Announced as one of the main tourist events of the summer in the national capital, the exhibition of plant sculptures Mosaïcultures Québec 2022 nevertheless draws criticism from visitors and residents.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
The exhibition, which occupies a large part of Bois-de-Coulonge Park, on Grande Allée, in Quebec City, opened its turnstiles on June 24.
If many comments published on the web are complimentary, some deplore the absence of a water point, the difficulty of pushing a wheelchair in the stony paths and the impossibility of entering with food, even for consumption in the public part of the park.
The very sunny outdoor site does not actually offer a place to fill a water bottle, found The Press.
“We set up on an existing site and we use it as it is, we didn’t dig any holes to put in the pipes,” explains the communications director of Mosaïcultures internationales de Montréal (MIM), Jacques Ouimette.
No filling station
The organization has also not provided a filling station as in other events, including Osheaga. “These are 10-day events, we are a four-month event,” argues Mr. Ouimette.
On Monday, there were “plenty of chairs, full of walkers” on the site, he says. “When you have reduced mobility, you still have to know that you are coming to see an exhibition that is outside in a park, and a 1.5 kilometer route. »
As for the food refused during the search at the entrance, “it’s not specific to Mosaïcultures, no event accepts that”.
Government assistance
The largest exhibition organized by MIM to date received $16.5 million in assistance from the Government of Quebec, to which the City added $1.8 million. Ticketing revenues should reach 13.5 million and tourism spending, nearly 18 million, Quebec announced last August.
The state, which owns Bois-de-Coulonge, lent the land free of charge. Part of the park remains accessible beyond the fenced site, but not the buildings housing the washrooms or the belvedere overlooking the river.
The regulars “have been cursing since the fall”, underlined Monday a columnist of the SunFrancois Bourque.
“The event only started a few weeks ago. If we need to add chemical toilets in the portion that is not Mosaïcultures, we are open to doing so,” said Jean-François Guay, spokesperson for the National Capital Commission, which manages the park.
And the new staircase that will connect this park to the foot of Gilmour Hill starting Friday “will be able to bring people to the river”, he argues.
MIM must make the park in its original state and fully accessible to the public by December 31 at the latest, the agreement provides.
“We have taken steps to ensure, precisely, that we do not relive the episode in Gatineau,” notes Mr. Guay.
The Mosaïcultures were held in Jacques-Cartier Park in Gatineau in 2017 and 2018. In the spring of 2020, the federal National Capital Commission closed an area of this park for 18 months citing “significant damage” caused by ” large-scale events.