Occupied territories
Watching a performance in a narrow Griffintown alley, pressed against a former gasworks while trains rattle overhead may not be everybody’s idea of how to spend Saturday night.
Théâtre Nulle Part developed the site-specific performance as part of Urban Occupations Urbaines (UOU) an interdisciplinary, multimedia series of monthly events curated by Concordia PhD candidate Shauna Janssen. The performance, held during September’s Journées de la culture, was paired with L’espace quotidien, a film by New Zealand Artist Andrew de Freitas.
“Urban Occupations encourages artists to creatively and critically engage with the site,” explains Janssen.
Janssen became interested in the neighbourhood when doing MA research on the Darling Foundry’s transition from industrial ruin into a place for artistic production. The Foundry anchors the eastern edge of Griffintown. Once an industrial hub stretching between the transportation routes of the river and the rail yards, Griffintown fell into neglect for several decades.
Recently, the neighbourhood’s maze of abandoned industrial buildings and proximity to downtown attracted Devimco, a consortium that proposed a mega-development of big box stores and condos. Those who actually lived in the undefined area resisted the extra-large-size-fits-all project.
The developers eventually returned with a more modest project. Meanwhile, many of the community members Janssen got to know who had challenged the initial project, including Judith Bauer and Harvey Lev, have been working to promote the existing cultural value of the area.
They have developed a concept for a Cultural Corridor through Griffintown, including Le Dalhousie a space they have developed as a site for exhibitions and performances. Their work includes acknowledging the Griffintown Horse Palace, the only existing stable in Montreal where calèche horses spend their down time.
Initially interested in the preservation of historic architecture and documenting a community that is on the verge of disappearing, Janssen has revised her reading of the situation. “It is less about a project of preservation and more about uncovering and examining what makes these historic spaces relevant now.” She sees a neighbourhood in transition and the potential for urban renewal through certain creative acts and gestures.
Janssen worked in theatre before returning to do her MA, and now PhD, in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture. Her research on post-industrial spaces combines architectural and performance-based theory with research on urban decay, memory, and oral history.
Janssen met a number of people while doing her graduate research. Among them were two artists, Sylvia Winkler and Stephan Köperl, who were swept up in the protests of the neighbourhood’s development while artists-in-residence at the Darling Foundry in 2008.
“I wanted my research to be more practice-based, I was inspired by the ways these artists were responding to the politics of urban revitalization,” recalls Janssen.
“Coming from theatre, she has a strong sense of collaboration,” says Cynthia Hammond, of the Department of Art History and Janssen’s PhD supervisor. Hammond responded to Janssen’s invitation for proposals for in situ performances and installations with a project she founded five years ago with Thomas Strickland, Pouf! Art +architecture.
Hammond said that her first visits to the neighbourhood were a bit disorienting. “We found ourselves wandering through it wondering ‘where is the there?’”
By chance, they happened upon a small green space in the heart of Griffintown, which serves the community as a wellloved dog park. Pouf! invited people to bring their dogs to the park for portrait-taking sessions. (Dog) Parc Gallery offered images in exchange for stories that communicate the lived experiences of people and pets into a contested place, rarely considered on a human, let alone canine, scale.
“[UOU] is creating a path of sorts through Griffintown for spaces of engagement and reflection,” says Hammond of the project.
Related links:
- Urban Occupations Urbaines
- The Darling Foundry
- Palimpsest
- Pouf! Art + Architecture
- PhD in Humanities