Culture pour tous

Making Art a Fixture of Neighbourhood Life:
a proposition by PÉristyle Nomade

Péristyle Nomade is a creator of meeting spaces who has succeeded in bringing neighbourhood artists, residents and shopkeepers together. In 2006, this artistic company took the gamble of injecting art into the everyday life of the local population. How? “The idea,” confides Catherine Lalonde, the artistic director of the young company, “was to create nearby meeting spaces in a neighbourhood where emerging artists could create works in close collaboration with residents. It is a way for us to appreciate and contribute to our communities.”

Péristyle Nomade is fuelled by its artistic director’s deep involvement in the Touski cooperative and café. Recently she has gathered artists around her who share the values of self-management and the assumption of local and social responsibilities by the communities. “The Touski adventure changed my relationship to the arts and the public,” the vivacious artistic director admits. “This allowed me to believe in the real impact that a space of encounter between residents can have, and in the importance for a community to value its belonging to a neighbourhood. It is no coincidence that the Péristyle Nomade headquarters are now at the café Touski.”

Installed in the Montréal Centre-Sud neighbourhood this modern Peristyle* – provisionally – takes place in different locations in the area. In the course of the projects it triggers the participation of emerging artists and creators who draw their material from the everyday life of the neighbourhood. The encounter with residents and shopkeepers thus forms an essential part of their creative process. The artistic activity platforms are created in relation with the surrounding population.

“We propose another way of working with the community,” Catherine Lalonde adds. “People from the neighbourhood are regularly invited to participate in our artistic proposition or ecological actions.” With Péristyle Nomade’s first large-scale project Commandos 2361, the artists used tact and perseverance to successfully initiate a dialogue with the community. In several months they were able to make a place for themselves in the Centre-Sud landscape. “For this project, time was our best ally,” Catherine reveals. “Our challenge was to forge links with the shopkeepers and to mobilize the community actors.”

The Commandos 2361 project proposes a series of actions carried out by emerging artists that are in dialogue with the local population. “One of Péristyle Nomade’s goals is to teach emerging artists how to work in self-managed cells,” specifies the artistic director. Each artist thus has the responsibility to set up and organize his or her Commando. There are four artists for four Commandos. All work with the intent of contributing ephemeral or durable works to the Centre-Sud neighbourhood. Works such as sculptures and sugar icings, videos and vox pop street interviews, urban walks and photography, assembly line landscape paintings... There is something for all tastes and all audiences. Moreover, for the artists, the proposed meeting and mediation places are conducive to creative hybridizations and multidisciplinary approaches.

“The Commandos 2361 project corresponds to regional artists’ need for visibility while enabling the community to participate in a social project that develops its sense of belonging to a culture,” recalls Audrey Beauchemin the Usine à Paysage Commando artist. “The fundamental mission of my Commando,” she adds, “is to initiate encounters, to demystify the work of artists and to educate through an immersive experience.”

For the Usine à Paysage a temporary residence was set up in a commercial space on Ontario street – thanks to the help of a community partner. Prepared, repainted and embellished by the artist and her acolytes this place triggered a sustained participation. People from the neighbourhood came by to paint and join in. Artists from all disciplines gathered there to exchange, and explore new territories. There were even some unexpected artistic propositions that became part of Audrey Beauchemin’s Commando and which enriched the place of exchange created by the factory.

The final works of the Commandos 2361 project were presented during L’Écho d’un fleuve, an event dedicated to urban art which took place in the heart of the Centre-Sud borough on last June 13, 14 and 15. This festive event celebrated the cooperation between the residents, artists and the community partners in the cultural life of the neighbourhood. “At the end of the day,” Catherine Lalonde adds,” the creation of these projects allowed the community and the artists to envision cooperative work and artistic dissemination in a new way.

The four Commandos:
- Cohésion et autres tentatives by Danny Gaudreault;
- Conscience urbaine by Fanie St-Michel;
- À qui mieux mieux! by Sonia Martineau;
- Usine à Paysage by Audrey Beauchemin.

www.peristylenomade.org
www.usineapaysage.blogspot.com

*PERISTYLE: noun; a row of columns surrounding a courtyard or internal garden or edging a veranda or porch. From Greek peri – ‘around’ + stulos ‘pillar’. (Compact Oxford English Dictionary).