Every Monday, “Le Devoir» follows you along the crossroads of university life. A proposal that is both scholarly and intimate, to be picked up like a postcard during the summer season. This week, Annabelle Payant offers us a foray into the Montreal community at the organization Le sac à dos, where she carried out a photo reportage project in the summer of 2021 as part of a gardening activity offered to people in social reintegration process.
June 7, 2021
I arrive at the premises of Le Sac à dos, located in the basement of the Saint-Jean United Church. The organization works with homeless people by offering several services (shower, laundry, post office, rental of storage lockers, etc.) and offers various social reintegration programs. The gardening activity is a weekly initiative that allows center participants to contribute to a common project during the summer, on a voluntary basis. The main objectives: initiate food self-sufficiency, promote good nutrition, diversify skills, develop autonomy and create links.
The workshop takes place on the grounds of the neighboring building, one of the social housing buildings owned by the organization. The backyard is teeming with joy. Nearly a dozen participants sow vegetables in the plots of land and plant flowers under the supervision of horticultural animators from the organization Coup d’pousse Montréal and a Sac à dos worker.
I introduce myself to the group, chat with people, watch them at work and take some candid photos. A lady with fairy hair, the only woman in the group, talks to me while planting petunias. She’s not afraid of my camera and gets excited with every click. In the distance, a participant wearing a red headset carefully waters tomato plants. Throughout the activity, he is discreet, but works carefully, his earphones still in place.
Around noon, the little courtyard empties. A dinner awaits the group at the body. On the menu: shepherd’s pie and watermelon slices. Plexiglas divide the seats at the tables. Everyone eats in their corner, pandemic obliges. Guy, the cook, serves me a delicious homemade iced tea, and even reveals his recipe to me. Before leaving, I salute the man with the red headphones. He gives me a wave and a frank smile.
July 5, 2021
We visit the gardens of UQAM with a speaker from the Research Collective in Landscaping and Sustainable Urban Agriculture (CRAPAUD), who offers us a workshop on native plants. The man with the red headphones is the only one who showed up. The activity is not compulsory. Participation therefore varies from week to week. Eager for knowledge, he scrutinizes the plots of land, listens attentively to our guide, questions her about the virtues of the different plants, rubs mullein and anemone leaves between his fingers then smells their perfume.
I follow it step by step and take dozens of photos. When the guided tour ends, I ask him if my camera hasn’t bothered him too much. He replies that he was too absorbed in the studio to be aware that I was photographing him. On the way back to Le sac à dos, he stops at each flower bed along the streets to identify the plants — which are no longer weeds in his eyes — and pick a few leaves as he goes. At the forefront, I see the birth in him of a real interest in horticulture. Before the meal, we water the garden in the body. Plants of radishes and carrots now line the vegetable garden.
July 19, 2021
We head towards Place Mignonne, in Paul-Dozois Park, where a huge pile of earth awaits the group. The mission of the day: install gardening containers then plant impatiens, basil and chives in them. A participant attempts to fill a wheelbarrow with soil, but struggles with leg pain. The facilitator invites him to sit down and reminds him that no one has the obligation to work physically during the workshop. Only his presence is sufficient and appreciated.
Of his own free will, the man with the red earphones takes over, humming, and makes several land trips. The fairy-haired lady does the transplanting with contagious joy. At the end of the morning, there is only a small pile of compost left to pick up. More lively and warm, the new layout of the park seduces passers-by. While some slow down to contemplate the freshly installed flower boxes, others settle in for a peaceful break.
August 9, 2021
In the Sac à dos vegetable garden, there is abundance. Part of the group harvests beets, cucumbers, small aubergines and radishes. The garlic is on point. The fairy-haired lady learns to weave the pods alongside the speaker. “It’s miraculous, we did that! she exclaims at the sight of the crops.
The man in the red headphones and the horticultural animator are setting up trellises to support the tomato plants that are collapsing due to their strong growth. In a week or two, the hearts of beef will be ready to be picked. On the residents’ balconies, the herbs have tripled in volume. On the top floor, a tenant chants encouragement to the participants, who wave to him, all smiles.
August 23, 2021
The workshop is coming to an end. I photograph the participants who share the last harvests. In the background, the man with the red headphones, who has not missed the activity once, cuts a bouquet of chives with a natural, assured gesture. I chat with him for a moment. He tells me that it was his baptism of gardening, and that in contact with horticultural organizers, he developed a new passion. I tell him that he could consider working in this field, to which he agrees, encouraged and confident.
At noon, I greet the group, leave the place then cross the Place Mignonne one last time, inhabited by these summer meetings and the spirit of solidarity which reigned permanently.
The backpack is a passage in a lifetime. Some participants stay there for a few months, others for a few years. Now, when I visit a nursery or an orchard, I think back to those people I knew. I open my eyes wide, in the hope of coming face to face with one of them, at work, hands plunged into the earth.