Two faculty cluster members, pk langshaw and Kelly Thompson, as well as student cluster member, Sophia Borowska, will have their work featured in the upcoming Un paradis sans pommiers – Le jardin les Soeurs Grises. The event will take place in the Grey Nuns Gardens on June 3, 2016 from 8-9pm.
Please join co-curators Cynthia Hammond and Shauna Janssen and 15 artists for an ‘evening of enchantment’ in the former working gardens of the Grey Nuns Motherhouse on René-Lévesque Ouest, entrance on St-Mathieu. For 135 years, the Grey Nuns or Soeurs Grises lived in this convent, caring for the sick and the destitute, feeding and sheltering the unhoused, orphans, and many other people with no resources of their own. At one point, 1000 people – mostly women – lived in this building. Their working gardens provided a crucial source of food for the residents, and were thus a living part of the community’s knowledge and culture of organized giving and care.
Today the garden belongs to Concordia University, but is not – unlike the convent attached – recognized for its heritage as a space of women’s work and knowledge. The upcoming Association of Critical Heritage Studies conference (https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/patrimoine/en/ACHS2016) has provided an opportunity to ask how artists might make aspects of the site’s heritage visible.
For one night, on Friday, June 3, 8pm, visitors will have the opportunity to enter this garden, which has never been open to the public. Inside, 15 site-responsive art installations and performances await, all of which engage with the history of the garden as a gendered space and site of women’s knowledge, as well as the fact that the Motherhouse to this day exists on unceded indigenous land.
All welcome! The event is accessible to visitors with mobility restrictions. Please note that some terrain is uneven. There is seating in the garden.
Participating artists: Liselyn Adams, Caroline Alexander, Sophia Borowska, Carmela Cucuzzella, Jill Didur, pk langshaw, Satya Miller, Marisa Portolese, Mathilde Rohr, Corinne Spitalier, Linda Swanson, Swintak, Kelly Thompson, Angélique Wilke
Project collaborators and assistants: Gabrielle Desrosiers, Raphaelle Garcia, Augstina Isadori, Jinyoung Kim, Marlène Laberge, Ariane Legault, Hannah Materne, Andrea Pena, Olivia Savard, Dana Rempel
Project associates: Jill Didur, Phil Lichti
Special thanks to: The Office of Research, Concordia University, and Les Sœurs de la Charité de Montréal «Sœurs Grises», and Steven High
textiles + materiality research cluster 