Transcript for Chapter 5:
A Cornerstone of Arts and Culture

This is Chapter 5: A Cornerstone of Arts and Culture

I’m Jackie Rourke, a broadcast journalist, podcaster and Concordia communications and journalism grad. I’ll be your host as we continue to explore Concordia’s downtown Sir George Williams Campus where I enjoyed some of my favourite courses like international law and the natural environment.

In this final chapter of Forever Forward, we’ll explore the people and places that define Concordia’s immense contribution to and preservation of the arts.

Ready? Let’s begin.

Let’s start back at Concordia’s Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV) on Guy and Sainte Catherine streets, which was once the site of Montreal’s 1938 art deco York Theatre.

Abandoned for decades and beyond restoration — the York Theatre was demolished in 2001 to make way for the EV Building’s construction.

Walking through the halls of EV today, you’ll find artifacts from the former theatre that were preserved and restored, like on the EV auditorium’s east wall. That’s where you’ll find the “3 Scenes of Nymphs in Canadian Landscapes” paintings by artist Kenneth Hensley Holmden, part of the original York Theatre’s interior decor.

Head up to the third floor and you can see the three York Theatre medallions and chevron panels, which were recovered from the exterior of the York Theatre, are now on display outside the Black Box dance studio.

DID YOU KNOW? Concordia is home to the largest and most diverse collection of public art of any university in Canada? More than 40 renowned international artists are represented on Concordia’s campuses.

For a deeper dive into the university’s large-scale sculpture, painting, photography and kinetic art, explore our “Public Art, Public Memory” tours at concordia.ca/50.

The EV is also home to the Faculty of Fine Arts — or FOFA — Gallery on the ground floor, which primarily showcases the artistic and research practices of Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts through exhibitions, publications and events.

The FOFA Gallery is dedicated to pedagogical inquiry, curatorial experiments, cutting-edge artistic practices and training opportunities.

DID YOU KNOW? In 2022, through its Exploring Sustainability Across the Arts initiative, the FOFA Gallery began inviting artists and staff to think about alternatives to PVC lettering, a common but highly-toxic material used in exhibition signage. As a result, the gallery published a tool kit and comprehensive report outlining sustainable alternatives.

A few floors up, you’ll find the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology, a graduate-research institute that provides a platform for creative experimentation, interdisciplinary training and progressive imagination.

It shares space with Technoculture Art and Games — TAG — Canada’s largest games-research centre.

DID YOU KNOW? Montreal is a world-leader in video game development. In 2023, Behaviour Interactive — the largest Canadian video-game developer and publisher — donated $2 million to the Campaign for Concordia to enhance Concordia’s ability to develop new talent and innovation for a critical economic sector.

Head underground to the Concordia tunnel, a long corridor that passes under De Maisonneuve Boulevard and connects Concordia’s buildings to the Guy-Concordia metro station.

Opened in 2010, the tunnel is home to Acer Concordiae, a series of 52 laser-engraved stainless-steel plaques that tell the story of Concordia’s history and its place in Montreal.

DID YOU KNOW? Kamila Wozniakowska, the artist who created Acer Concordiae, was born in Poland yet has lived in downtown Montreal since 1983. Having witnessed Concordia’s growth and evolution firsthand, she felt that a tree was the perfect metaphor for the university’s progress.

Concordia features three important theatres. Exit out of the tunnel into the Henry F. Hall Building and you’ll pass by the Sir George Williams University Alumni Auditorium, or H-110, located on the ground floor. It’s home to many major events and film screenings.

The Concordia Theatre, formerly the D.B. Clarke Theatre, is in the same building and features 387-seats. It’s one of the principal performing-arts venues for music, theatre and dance students from Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts.

Cross over to the J.W. McConnell Building and you’ll find the J.A. DeSève Cinema, a 160-seat cinema with an adjacent foyer on the ground floor used primarily for film studies classes during the school year.

DID YOU KNOW? The Concordia Film Festival, North America's largest and oldest student-run film festival, was first organized 50 years ago. The festival features work produced by Concordia students from various departments.

(MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

Head onto de Maisonneuve Boulevard and Mackay Street to spot one of Concordia’s most eye-catching artworks, the “Di-Octo” sculpture by American artist Anthony Howe.

The eight-metre-high sculpture weighs 725-kilograms and comes alive as the wind blows — stretching out and reopening its stainless-steel tentacles ad infinitum.

The work was donated by Concordia graduates Jonathan Wener, BComm 71, and Susan Wener to celebrate Montreal’s 375th and Canada’s 150th anniversaries in 2017.

DID YOU KNOW? Jonathan Wener wanted to place “Di-Octo” outside the Hall Building since the site is where he began his journey as a student. It’s also the location where he met his wife Susan — on her very first day at freshman orientation! The Weners are celebrating their 50th-wedding anniversary in tandem with Concordia’s 50th.

As Concordia’s campus has grown over the years, its real-estate development has required some architectural preservation. 

A case in point is the 1912 Renaissance Revival-styled Royal George Apartments on Bishop Street. The building’s unusual façade, made of glazed terracotta, was preserved and incorporated into the design of the LB Building.

DID YOU KNOW? The iconic 21-storey portrait of Leonard Cohen on Crescent Street, which overlooks Mount Royal and the Sir George Williams Campus, was developed by MU artists El Mac and Concordia graduate Gene Pendon in 2017.

(MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

Let’s head south to the Grey Nuns Building, or GN. Originally the Motherhouse of the Grey Nuns of Montreal, the H-shaped former convent was constructed in 1861. Under its roof, the religious order operated a hospital and several schools.

The site was acquired by Concordia in 2004 to create much-needed residence space.

Today, the five floors of the Grey Nuns Residence serve as home to approximately 850 undergraduate students. Like all Concordia residences, Grey Nuns is co-ed and welcomes people of all genders.

Its magnificent chapel has been transformed into a 234-seat silent reading room. In 2018, Concordia received a National Trust of Canada award for its restoration of the heritage space.

DID YOU KNOW? Marguerite d’Youville founded the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, commonly known as the Grey Nuns. The Grey Nuns Building includes a crypt where D’Youville was buried in 1771. She was beatified in 1959, and in 1990, Pope John Paul II canonized the Grey Nuns founder. Her remains were relocated to her birthplace in Varennes, Quebec, in 2010. The crypt in the south-east wing remains a resting place for other nuns.

The Concordia University Center for Creative Reuse — or CUCCR — is the first of its kind in Canada. It diverts materials from the university’s waste stream and offers them to the community free of charge.

CUCCR has diverted 18 tonnes of waste, saving the community more than $170,000.

DID YOU KNOW? Concordia has stewarded the Max Stern Art Restitution Project since the early 2000s. It’s the largest initiative of its kind in Canada and one of the most recognized restitution efforts in the world.

As a Jewish citizen, Stern fled his native Germany to Montreal with his family in the late 1930s. Before he passed away in 1987, Stern sought to reclaim the hundreds of paintings that were looted from his art gallery in Düsseldorf by the Nazis.

Stern recovered a few paintings, and those efforts continue today for the beneficiaries of his estate: namely Concordia, McGill University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Some 250 artworks previously owned by Stern have been identified with dozens retrieved. The investigation continues.

(MUSICAL INTERLUDE)

For decades, the Grey Nuns maintained a fruit and vegetable garden that yielded strawberries, raspberries, carrots, turnips, beans and tomatoes. In the 1960s, the garden was converted into a skating rink. Later, it became a tree-covered green space, ideal for contemplation. Today, Concordia has created a downtown oasis with basketball and volleyball courts and an outdoor gym. The garden continues to grow food through Concordia’s Food Coalition’s Campus Potager aimed at creating affordable and compassionate food systems.

This concludes our walking tour! I hope you enjoyed exploring 50 sites across Concordia’s two campuses as much as I have. For a relatively young university, there is already so much fascinating history here to discover.

For more information on how Concordia is forever moving forward, please visit concordia.ca/50.