THE VIRAL METROPOLIS

Transatlantic views on

The (large) cities and the Covid-19

Projections on the windows of the Goethe-Institut

October 15, 2020 to March 22, 2021

The Goethe-Institut Montreal is pleased to announce a series of video projections by Canadian and German artists on the glass façade of the building on Boulevard Saint-Laurent.

The projected works are the result of a video call on the theme Of (large) cities and the Covid-19 that the Goethe-Institut Montreal had launched this summer with videographers in Canada and Germany. Among a hundred submissions, eight works that address this subject in a critical, humorous, experimental and creative way have been selected by an international jury and will be presented, every day at sunset, on the windows of the Goethe-Institut building, located in the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles at the intersection of Ontario Street and St. Laurent.

The (big) cities and the Covid-19 – for a year, this formula resonates with the hope of urban utopians who are waiting for green, car-free city centres, wide footpaths, even major pedestrian arteries, imposing bike paths and car parks turned into terraces. At the same time, during the health crisis, the most densely populated city centres were, and still remain, the hardest-hit areas. We remember dystopian scenarios, with dead city centres, empty streets, closed shopping malls, a suspended cultural life and, in the midst of all this, temporary testing centres in public places, or car parks and parks transformed into health centres.

The submissive works include dreamlike visions of city centres as playgrounds or quiet island places – immersed in a perhaps deceptive tranquillity? – in which people and bodies move freely and re-appropriate urban space. At the same time, dystopian visions of deserted city centres, claustrophobic interior views of apartments and images of a life immobilized have also reached us.

The videos will be screened for two weeks each, between October 2020 and March 2021, every night from nightfall until midnight on the big screen, on the façade of the Goethe-Institut building located at 1626 Boulevard Saint-Laurent.

Artists and works presented:

15 – October 31, 2020
HOUSEBOUND
Jens Chest

Germany, 2020
January 21— February 4, 2021
WHY OR WHY NOT?
Kerstin Honeit
Germany, 2020
1st – November 15, 2020 
PARADISE GARDENS
Yza Laure Nouiga

Canada, 2020
February 5 — February 20, 2021
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Andrée-Anne Roussel
Canada, 2020
1er — 15 décembre 2020                       
IMPERIAL VALLEY (CULTIVATED RUN-OFF)
Lukas Marxt
Germany, 2018
February 21 — March 7, 2021 
Documentation Report (No. 0617 – 0918)
Béatrice Schuett-Moumdjian
Germany, 2017 – 2019
5 — January 20, 2021
STATUS QUO
Lamia Chraibi and Marion Chuniaud-Lacau
Canada, 2020
8 -22 March 2021
Confinement Lands
Tricia Campolese
Canada, 2020

Goethe Institute

1626 Blvd. St. Lawrence

514-499-0159 / info@montreal.goethe.org

www.goethe.de/montreal