Re: Proposal – Our Montreal: Cutting Edge Visions for the Future of the Cultural Metropolis
To: annie.billington@culturemontreal.ca
From: coupla immigrantz
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:37:08
FORMAT
Proposal presentation: Summary of approximately ten lines, in English or in French.
Presentation of the final text:
– 500 to 2,000 words (about 1 to 4 pages)
– The text must be original and unpublished.
– The text can be written in French or in English.
– The text can be accompanied by a visual component illustrating the project, if desired.
Title: La culture doit se rapprocher provient des gens. Summary of approximately ten lines: Nope.
It’s the same fuckers who moved to the area because they were excited about how full of culture it was that priced and bored me out of it. They were happy to learn that I was a local, but could barely contain their excitement when they met others less tanned and more culturally unique to La Métropole. By La Métropole, of course, it is understood to be that of Quebec. The symbol of a once backward European outpost. I am a Montrealer. I’m getting used to marketing this city. But nobody is paying my ass. And I’m one of the lucky ones, because some people, many people, are downright useless to these culture vultures, whereas at least I give the place a certain cachet. Because of me, it doesn’t look like some forgotten Scandinavian town where they used to assemble Volvos. I could go on and on.
Indeed, Montreal is a piece of shit city like any other city, and anyone who says otherwise has something to gain from their loyalty to Montreal, as the “Cultural Metropolis” that politicians, business leaders, and their jesters, are pushing, particularly through a 10-year “Action Plan” to develop and maintain the status of “Montréal” as a “21st century cultural metropolis that prioritizes creativity, originality and diversity.”
The term “Métropole” in Quebec is etymologically bourgeois-nationalist. It fits the interests of those who need to reconcile capital (mainly from Montreal) and votes (mainly from the rest of Quebec). The context having changed, Montreal no longer promises to be a megapolis, and concerns about Quebec and Montreal’s competitiveness in increasingly integrated markets has shifted to finding an Edge for Montreal. And what better to sell than that which was for the longest time was a premise of exclusion: culture. Of course, everyone has culture, but not everyone has culture that can be sold.
The timing is a little bit off, since homogenisation and conformism have eaten away at us like everyone else, but we had a freebie: French. Applause! How marvelous and special that we can speak a language. One spoken, no less, by only hundreds of millions of people in the world. And, low and behold, a latin language. French is now the angle used to develop an industry or a set of niche markets around the arts and whatever else (design, research, networking, experimentation in high-tech interactive media, live entertainment, systems analysis, urban ecology, transit systems, marketing). If enough of us didn’t speak French here (and it doesn’t really matter what we say as long as it’s with a smile), then Culture Montréal would not be such an important element of Quebec’s economic development strategy. The bosses would have found something else to sell.
Of course, the focus on “culture” on the part of our elites itself acts to bestow credit upon the city as culturally dynamic and loving of art. A liberal heaven. Add a pinch of rooftop gardening and ecological transport and you’ve got an omelette that tech-boomers would fly across America for. Or drop the transport and add a little street culture for a retro feel. The possibilities are endless. The key is to hit a reliable, well-endowed, and loyal market. But for good measure, the Quartier des spectacles will keep us afloat, or at least keep up our (the performers) morale. One thing’s for sure, we’re not talking about artistic activity that is not, err, good, you know, as in spectacular (except the odd curiosity, of course). No, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We want Montreal to shine, “rayonner” (that good old colonial language again); its art shines beacons of light across the globe, shock and awe (figuratively speaking — after all, we want to attract money, err, people, money people, people money). Amazing lights and music with an edge.
But what is this “edge”? The bosses, their minions, aspiring artists — many of whom, saps, are our friends — are all trying to hit this one on the nail. It’s a fucking gold rush. Hence Culture Montréal’s call for proposals that are “unique, innovative and straight-out [I would hope so!] spectacular.” The only rule of thumb is to be bold… I’ll spare you the exclamation. Here’s my proposal: suck a duck.
During the F1 weekend, I was moved (literally, that is) when I saw the riot cops escort the VIPs in and out of L’Arsenal, Montreal’s new “art complex” that aims to “serve contemporary art by gathering new audiences in a space committed to its appreciation.” You don’t say. In the middle of a soon-to-be-once-working class, immigrant neighbourhood, of course. If we’re looking for what is “hidden in the subconscious of the city” in order to gorge on the precarious labour that now has to also come up with brilliant ideas for “the future of the cultural metropolis,” I’d suggest we start here. Although it’s going to take a really good psychoanalyst for this one. Death drive. There, I said it. Smile and wave to the kids as you run.