish grassy terrace when its cherry trees are in bloom, it otherwise seems like a non-place. Even its name is in dispute: before 2009 its larger incarnation was Place Albert-Duquesne; since then it has only existed as part of le Promenade des artistes to the west or Le Parterre to the south. Its reduced size has now turned the northern half into a traffic island.

On this site, in 1962 there was living going on: bustling, sometimes difficult, but maybe, hopeful living. Chinese immigrants working in laundries, widowed French-Canadian women, tradesmen and their families, and a Chinese version of the YMCA.

The city demolished that block in 1963 along with many others during that decade. My intervention sought to make visible the traces of the lives lived on that block.

We began by marking the footprint of one building, 84-86 Ontario Street West, where Alice Vaillancourt ran a rooming house and where the CYMCI took in new immigrants and helped them learn English.

Next we walked around its periphery attempting to embody its size and imagine its presence.

Finally we read aloud the list of resident from 50 to 96 Ontario Street West and hung objects and tokens to represent their occupations on a clothesline.

- Jennifer Roberts

Maguire Meadow: Infinite Headroom

Whether it’s called the Roerich Garden, the Maguire Meadow or Le Champ des possibles, the Meadow’s multiple designations point to its most prized features as an abandoned space, a free space, and, as its French name so eloquently puts it, a field of possibilities.

This green patch of abandoned land in the middle of Mile End has become an essential urban oasis as well as a creative refuge for many inhabitants. Situated in the neighborhood with the highest density of artists in Canada, this terrain vague has fostered creativity and freedom of expression while acting as a much-needed space for leisure and outdoor activities.

The city of Montreal has signaled its intentions to transform the space as part of its plans to reinvigorate the Saint-Viateur est district, but a group of citizens, many of them artists, have taken up the delicate task of preserving both of the Meadow’s biodiversity and the community it supports.

My intervention is an installation called The Infinite Headroom Exhibition Space (2011), a temporary structure on which to make visible the many artistic practices that have taken place in Le champ. I wanted to create a display for the passer-by in keeping with its surroundings: a simple box-like setup using only the most rudimentary materials. However, the frailty of the structure had unexpected results as it struggled against strong gusts of wind to stay aloft. I witnessed this unexpected force of nature take over my project and I realized that it was now the property of the Meadow—that made me quite happy.

Participants were asked to contribute a photograph and small text or Haiku to be published on this blog: maguiremeadow.tumblr.com.  

- Louis-Alexandre Douesnard-Malo

Maguire Meadow/Le Champ des Possibles: Exploring a Ruderal Landscape

Maguire Meadow, also known as Le Champ des Possibles, is invisible when approached from the south or west. Walking up Rue De Gaspé, the landscape is mineral and manmade: the looming ugly factory buildings and loading docks overhang the bare sidewalks. The entrance to the Meadow lies beyond an unpaved parking lot replete with cars and a graffiti covered derelict truck. But in the heart of this industrial part of Montreal, there is fully functioning meadow with immense biodiversity, its very presence giving the lie to the separation between city and country, the urban and the bucolic.



Intervention 

Part I: The Aesthetics of Engagement 
On June 14, 2011, in order to understand how the Maguire Meadow/Le Champ des Possibles performs, and to make visual and visible our responses to the aesthetic quality of the Meadow, each of us chose a part of the Maguire Meadow to sketch. Our choices were based not only on vision, but also on our other senses of hearing, feeling, smelling, etc.The resultant drawings were a trace of our experience of the Meadow/Le Champ that Spring day.

Part II: Natural Environmental Model of Aesthetics 
Afterwards, we deepened our appreciation of the Meadow by learning about its biodiversity through a lecture and walk led by Roger LaTour, an expert in urban flora. Through understanding the range of plants and animals that form and inhabit this ruderal landscape, we could better appreciate its particular ruderal beauty.

- Jessica Hart

VERNISSAGE

Come and join us to get a first hand look at the projects we have been posting about on this blog! 

AgoraPHILIA: Square Viger

Square Viger has hosted a number of situated knowers.  As a square built solely for “public” leisure in the early 19^th-century its intended user was the French-Canadian bourgeoisie who frequented the site.  However, through many redevelopments, most recently being Charles Daudelin’s Agora architectural environment in 1983, the space has been inhabited and claimed by a different “public”.

Many homeless communities in Montreal have repurposed Daudelin’s structures as private dwellings and reclaimed them as their own.  Among these groups is ‘La Niches des Maîtres’, a group of homeless dog owners who travel and live together with their canine companions. 

My intervention relates to the square’s original purpose as one of Montreal’s first parks for “public” leisure and asks the question – which public does this acknowledge?  I have imagined what play and leisure might mean for these dogs and how to make visible their ownership of this space. 

I brought them a bin of toys and treats, but on the day of my intervention they had moved on.  I left the toys with a note indicating their intended recipients and later was pleased to see one of my gifts in the hands and paws of a young homeless girl and her dog.

Such is the life of homeless people – their relationship to space and the built environment is in constant flux though their presence in Montreal cannot be overlooked.  Perhaps their own mapping of the city and the spaces they occupy can offer us more insight to possible future redevelopments that acknowledge their existence rather than erasing it. 

-Lindsay Cory

www.lindsayanncory.blogspot.com

Clip on the Biodiversity of the Maguire Meadow (Champ des possibles)

UPDATE: Square Victoria Intervention

After one whole weekend, the Begonias are still there and therefore some of us have felt the desire to water them and continue this intervention.  Perhaps the particular aesthetic qualities had something to do with their instilled presence on the Queen Victoria statue and perhaps the fact that during the weekend this square is significantly less used.  We will monitor this and let you all know how the intervention is going.
The wind has taken three of the First Nation's language tags. The ones remaining are:

Eskaleuit
Algonquin
Iroquois
Wakasham
Sioux
Kutenai

Jennifer from our group thought watering them in situ would be a snap as there is a fountain nearby, but she miscalculated the direction in which the water flowed. That it, it flows up.
So after some consultation with a couple of amused lunch eaters I simply took them down from their perches and placed them UNDER the fountain. Voilà.

