Inside Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mainly on the run, his office in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
Eleven real gateways that have been bent, burned, kicked, shot or blown open since the outbreak of the Russian offensive in Ukraine open our eyes to the violence of war in a new exhibit.
A door of Hostomel wood, almost completely charred, miraculously still holds its frame.
Another, which comes from Kharkiv, is pierced with bullets.
Several have had their handles amputated, in place of which are boot-shaped holes where the kicks smashed them.
Photo Louis-Philippe Messier
This wooden door from a house in Hostomel, subjected to intense heat, shows a charred face.
Denouncing the fate of Ukraine
The exhibition Doorsby Ukrainian artist Ruslan Kurt, presents these artifacts to denounce the fate reserved for his country by the forces of Vladimir Putin.
On another metal door from Kharkiv, I think I see bullet holes.
“It’s more like shards or debris projected by an explosion,” says Bella Rohachova, coordinator of the Montreal Arts Center, the Griffintown gallery-museum that hosts the exhibition.
Ms. Rohachova points to the irregular shapes of the openings in the twisted metal.
She tells me, moved, that her parents are still living in a suburb north of Kyiv at the moment.
Photo Louis-Philippe Messier
This gate of Kharkiv is pierced by bullet holes.
Destruction
Of the war of invasion of Ukraine, we have heard stories, we have seen images. We heard a little girl singing in a shelter during a bombardment.
But before these artifacts of destruction, like me, you would certainly think of your own door to a house…
“What could be more universal than a door? A door damaged by bullets or by an explosion is an eloquent witness,” explains Mr. Kurt, who had the doors flown in.
“My exhibition is not one of objects: it’s about the people whose houses these doors defended. »
Mr. Kurt is from Melitopol and immigrated to Canada in the summer of 2022. Today, for the 1er anniversary of the war, it will be at the Center d’art de Montréal. His exhibition will remain there until Sunday, February 26…before heading to Saskatoon.
“If galleries in Quebec City or Trois-Rivières or elsewhere in Quebec want to host my exhibition, they just have to contact me,” says Mr. Kurt.
The exhibit is free, but encourages donations to the United24 initiative, launched by President Volodymyr Zelinsky, to support the Ukrainian resistance.