After years of waiting, the MEM, “Montreal Memories Center”, will finally open its doors to the public starting October 6. The spacious museum is located at the corner of Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Sainte-Catherine Street, in a brand new building of the Angus Development Corporation.
On the other hand, we will still have to wait to see its permanent exhibition: it could not be finished in time due to the recent bankruptcy of the company Halo Création, which was to be responsible for its sound and audiovisual presentations. Very important elements for the museum, which bases its mission on the collection of oral testimonies from Montrealers attached to their city.
The two temporary exhibitions that the museum will host from October 6 are also based on this same principle. In a space accessible free of charge, an exhibition will be held showcasing the 90 years of existence of the Chaînon.
We already know that the organization helps women in difficulty, but few know its history since its founding in the early 1930s by Yvonne Maisonneuve. Le Chaînon was then called the Notre-Dame-de-la-Protection Institute, and Mme Maisonneuve gathered around her “associates”, secular women who had taken vows, to voluntarily support their fellow men. Today, the Le Chaînon organization manages 10,000 requests for assistance annually and offers short and medium-term accommodation to women in need.
Triple spaces
This new 2000 square meter museum is in fact an extension of what was formerly the Montreal History Center, installed in the former fire station of Old Montreal and which is celebrating its 40th anniversary.e birthday this year.
The move of this entirely municipal establishment to the Quartier des spectacles was carried out following a strategic study on its positioning. “We tripled everything,” says Annabelle Laliberté, division head at MEM. “We tripled the spaces, tripled the teams, tripled the programming. »
The MEM is delighted with its views on the legendary corner of Sainte-Catherine and Saint-Laurent, and it intends to give pride of place to all groups in society, including sex workers. The work was also quite complicated by the refusal to expropriate the equally legendary Café Cléopâtre cabaret; it was bypassed during construction and today appears almost embedded in the glass building housing the MEM.
Among the emblematic pieces of the new museum, we find a window decorated with 13 signs of memorable Montreal places. Everything comes from the Montreal Sign Project, the collection put together by Matt Soar, professor emeritus in communications at Concordia University. There are, among other things, the signs of the former Club 281 or the Saint-James United Church, which can be seen illuminated, alongside portraits of Montrealers, from Saint-Laurent Boulevard.
Urban meetings
The temporary exhibition Detours offers short videos presenting colorful characters from Montreal life.
There we meet, among others, Jeannie Arsenault, country singer who performs at the La Roue club (better known by its English name, the Wheel Club), on Cavendish Boulevard, where hillbilly evenings are held. We also meet Ramzy Kassouf, a Lebanese native who, after working for 27 years on the Stock Exchange, opted for a slower life and founded the Carya Gardens in Senneville.
The MEM team has not yet announced a target date for the inauguration of its permanent exhibition. Poles have, however, been extended to firms specializing in audiovisual.