Expo 67 - not just a souvenir
Groovy hostess uniforms, exotic food, cutting edge design and architecture, multi-media exhibitions—well before the term “multi-media” became part of our cultural fabric—virtually everyone who was alive and in Montreal in 1967 has a memory of our world’s fair.
And those memories are likely to flood the senses yet again with the publication of a new book edited by two Concordia professors and set for its official launch here next week.
Rhona Richman Kenneally is an associate professor in Concordia’s Department of Design and Computation Arts while Johanne Sloan is an associate professor in the Department of Art History. For the book, Expo 67 – Not Just a Souvenir, Richman-Kenneally and Sloan called on scholars from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
The 13 contributors are academics who teach in a variety of fields ranging from architecture through communications, media and cultural studies to sociology.
Their essays revive Expo memories about girl-watching, artworks and design elements, food offerings and tabloid coverage of Expo 67.
The book is richly illustrated with more than two dozen full-colour photographs and another two dozen in black and white. They show postcards, on-site restaurant menus, advertisements and even pages from a visitor’s official Expo 67 passport. The photos also document media coverage of Expo 67 in the Toronto Star, the Journal de Montreal and the cover of the now defunct Montreal Star’s Weekend Magazine.
When Richman Kenneally and Sloan are asked why they published the book now rather than pegging its release timing to a nice, round anniversary year such as the 40th (just passed) or the 45th (upcoming), they suggest it’s precisely because Expo 67 is still present in our collective memory.
As Richman Kenneally sees it, “Expo 67 generated vibrant debate and significant creative expression: this was true not only at the monumental level of architecture and urban development, but also at a more intimate scale. The foods available, the clothing people wore, the souvenirs they took home with them further personalized the experience and gave it an abiding cultural durability.”
Sloan adds, “In large, multi-cultural cities such as Montreal, discussions about a unifying vision, grand project or, as they’re currently being called, projets rassembleurs, are front and center right now. And Expo 67 remains a significant point of reference in these explorations.” The book`s editors hope the essays it contains help advance those perennial debates.
The book Expo 67 – Not Just a Souvenir is published by University of Toronto Press as the latest in its cultural spaces series.
Related links:
• Expo-67 – Not just a Souvenir
• University of Toronto Press
• Concordia’s Department of Design and Computation Arts
• Concordia’s Department of Art History