Gotta go back in time

>> Mémoire vive traces Montreal’s colourful histories this summer

by CHRISTINE REDFERN

Why make summer vacation plans when you can time travel with the help of local artists without even leaving the city? Mémoire vive, billed as “a laboratory, a field for ideas, experiment and exchange,” aims to reveal the history embedded in the city around us. Curated by Raphaëlle de Groot, this summer-long event is a collaborative effort by DARE-DARE and the Centre d’histoire de Montréal.
Home base is the Centre d’histoire, where each participant presents their project alongside related documents and objects. Currently, some aspects of this evolving laboratory are much more interesting than others. Elements bound to engage the viewer include cartoons, some of the photographs, installation and sound works. Less successful are the straight presentations of accumulated material, such as horse blanket scraps pinned to the wall or a stack of photocopies (no matter how interesting the material they contain may be).

However, the heart and soul of Mémoire vive are the happenings taking place outside in the different neighbourhoods of Montreal. Here, the real interaction between artist and public takes place. Through guided tours, church luncheons, public performances, gestures, stories and conferences, each project takes a unique view of memory and community in connecting the past with the present.

Playing with fire

Action terroriste socialement acceptable’s striking “Les Murs du feu” focuses on fires through records and personal memories, looking specifically at fire’s social transformation of the urban landscape. Caroline Boileau’s “Displaced Symptoms” looks at the history of health care and well being. Guy Girard, through the story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a slave accused of setting fire to the city and put to death in 1734, makes us consider the mostly forgotten history of slaves in this city.

Poet Mireille Cliché will be in the community of Rosemont for her project “Histoires oubliées.” Her own writings and stories collected from residents will explore the lost past of this working-class neighbourhood. Denis Lessard looks at issues of immigration by inviting the public to discover the rituals, language and history of the local Russian community in “Montréal russe.” Terres en vues, a Native cultural organization, will be working with Algonquin artist Nadia Myre as she invites volunteers from the public to join her in sewing decorative beads over a copy of the Indian act, to draw attention to the often-large chasm that divides legal intentions and reality. Terres en vues will also present a symbolic scarification ritual involving First Nation painters, drummers and singers.

Ani Deschênes has been riding with the calèche drivers of old Montreal, listening to their often-liberal interpretations of Montreal’s history. From these rides she has made a series of horse covers for the calèches that depict some of the altered historical versions she heard. Internationale virologie numismatique’s “Horatio Nelson: 1758–2002” uses the statue of the British naval hero as a vehicle to talk about power struggles between opposing ideologies. And finally, VLAN paysages, a landscape architecture firm, will be presenting the history hidden beneath the city with an archeological dig. :

At the Centre d’histoire de Montréal, 335 Place d’Youville until Sept. 22, 878-1088, www.cam.org/~daredar