Hugh Durnford-Dionne
Image credit: Yael Ezerzer
About the Artist
Hugh Durnford-Dionne is a motion designer and documentary filmmaker based in Montreal. In 2023, he filmed and edited Last Respects, a documentary exploring what happens to the bodies that go unclaimed after death in Montreal, which won the Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs. In 2019, he wrote and directed Charlotte’s Illustrated World, a short documentary about a Toronto-based illustrator, broadcast nationally on CBC Arts. His latest project, The Steppers Visit SouthAfrica, follows a Montreal dance group as they venture to South Africa to explore both their personal heritage and the roots of their art form.
Through his background in both animation and academia, Hugh gravitated towards the transformative power of motion graphics’ ability to clearly illustrate abstract concepts from philosophy, etymology, and other humanities in a digestible and engaging way.
Still from The Origin of Montreal's Words, by Hugh Durnford-Dionne
The Origin of Montreal's Words
Work presented at Bouclair from February 3rd to March 16th
Montreal is a city of hidden stories—stories that don’t just live in our streets and architecture, but in the very words we speak. We pass by landmarks, greet each other, and buy our morning coffee without realizing that embedded in the language are centuries of cultural exchanges and evolution. My project aims to bring those stories to light through animated explanations of the origins of words common and significant to Montreal.
To most, the word dépanneur is simply understood as a corner store. Etymologically, dé, meaning “to remove,” and panne, meaning “breakdown” or “crisis,” a dépanneur represents a person or place that saves you in a pinch: a lifeline of late-night snacks and quick essentials; a symbol of reliability. Or take the word Museum which comes from the Greek “seat of the muses”, referring to nine of the most important Gods in ancient Greece. These muses were the inspirations of literature, science and the arts. Seeing this, the Musée des beaux-arts could never just be a building on Maisonneuve but, quite literally, a place for us to gather inspiration, creativity and wonder.
