“I was there the day it all started. »
I was walking rue Marie-Anne, in Montreal, when I suddenly stopped in front of a large window. A black and white photo showed a man and a child in front of a straw house. The label stated: “Villa El Salvador was founded in 1971, in the empty sands south of Lima. The slum was a response to the urgent housing needs of immigrant families from the Andes. A land invasion quickly created a town of 25,000 people […] I was there the day it all started. »
The work was by Carlos Ferrand.
It’s not common to come across a house whose windows serve as an artistic showcase. It is even rarer for this art to tell us about the past of a nation. By looking into the process behind this installation, I discovered a two-part story. One concerns our relationship to the city; the other on the surprises that destiny has in store for us.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Randy Cohen and Anne Cormier, the owners of the Plateau Mont-Royal house, alongside the artist Andrew Forster and the filmmaker and photographer Carlos Ferrand
Time 1
27 years ago, architects Anne Cormier and Randy Cohen moved into a large house in Plateau Mont-Royal. Judging by the two huge windows on the ground floor, the building had once been commercial. Concerned about their privacy, the couple decided to veil them, then to exhibit models that they had made.
Around fifteen years later, the artist Andrew Forster (with whom the couple shared a studio) created a work expressly for the two windows. Since then, photos, videos, objects and installations have been linked there according to the choices of Andrew, promoted to curator of this non-museum.
“It’s not institutional! he specifies. We’re just a gang of friends doing something and hoping it’s interesting. I like it when people turn the corner and find something weird and it starts them thinking. »
The private is here designed for the public.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Architects Anne Cormier and Randy Cohen
Every building facade is public. What we do with our homes has an impact on others. I find this relationship between the walker and the city extraordinary!
Anne Cormier
Until May 20, passers-by will be able to come across two photos taken by Carlos Ferrand. A foray into the history of Peru for those who only went from point A to point B.
“What I liked is that these are photos of urban spaces that are not ours,” explains Andrew Forster. Here we see a space improvised by people who built their house in the desert, while we live in a very organized life. »
Time 2
Carlos Ferrand is a filmmaker and photographer. Born in Peru, he studied at university in the United States and Belgium before returning home. He was immediately hired as a filmmaker by the military government in place. This is what led him to document the founding of Villa El Salvador in 1971.
“People took the unoccupied lands of oligarchs with the protection of the government,” Carlos Ferrand explains to me. In the sense that the authorities did not send the police…”
I photographed people dipping their hands in the sand to mark the location of their house. At the beginning, there were 200 families. Today there are more than 800,000 people.
Carlos Ferrand
The label accompanying his photos provides information to passers-by. We learn, for example, that the neighborhood was supplied with electricity and water largely thanks to the efforts of its residents. Does the photographer hope to make us aware of certain issues?
His head jerks that I’m wrong before he even answers.
“I find that there is little information on Latin America here. Life is magnificent, it’s very difficult to look elsewhere… But the goal is not to raise awareness. I took these photos not to denounce poverty, misery and injustice, but because I admired these people. I loved the textures of these early efforts: woven straw, adobe, those of resilience, invention, improvisation, ingenuity! There, we recycled all materials and thought about the common good. It was a very well-organized laboratory of social self-management and self-sufficiency. »
Stopping in front of the house on the corner of Marie-Anne and Laval is to recognize the resourcefulness of people who took years to build a home in the middle of the desert. It is also honoring an artistic history dating back half a century.
In 1974, Carlos Ferrand gathered his photos in a collection, then he quickly forgot them. They would remain anonymous for 45 years… Until a Spanish publisher did a census of marginal photos taken in Latin America from 1910 to 2010, that is.
When he came across Carlos’ collection, he decided to include some of his works in the anthology.
Then, the anthology fell into the hands of employees of the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid (a very prestigious institution visited annually by more than 3 million people). Carlos’ photos caught their eye. The museum acquired some of them to replenish its permanent collection.
Carlos is still in shock.
An exhibition was then orchestrated in Quebec, in 2020. Then, this month, Carlos Ferrand and his photos will head to Lima. Fifty years later, it is at home that they will shine.
It is thanks to Quebec that these photos will end up there. I come from a colonized country and this is the characteristic of the colonized: believing in their value once the Other has identified it.
Carlos Ferrand
The man remains happy with this twist of fate: “It’s extraordinary to have taken photos and, 50 years later, someone tells us: “They are good”! »
Among the stories that the house on the corner of Marie-Anne and Laval tells these days, there is one that resembles a fairy tale.
Consult the website of the Place indicated