THE VIRAL METROPOLIS:
THE (BIG) CITIES AND COVID-19
PROJECTIONS ON THE FACADES OF THE GOETHE-INSTITUT
TO REFLECT ON THE SITUATION OF CITIES IN THE FACE OF THE PANDEMIC
Every day until March 22, 2021 at sunset
The Goethe-Institut Montréal is pleased to announce the continuation of the Viral Metropolis project: a series of 8 video projections on its facades with the theme Of (large) cities and Covid-19. Based on a call for videos launched in August 2020 with Canadian and German videographers, the project invites the public to reflect on the situation of major metropolises in the face of the pandemic. The works are projected daily until March 22, 2021 at sunset on the façade of the Goethe-Institut building, located at 1626 St. Lawrence Boulevard, at the intersection of Ontario Street and St. Lawrence Boulevard.
The (large) cities during and after Covid-19
The eight works chosen during the call for projects launched last August address the situation of cities in the face of the pandemic in a critical, humorous, experimental and creative way. They were chosen by an international jury of Canadian and German artists, including directors Myriam Charles and Anyse Ducharme.
In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, the theme of cities after the covid-19 pandemic began inspired urban utopians to see green and car-free city centres, dreams of wide footpaths and major pedestrian arteries, as well as developing bike paths and car parks transformed into terraces. At the same time, especially at the beginning of the health crisis, the most densely populated city centres have gradually emptied and remain so today.
Link to the full list of selected works
The videos presented until March 22, 2021, reflect our experiences with the pandemic and question what it means to be in the world, namely whether this world is restricted to ourselves and whether our windows to others are reduced to screens. They also raise the question of the possibility of artistic creation in the face of this new reality. Home, loneliness and small gestures in an unusual but normalized daily life are featured in Montreal’s Andrée-Anne Roussel video. For her part, Berlin-based videographer Béatrice Schuett-Moumdjian focuses in her film Documentation Report (no. 0617 – 0918) on the architecture and aspect of surveillance. The series ends with Cinzia Campolese’s Confinement.Lands, a film made of a multitude of photogrammetry from around the world.
