Hochelaga | Capturing the traces of a changing neighborhood

Not the best day for a walk.

It’s 8 am, it’s raining and freezing. Joannie Lafrenière nevertheless welcomes me with a radiant smile and a playful gaze.

“Do you want to have lunch at the New Casa de la Pizza?

– Put in, I love this place! »

A few days before the unveiling of his exhibition HOCHELAGA at the McCord Stewart Museum, I asked the photographer and director to give me a guided tour of the neighborhood she has lived in for 18 years. I have to say that I already know it quite well, having lived there for a good decade… But unlike Joannie, I haven’t witnessed its recent gentrification.

Before breaking the crust, she proposes to introduce me to Michel Contant, one of the men who occupies a beautiful place in her exhibition. Gladly !

I had never noticed the hair salon on rue La Fontaine. Joannie, she discovered it while she was walking in the early morning. When she saw the newspaper placed near the door of this business surprisingly open at dawn, she decided to enter to read her horoscope.

Michael was also Capricorn. A beautiful relationship had just been born.

The 75-year-old man has been operating his salon for 57 years, starting at 5:30 a.m. His clientele is made up of night workers, firefighters, taxi drivers and worshipers from all over the Province.

For Joannie Lafrenière, capturing this place and its wildlife means keeping traces of a memory doomed to be lost.

“I’m interested in documenting things that end quietly. Michel will not be able to cut hair forever and he will not only leave with his scissors, but also with an incredible social heritage… Or the memories of all the customers who have come to drop off at his business. »

The artist is attached to the community of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, it is undeniable. When she moved to the area at the age of 21, she was immediately charmed by its social fabric which promotes caring for others. “The little you have, you will share it with your neighbor,” she sums up.

While we let Michel Contant go about his business, Joannie confides to me that when she sees a fence separating a huge real estate project under construction and an HLM, she worries about the future of the area.

Joannie stops to hand over some books she borrowed from the library. I notice the renovations that are being made to the place… The new building will be as huge as it is bright. “It’s a beautiful mutation, that! »

“There are plenty of beautiful changes, the artist immediately replies. Nothing is so binary! As a resident, the transfer is a lot of small mourning… But on the less gloomy side, there are new businesses that add a stone to the building, like the bookstore Le Renard Perché. Several humans want to be in contact with the neighborhood and to register there for real. »

Moreover, it leaves the care to the spectators of the exhibition HOCHELAGAwhich we can see since yesterday, March 31, to get an idea of ​​the changes taking place in the area. She is not there to tell them what to think, but to take them to meet her world, as much through photographs as through installations, videos and poetry.

Bad news: The New Casa de la Pizza only opens at 9 a.m. It seems to me that, in my time, we could eat there earlier… No big deal, we go back to the Ontario promenade to warm up at the Atomic café, another neighborhood institution.

Finally sheltered from the rain, Joannie Lafrenière hands me the proof of the book taken from her exhibition. It contains the fruit of a work of documentation that stretched over three years, thanks to the McCord Stewart Museum and its initiative. Changing Montreal.

The book opens with a verse by Benoit Bordeleau: “How many steps are left to walk in this neighborhood where porcelain is rare and sleep fragile?” »

Beautiful.

Portraits of touching characters follow, such as Michel Contant, but also Renaud, a bicycle repairman who opened his garage door to people who wanted to “fill their solitude”, as Joannie puts it. Unfortunately, he recently moved.

There are also photos of La Québécoise, a flagship restaurant in the neighborhood that had to close its doors. Just like Fleuriste Maisonneuve…

“Why did you choose to photograph what would soon no longer exist? »

Joannie Lafrenière answers me tit for tat: “If not, who is going to do it? She adds that she can see the beauty in rough or rough.

Precisely, his most touching portraits are in my opinion those of Claude, a former soldier who lived in a container near the railway. Under the gaze of the photographer, the man becomes magnificent. Really. To find out more about his (shattering) career, you have to go see the exhibition. To tell you more here would not do the man honor. Joannie has thought of everything to pay him the most beautiful tribute.

Besides, who is this exhibition for?

“I don’t know if Michel has ever been to the museum, reflects Joannie Lafrenière, but I want people from the neighborhood to come and recognize themselves. Let them see that it’s also for them, art! But I want it to be circular and I hope that museum regulars will want to walk around the neighborhood to come into contact with this humanity. »

According to the artist, we would all benefit from deepening the relationship we have with our city and those who live there…

“We are interrelated,” she sums up simply.

Hochelaga — Changing Montreal

Joannie Lafreniere
Exhibition of photographs

McCord Stewart MuseumUntil September 10, 2023