Programming

Presentation

The intention: around questions that lead us to rethink the relationship between memory, communities and the city, to bring together artists, creators and professionals of history. How is memory constructed? How does it exist in the urban fabric? How is it transmitted within communities? For what and for whom does it serve? From there, Mémoire vive draws a framework for reflection where artists and heritage professionals are called upon to share work and investigation methods, strategies, means of intervention and ways of shaping history in order to initiate and carry out actions in the city to activate its memory and appropriate it. It is a true laboratory, a site of trials, ideas and actions addressed to a public caught on the streets of Montreal, as well as to visitors to the Centre d'histoire and to the visual arts and history interpretation communities.

Each of the projects presented as part of Mémoire vive has its own logic. They take place over time or on an ad hoc basis, layering, overlapping or following one another. Many occur spontaneously according to a flexible or even indeterminate schedule.

Mémoire vive events, which constitute a program in themselves, will be unveiled gradually throughout the summer on the DARE-DARE website, as well as through the distribution of communiqués and monthly mailings. At all times, from May 31 to September 22, 2002, Mémoire vive will occupy the Centre d'histoire de Montréal, where the temporary exhibition room will be transformed into an evolving laboratory. Many of the participants also intervene in the permanent exhibition, creating alternative paths.

DARE-DARE initiated the Mémoire vive adventure in September 2001. The research and production stages were punctuated by regular meetings and discussions, according to the needs and avenues explored by the artists and creators, with the teams of DARE-DARE, the Centre d'histoire de Montréal and specialists in archaeology, geology, urban planning and history.

The participants in Mémoire vive have been chosen to bring together diverse and complementary approaches and attitudes. Thus, memory is brought to life through oblique viewpoints where we can distinguish, for example, the spirit of the poet, the scientist, the documentalist, the activist, the detective, the utopian, the immigrant, the uprooted person, the caregiver. But the approach of each one surprises, drifts, is transformed and opens towards something larger which remains difficult to name and identify. From an old working-class neighbourhood to Old Montreal, from a tour of the city in a horse-drawn carriage, from the church of a Russian Orthodox community to an archaeological dig site, a whole re-reading of the history of the city and its social fabric takes place, in a back-and-forth movement between the self and the other, the individual and the community, the conscious and the unconscious, the past and the present. In this process, memory is thought of as a link that allows us to move away without losing ourselves, to navigate between, to find our bearings and to know ourselves again.

The origin of the project

Exploring the city. In the public domain: to act to sow doubt, to fight against indifference, to make gestures and go to meet the Other. To risk. These are some of the reasons why DARE-DARE has been actively supporting urban practices since its mandate was changed in 1996. This new orientation gives rise to a reflection on the meaning that emerges from unconventional creative processes and contexts. In order to deepen this research, DARE-DARE develops, through its regular programming and special projects, flexible production and dissemination structures where exchange, encounter and experimentation are at the forefront.

It is this approach, as well as her occasional involvement with the Centre d'histoire de Montréal, that led Raphaëlle de Groot, artist and member of DARE-DARE, to propose Mémoire vive, a laboratory where artistic investigation is linked to historical inquiry to produce personal rereadings of the city's history. In continuity with L'algèbre d'Ariane, an international exchange and cooperation project initiated by Stéphane Gilot and Caroline Boileau in 1997, Mémoire vive is part of DARE-DARE's desire to reach multiple audiences and to develop collaborations with institutions, organizations and individuals. In fact, this is perhaps where the most experimental dimensions of the project lie. By provoking this type of creative context, DARE-DARE builds a reflection on the field and is constantly nourished by the questions raised by interaction with new audiences.

Mémoire vive is also motivated by the ever-renewed desire of DARE-DARE members to push the boundaries of art by engaging in destabilizing and disorienting experiences. This is true both through the context of dissemination offered by the Centre d'histoire de Montréal and through the creative process implemented. Indeed, by bringing together artists and creators from several fields (landscaping, interdisciplinary practices, performance, literature, engaged art) and by soliciting, at different stages of research, production and presentation, the collaboration of the Centre d'histoire team as well as professionals and stakeholders from the world of archaeology, geology, archives, history, urban planning, philosophy, humanitarian organizations, cultural communities, and many other sectors; The projects of Mémoire vive artists develop unexpected ramifications that sometimes take us outside the traditional field of art. Seen in this way, Mémoire vive takes the form of a multidimensional adventure where, in parallel to the projects and themes of each of the participating artists and creators, the public is invited to reflect on the very process of rereading, interpreting and appropriating historical information and data; a process fueled here by the encounter of a diversity of viewpoints, attitudes, biases, means and strategies.

The game of exploration

History is alive and well in the city today. This is the vision and approach that have motivated the team at the Centre d'histoire de Montréal since it was founded in 1983, and more particularly since the 2001 redevelopment of the building and its permanent exhibition located in the heart of Place d'Youville. The CHM's activities are thus oriented towards an exploratory approach that is tied to the city, both in its urban and social fabric. The "new" Centre d'histoire is conceived as a gateway to the city to discover the places and traces of its history, its neighbourhoods and the people who live there. Beyond its mission to disseminate Montreal's heritage, the Centre d'histoire de Montréal seeks to play a concrete social and community role, making its exhibition spaces accessible and useful, and evolving with the community that animates them. For its exhibition projects, the CHM has also been partnering for the past few years with organizations, groups and associations that reach out to specific cultural fields, audiences or territories. By creating links, these alliances develop a sustainable approach and promote a reciprocal taming, a real "intercultural" exchange in all senses of the word between diverse environments and individuals.

Bringing together artists, creators and workers in the field of history, the Mémoire vive project, carried out in collaboration with the DARE-DARE gallery, is part of this approach by proposing a game of rereading and free appropriation of history and its inscription in the city. For the participating artists and creators, it is a question of taming the historical approach and historical communication intended for the general public; for the CHM team, accustomed to explaining and describing, Mémoire vive invites them to leave a little room for the ambivalence of evocation, the indeterminate and even silence, which are the artists' preferred materials. In short, for both artists and interpreters of history, an adventure, so that memory may live on.