Square Victoria. Icon of Empires: An Intervention

Square Victoria began its vocation as a Victorian garden in 1860 and became an icon of Empire when the statue of Queen Victoria was inaugurated in 1872. Its current role is that of a city park linked to those international and banking institutions that occupy the buildings around it. Yet, the name of the square that is reminiscent of a monarch that ruled when Britain was a colonial world power has been retained. The Hector Guimard Metropolitan sign made in 1900 for the Paris Metro and installed at the Saint-Antoine stairway of the Metro in 2003 links the square to France. The Tai Chi sculpture by the Taiwanese Ju Ming installed in the square in 2006 heralds the entry into world commerce of Asia as a major player. In its present role, Square Victoria occupies a public place that has become an icon of globalizaton.  

The square was the object of an artistic intervention on 16 June 2011 when nine begonia potted plants were placed on the pedestal of the statue of Queen Victoria. The begonia was chosen because it has come to lead a double life: As an indigenous plant that survived over the millennium and self-propagated on its own into different species as nature intended, and as the result of various hybrids created by genetic manipulation since colonial Europeans discovered it. Within the context of Square Victoria’s history and location the begonia was the appropriate medium for the intervention because its twin history can be used to show the dual role of Square Victoria: As a city park and as a representation of global capitalism. The purpose of the intervention was two-fold: As a reminder of how colonization pushed aboriginal populations off their land to take their natural resources, and to give awareness that global institutions are financing the exploitation of natural resources regardless of the ecological consequences.

R Portanier 

Bois-de-Saraguay: History, Heritage and Ecology in Montreal’s ‘Forgotten Forest’

On the West Island, there is a dense and ecologically diverse forest situated in the middle of the suburbs. The Bois-de-Saraguay nature park has been described as a 'forgotten forest' (read the Montreal Gazette article here) since so few Montrealers know about it. Recently, however, the city has decided to make the site more publicly accessible through the addition of trails, observation areas, and educational signage.

The Bois-de-Saraguay is often described as a space of pristine nature. What is less acknowledged is that the site has been shaped by human history as well. The Mary Dorothy Molson House, located in the northern section of the woods, represents this history. The neo-Georgian estate is one of several summer houses built in the early twentieth century by Montreal’s wealthy anglophone elite, who sought large, open spaces for leisure activities such as hunting, polo and golf. The forest likely would have been cleared for further residential development if it hadn’t been for these exclusive uses of it. The Molsons, MacDougalls and Refords might deserve a certain amount of praise for the role they played in preserving the woods. Beyond that, however, we may also critique the power relations behind this landscape, and view it as a space in which several of Montreal’s most powerful families controlled the movements and activities of others for their own benefit.

I wanted my intervention to respond to the interrelated histories of culture and ecology that have shaped the Bois-de-Saraguay. I decided to make seed-bombs out of clay in the shape of Molson beer cans, which I used to mark particular sites, including a road that once led to the polo club, and the Mary Dorothy Molson House. I used zinnias, asters and sunflowers, which will attract birds, bees and butterflies, but which will also stand out as garden plants rather than ‘wild’ flowers. I saw this as a way of turning a common form of park litter into something that in its sculptural form, has cultural and historical meaning, but in its sprouted form, will create beauty and use value for non-human nature.

- Noni Brynjolson

Work, Gender and the (Re)articulation of Public Space: Reconsidering the Industrial History of the Lachine Canal’s Atwater Market Sector

This research project will explore the Atwater Market sector of the Lachine Canal in the southwest area of Montreal. Specifically, the relationship between the Market and the Lachine Canal—in both its past and present uses—will be examined in order to develop a heightened awareness of how social, cultural, political, historical, and economic factors help shape, and are also shaped by, the transformative nature of this public urban landscape. The central questions that have helped guide my research project and shape my Intervention are: what kinds of narratives, histories, and memories—both visible and invisible—are expressed in the spatial qualities of the landscape? In what ways are signs and material traces of the Canal’s industrial, working-class past embedded within the landscape—in both its past and present manifestations? How is the relationship between leisure, labour, and gender articulated—socially, culturally, historically, spatially, architecturally? How might the space be understood as a kind of “living archive” replete with various, and often conflicting, “situated knowledge(s)”? The aim of my Intervention is thus to make the Lachine Canal’s working-class histories and memories visible by using the railway tracks along the Canal’s banks as the setting for a re-reading and re-articulation of this particular landscape. By placing simple, everyday items that would have been used by the working class (men, women, and children) along eight railway tracks, I hope to re-imbue this industrial landscape with a sense of the human labour and lives that have shaped—and continue to shape—this complex and multi-layered space.  

-Alexandra Kelebay

Exhibition at Concordia University about Montreal's Urban Green Spaces

The exhibition will be mounted on Tuesday, June 28th 2011 in the Concordia University Art History department's vitrine case on the 3rd floor of the Engineering and Visual Arts building.


Address:
Department of Art History, 3rd floor, Engineering-Visual Arts Comples
(near 3.819)
Concordia University
1515 de Maisonneuve Blvd Ouest, corner rue Mackay
H3G 1M9


A vernissage will be held on the same day - Tuesday, June 28th 2011 from 5 to 7 pm. 


Come one, come all!