MARTIN DUFRASNE: LÀ OÙ SONT LES OISEAUX (NOUVEAUX DÉVELOPPEMENTS)/WHERE THE BIRDS ARE (NEW DEVELOPMENTS)

A project by Jean-François Prost with collaborators, presented by Skol

July 29th – April 2024 

July 29th at 5:30 pm – Launch of the project with a communal dish created by Sonia Zlatanova

∗ (postponed in case of rain, see Facebook page)

On the vacant lot at 6919 Marconi St. Montréal.

Facebook event

Project description

I want to challenge the flatness of the construction panel, to have as much fun on it as on the picture rail of an open-air art gallery, hoping to bring to it the schematic spirit of a diagram and the evocative power of poetry. Whether they are structured by a rigorous economy of signs or enlivened by striking semantic collisions, these universes, whether dense or spare, are open to the projection of the imagination. The city needs these spaces of indeterminacy. If the surface itself calls for an image, I wanted to draw a poem in relief: a score to be read by the passing of time. Planting an ephemeral constellation, a glittering still life, an illusory promise grafted by cuttings from what disasters have recently pruned away. To turn this sign into a fable rather than a litany, in which only the clues to its punctuation would be visible, the words of the text having been hidden from view. From a fallow land to a living theatre, a framework for the cultivation of frail, branching habitats, available to all potentials and open to the light of its shadows and flashes, the wind of its breath, the rain of its sweetest or fiercest moods. Carried along by the candid and amused hope that, at last, the chosen ones of this poem, high up in the sky and in mourning, furtive visitors or asylum seekers, will ironise more wisely than we do about the extension of the territory, about the prestige complexes and the large housing estates, or better still, about the irritating superbness of the promoters and the sad connivance of the blinded decision makers.
(Text by Martin Dufrasne, translated by Jean-François Prost)

Presentation of the traditional dish of Ajvar

Ajvar is a Balkan dish made from peppers and eggplants. An ancestral tradition and a social bonding agent, particularly in rural areas, its preparation brings the whole community together by pooling the vegetables and by making a collective effort to cook them. Once it is made, Ajvar is canned and shared by all. Sonja Zlatanova invites you to take part in this seasonal ritual – all you must do is bring a mason jar with you.

CHANTIER is an artistic, political and social investigation of the conceptualization and creation of a large display device situated on a vacant lot at 6919 Marconi in Montréal. For more than a year, this proposed structure will serve as a support for the realization of a series of collaborative, artistic and civic interventions.

6919 Marconi, starting point of the CHANTIER project, is located in a hybrid urban zone (residential, industrial and commercial) along a train line. For many years now, Prost individually and collectively initiated on this 1 800 ft2 lot different types of occupations, such as workshops, projections, launches and urban camping. Today, many city dwellers are challenged and drawn to this vacant lot as a space-time of stopping, slowing down and spontaneity in an era of acceleration and increased control.

Unlike entertained-animated spaces that are overly programmed and codified, as we know nowadays, the vacant lot stays wide open for imagination (without dictating how we behave, move and travel). According to the theoretician Benjamin Delmotte, this allows “multiple never-ending beginnings.”

For the CHANTIER project, Jean-François Prost will initiate an intervention offering a support on which other individuals can act and contribute to define its character and specificity in transformation. This participation and (co)definition process suggests an eventual negotiation about the land, which is vital for democracy. As the urbanist Jane Jacobs said : “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

The proposed actions will explore the theme of the vanished, existing and prospective urban diversity, as well as the vagueness of the place, and the unfinished aspect of the construction site as a vector for co-defining the city.

It is in this spirit that the CHANTIER project is being developed. More news will follow soon about the planned actions.

Discover the program HERE

We thank FEED for the design of the Adaptive Actions (AA) font and Nathalie LeBlanc for her contribution as an audio consultant.

Description /image credit: the display device of CHANTIER. Photo: Jean-François Prost