Helping the homeless with art

Sculptor Pierre Allard and dancer Annie Roy, the founders of the art collective Socially Acceptable Terrorist Action, decided to make a bold statement about homelessness this Christmas. With the help of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Old Brewery Mission, they declared a "state of emergency" and set up a "refugee camp" in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art at Jeanne-Mance and Ste-Catherine. The camp, which consisted of three sleeping tents and a soup kitchen, stood from last Wednesday to last Sunday.

In the end, it made a bolder statement than its creators had anticipated. Here are some of Allard's impressions after five days inside his installation:

"We thought we were creating a visual paradox: a refugee camp, in the middle of an urban centre, in a developed country. In the end, our symbolic gesture ended up serving an absolute need. We were overflowing. People spent the night standing up because there was no more room to sleep.

"We thought we'd be serving a couple of hundred meals a day. But our lunches turned into a huge daily event--we served over 600 meals per day. We were totally unprepared at first--we had to go around to local restaurants and ask them to pitch in.

"I cried the first night, seeing so many people in desperation. Even the soldiers were blown away by it all--and some of them had been to Bosnia.

"As far as I'm concerned, there should be a refugee camp in downtown Montreal all year round."

--Philip Preville