Programming

Sub-event of

Mémoire vive

31 May — 22 September 2002

Initiated by DARE-DARE in collaboration with the Centre d'histoire de Montréal, Mémoire Vive provided a framework for reflection that brought together artists and stakeholders in the heritage field.

Les murs du feu, presented as part of Mémoire vive, investigates the human upheavals and the architectural and urban transformations that fires cause in the city of Montreal. Their research draws on the living memory of those who have lived and still live in places that were once burned. A memory - extracted from history and testimonies, pointing to what was and what will be - vivid - as if burned alive, branded with a red-hot iron - that wants to keep present the consumed history of individuals and communities affected by the choices and social values that are reflected in the irruption of the fires and the reconstruction of the city. Les murs du feu is inscribed in time, space and matter by probing the human, aesthetic and social experience triggered by this force that is both vital and destructive.

Program

From August 9 to September 2, Les murs du feu proposes an exploration of the Main (Saint-Laurent Blvd) through its fires. The project will take place in two parts, during an evening of fire on Friday, August 9 and during a pedestrian route.

The incendiary evening will take place on Friday August 9th at 8:30 pm (August 10th in case of rain) on Sainte-Catherine street, near the Saint-Dominique intersection (in front of the Métropolis): an encounter with fire, recontextualized in the urban life of Montreal, through the history of the people it has set on fire! The evening is non-narrative and rather evocative of the history of the burned Main. Free admission.

On the menu for the evening:
The American Spaghetti House in flames... Visit the first fire truck to be on the scene on the famous February 24, 1959... The resurrected Cinema Eve, with projection on a large screen of a torrid visual montage... with live music by DJ Luc Raymond. Stéphane Crète and his Show Girls will revive the Red Light of the 1920s to 1960s.

Blacksmith Olivier Maranda and his travelling forge.

The fire tamers Les Galapiats

And many other surprises! Bring a personal object to burn to make your own artifact! The pedestrian path composed of 17 alarm boxes runs along Saint-Laurent Boulevard, from Viger to Mount Royal. The route is in place from August 9 to September 22.

Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable (ATSA), founded in 1997 by artists Annie Roy and Pierre Allard, creates urban interventions that question, gather and mobilize the community. Their events transform and question the urban landscape by opening it up to social debates. Among their many activities are: États d'Urgences (winter 98-99-02), urban refugee camps in the heart of downtown Montreal; Parc industriel (summer 2001), a fake archeological site made of scraps that proposes a reflection on today's society of overconsumption; and À vos marques (as part of Espaces émergents, October 2001), an installation at the AmericanCan that situates the frantic race of globalization at all costs, the cult of work and performance as the new religion of the 20th and 21st centuries.

See the ATSA website : http://www.atsa.qc.ca