Back to the future in NDG
Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood is many things to many people. The west-end quartier has a long and storied history for many Montrealers. Concordia’s roots run deep in the neighbourhood, back to Loyola College, now the university’s Loyola Campus.
To be launched this week, Imagining NDG is a kaleidoscopic multimedia art project of archival material, photography, interviews with residents and short documentaries about life in the neighbourhood.
When: Friday, May 6, 7 to 9 p.m.
Where: Shäika Café (5526 Sherbrooke St. W., corner Old Orchard Avenue)
The event is free and open to the public.
“The idea of the project is to get people to think about where they live and identify the quality-of-life issues,” says Communication Studies professor Tim Schwab, the project’s director.
The project is the result of a four-year collaboration between Schwab, graduate students, local artists, community residents and community groups.
The accompanying website to be launched the same date, will be the hub for the project.
But the project does not just look toward the past. As well as access to the material compiled thus far, the website will allow NDG residents to contribute their ideas about what they’d like to see in their neighbourhood’s future.
“What is it about the neighbourhood that makes it so appealing? How are the ways in which it’s changing going to affect all of that? I want to start a community discussion on that,” says Schwab, who’s lived in NDG since 1996.
“If we could think about what kind of neighbourhood we want, instead of reacting to what’s happening, what would it be?”
Imagining NDG is supported by funding from the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture.
For more information, contact Tim Schwab at tschwab@alcor.concordia.ca.
Related links:
• Imagining NDG
• Department of Communication Studies