The Artist’s Habitat

By April 24, 2018Mat Hay

Great weekend had exploring the creative offerings of Montreal. This included the Papier Art Fair at Arsenal Contemporary Art, a wandering around the intriguing Belgo building (with its countless galleries, artists spaces, martial arts gyms, and dance studios), and an exploration of the amazing Habitat 67 housing complex, designed by Moshe Safdie.

Following this I met with Claire Moeder who has been selected to contribute to this residency blog with her own writing. We exchanged our various different ideas around the themes of the residency, and what lines of enquiry we each might follow. She also introduced me to another impressive collection of galleries and studios at 5444 de Gaspe, where we met up with Lucie Rocher, a photographic artist whos Étant donnés is currently on show at VU Photo.

Finally just before heading back to Quebec I had lunch with local photographer and fellow residency exchange artist, Bertrand Carriére, who will be flying to Glasgow for the fourth and final residency of this Lightwaves project in June.

Image above: I made my way up Mount Royal one evening to check out the views, and mingle amongst the smorgasbord of spectators.

Below image: The 60’s utopian vision that is Habitat 67. Photo credit Sothebysrealty

Behind Habitat 67, surfers ride waves created in the St Lawrence river by the man-made island that the development is built on.