CHANTIER / Round table and outdoor screening

6:00 PM

6919 Marconi Street lot  

Round table discussion 

VOIDS 

Participants: Laurence Beaudoin, Nans Bortuzzo, Jean-François Prost, and moderator Josianne Poirier.

Beer bar, sausage stand, and music.

Projection – lot side 

A building site generally evokes the physical construction of a building. Vacant land, wasteland and undeveloped lots are now the focus of increasing interest in real estate development projects. Must we systematically densify our existing cities, fill in and imperatively develop every vacant spot? These spaces, often perceived as waste or loss, nevertheless possess an intrinsic, ephemeral and transitional quality, fostering an exploratory and open world, conducive to a process of co-definition. How can open forms and unfinished spaces, as well as the practice of self-construction, become positive and creative vectors for the emergence of new forms of collaborative “architecture” that embrace change? Is it really necessary to extend our infrastructures rather than seek to make better use of and share those that already exist? In a striking paradox, while we strive to build more and ever faster, thousands of built spaces remain unoccupied, unused or dormant. In this discussion, our guests will approach the subject from different angles: artistic, social, political, environmental and legislative.

Starting at 8:30 PM

Projection – street side

DE LAFONTAINE À RACINE, EN PASSANT PAR BOSSÉ ET TALBOT

Artist: Emmanuel Galland

Artist in attendance

Additional (projections) on Friday, August 9 and Saturday, August 10

The artist will present, in the form of a projection, a series of photos taken at night during the winter of 2008 in Chicoutimi (Saguenay). These images capture, among other things, the illuminated signs lining the main strip, the city entrance named le boulevard Talbot. Often disliked by modernists for their North American populism, kitschy language, and symbolism of urban sprawl and laissez-faire, these signs are nevertheless endearing due to their local flavour and particularism. Some of them represent small family businesses, now rare. It is primarily their graphic quality, their inventiveness in various shapes and colours, as well as their contextualization, that make them unique and invite reflection in a homogenized world. It is in this sense that the artist imagined them as public art sculptures populating the city. Projected onto the raised panel of Marconi Street, the signs, like street furniture, will take on a new, unsuspected dimension, in dialogue and contrast with a motley, dead-end street, home to independent garage owners, shoeboxes and unbuilt lots, all threatened by new developments.

Image : Jean-François Prost, projection / screening : femmes-chantiers, 6919 Marconi Street lot, video L’excavatrice by Julie-Isabelle Laurin