Opened in 2016 in old Montreal, Cité Mémoire is the title of one of the world’s largest multimedia works. And surely one of the living, in a constant process of renewal. Created by Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon, in collaboration with the playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, it is a fresco about the history of the city and its people that is projected every night on the asphalt, the trees and the walls of some of its buildings unique, recalling historical episodes such as the Jewish children’s train, a thousand orphans who survived the Nazi camps thanks to being adopted by the Montrealers or the stay of John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth, in one of whose rooms bedridden in 1969 for peace. In total, twenty-seven paintings have been created that come to life in the street through projections, music and words. The city is the canvas.
One of those paintings, the Grand Tableau, which summarizes four centuries of Montreal’s history, is projected from today until Thursday -in different passes from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.- on the modernist façade of the Hospital de Sant Pau. The proposal is one of the highlights of ISEA, one of the most important electronic art symposiums in the world, which is being held this year in Barcelona, ??and is part of the wide presence of artists from the province of Quebec, as a guest of honor after the 2020 edition, of which she was the host, was forced to convert the event into a digital appointment due to the pandemic.
Grand Tableau, a 35-minute mapping on the Sant Pau façade, can be followed through a mobile application that will allow you to listen to music and words. It is a poetic journey through the main stages of its history, from the Amerindian presence or the French regime to the British conquest and the most contemporary Montreal. The project, which has even been the subject of a documentary, Au cœur de Cité Mémoire , by Janice Zolf and Sylvie Van Brabant, was born on the occasion of Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebrations, and has become one of the attractions of the city, arousing interest in many others, who try to replicate it. The mapping The ode to life, projected in 2012 on the basilica of the Sagrada Família during the Mercè festivities, was also the creation of a Montreal studio, Moment Factory, which was part of a large delegation as the guest city.
Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon, two of the most creative minds in Canada, took almost a decade to develop the project and 800 people took part in its realization, including 400 artists and artisans. His stagings include everything from intimate theatrical productions to monumental operas or creations for Cirque du Soleill.
