After four attempts at revitalization, the Chabanel district, once the seat of Montreal’s textile industry, could finally achieve it thanks to the help of artists. A sign of the attractiveness of the industrial sector, two new centers for the creation and dissemination of contemporary art have just set up there, following the migratory movement of artists formerly established in the Mile End and Parc-Extension districts. The challenge for this booming sector will then be to make sure to keep the community of artists in the neighborhood.
On January 22, the Eastern Bloc center, dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary and digital art, will be reborn in its new premises on Louvain Street, west of Saint-Laurent Boulevard. It will be next to the building at 99, rue Louvain, which gallerist Yves Laroche is converting into inexpensive artists’ studios and where dozens of young designers are already busy. The inauguration of the new Eastern Bloc will be two months after that of another multidisciplinary creation and dissemination center (which has not yet been officially named), this one on Port-Royal West Street, just to the north.
According to Hélène Veilleux, general manager of the Commercial Development Company (SDC) of the District Central (which brings together five sectors, including the Chabanel district), the arrival of these art centers, workshops and cultural institutions “is the sign of effervescence. Artists are often the first to recognize the potential of territories, and therefore the first to settle there, often in search of affordable premises ”.
Beyond the raw charm of the sector made up of urban factories – still in operation or converted into workspaces – and wasteland, it is precisely the cheap rents that attract the Montreal artistic community. “This is one of the few places in Montreal still accessible for artists,” said Victor Shiffman, who runs this new (anonymous) creation center which has moved into the former premises of a stonemason recently acquired by a patron invested in the Montreal contemporary art community.
Artists are often the first to recognize the potential of territories, and therefore the first to settle there.
The place, specifies Shiffman, will have a “multidisciplinary vocation, with the objective of supporting artists in visual arts, music and performance”. Thus, on November 27, visual artists (including the creators in residence on the premises, Junko and June Barry) exhibited their works, while DJs (Odile Myrtil, Andy Williams, among others) and musicians (Lydia Képinski, CO / NTRY, Fernie and CFCF with Emma Beko) performed in the Great Hall for some 150 spectators. The evening’s program had been concocted by the POP Montreal festival team: “For the moment, we simply want to invite the artistic community to occupy our spaces,” adds the director of the center, promising a varied cultural program for 2022.
Victor Shiffman is of the same opinion as the directors of the Eastern Bloc: even still poorly served by public transport (you have to walk about ten minutes from the Sauvé metro to reach it), this sector of the city has what ‘it takes to become the new beating heart of culture underground Montreal. “There’s a stamp here,” said Shiffman. This feeling raw, underground, we feel the potential for development in this kind of place a little away from the urban development that attracts artists, as was the case in Brooklyn, for example. “
Take root
The gentrification pushed the managers of the Eastern Bloc to find a new home, fourteen years after its inauguration on rue Clark, south of rue Jean-Talon. “Neighboring buildings have been bought out to be transformed into condos,” explains Alicia Turgeon, general manager of the Eastern Bloc. We were kind of forced to leave, but we also saw emerging artists migrating to the peripheries, so we took the initiative to follow them. This is how we discovered the Chabanel district – the next affordable district, as Mile End and Parc-Extension have already been. “
This raw, “underground” “feeling” makes you feel the potential for development in this kind of place, a bit far from the urban development that attracts artists, as was the case in Brooklyn, for example.
The arrival of young artists in this district already frequented by workers from companies in the “creative” field, such as Pixmob, which creates visual experiences by combining art and new technologies (the firm recently collaborated with the Sharks of San José and the Baltimore Ravens to light up their respective arenas and stadiums), also has the potential to spark new collaborative projects, believes Cían Walsh, artistic director of the Eastern Bloc.
“We recently had an interesting conversation on this subject with the people of the SDC and artists who have just settled in the neighborhood,” he says. One of the things that is still missing is a place where artists, cultural workers and workers from these new cutting-edge companies can meet. Since the Eastern Bloc is the first cultural institution to settle there, we hope to become the meeting point for everyone, on the occasion of a happy hour or a vernissage, for example. “
The challenge for the SDC will then be to ensure that artists’ studios are protected against real estate development. “It was part of our thinking: we are aware that by moving here, we also bring value to the Chabanel district,” says Alicia Turgeon. We think a lot about what could happen with us in several years, but that, the SDC is aware of it, and its administrators also think about it. The artists are coming, they must not be dislodged again. “
Hélène Veilleux and her team from the SDC of the District Central believe that it is the diversity of the populations frequenting the district that will ensure the success of its revival. “We have to develop a way of being welcoming and promoting the integration of artists, but above all, we want them to stay with us afterwards, for their presence in the region to be lasting. [L’arrivée de centres et d’institutions comme Eastern Bloc], it’s gold in the bar for us, but we insist a lot on one point in our consultations: we would like the artists to find a permanent place in the Central District. As a joke, I sometimes say: “if we keep pushing them north, they will end up in the river!” It would be fun if we gave them a real place in our vision of the diversity of the territory. “