Discover the New Summer Installation on Du Musée Avenue
View of the installation Inflorescence on Du Musée Avenue (summer 2023), designed by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with the MU team. Photo Olivier Bousquet (MU)
Every summer since 2013, the MMFA has been inviting local creative talent to design and mount an installation for the portion of Du Musée Avenue that gets converted into a pedestrian walkway. This year, you can discover a work by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with MU, which is an homage to Quebec’s biodiversity and to the plants and insects that contribute to its flourishing every day.
Drawing inspiration from the exhibition Portable Universe: Thought and Splendour of Indigenous Columbia, on view at the MMFA until October 1, 2023, Inflorescence invites us to imagine the interconnectivity of all living beings and to contemplate the beauty and biodiversity of the natural world. As we traverse this immense street mural, in what is a dramatic reversal of scale, we find ourselves at the same level as the insects foraging in Quebec’s plants and flowers.
To find out more about this project and its creators, we spoke to Julie Parenteau, cofounder of Collectif Escargo.
Tell us about Collectif Escargo. How was it founded, who are its members, how does it operate, what is its expertise, its mission?
Collectif Escargo was founded in 2015 by Karyna St-Pierre, Céleste Diehl and myself. We were friends with different creative backgrounds who wanted to do projects together. Our core group now comprises five members, with Sandra Ciro and Léo Lacasse, who joined the team in 2021 and 2022. We also work with other people depending on the type of project. Our practice combines several fields, such as landscape architecture, urban design and the visual arts, but the element that connects everything we do is the landscape. Whether it’s an art installation or a design project, this facet is always present. When I say landscape, I mean it in the broadest sense of the word, encompassing nature at every scale, from the microscopic to the cosmic. We like to create spaces and experiences that make people feel good and that bring them closer to living things.
What made your collective want to submit a project for Du Musée Avenue this year?
We love the MMFA and its art installations on Du Musée Avenue, which come back every year. It’s an opportunity to take art to the street, transform a place and enjoy our public spaces collectively. Every year, we look forward to discovering the new installation, which marks the arrival of summer in Montreal. This project is also an amalgam of all the things we love to do: there’s an artistic component that’s a bit closer to urban design and, on top of it, this year’s theme was all about nature and landscape. So, given all these reasons, we didn’t even have to think twice; we were very excited to take part.
View of the installation Inflorescence on Du Musée Avenue (summer 2023), designed by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with the MU team. Photo Olivier Bousquet (MU)
Tell us a bit about Inflorescence… What themes does it explore? What were your sources of inspiration?
We wanted to talk about the relationship with local biodiversity, to provoke an engagement from a different, more intimate perspective. Plants are not accessories. Nature is not a backdrop. We wanted to take this notion and use it to encourage people to discover the species all around us that we often don’t even notice.
The plants represented are indigenous. They are more resistant to disease and better adapted than ornamental species, but less well known than the latter. The insects in the painting are pollinators and play an essential role in the workings of nature. The well-being of all living things, including humans, depends on them.
View of the installation Inflorescence on Du Musée Avenue (summer 2023), designed by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with the MU team. Photo Olivier Bousquet (MU)
In a street mural where the elements are oversized, things that would normally go unnoticed become unmissable – in this case, the larger-than-life depictions of plants and insects.
Visually, the fresco resembles a bouquet. We often offer flowers to our loved ones to show them we love them, to support them, or to convey an emotion. There’s an intimate and empathic quality attached to this gesture. And it’s that connection that we’re trying to recreate in relation to plants.
The colour palette is an interpretation of the true colours of the flowers and insects. We wanted people to be able to easily recognize them while also make the image work pictorially.
View of the installation Inflorescence on Du Musée Avenue (summer 2023), designed by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with the MU team. Photo Olivier Bousquet (MU)
How is this installation linked to the exhibition Portable Universe: Thought and Splendour of Indigenous Colombia?
Portable Universe presents a perspective on the interrelatedness of all living things that is deeply touching. Human beings are not separate from nature; we are part of it. There is an undercurrent of benevolence that runs through this exhibition. The importance of taking care of the Earth and all its inhabitants, whether human, animal or plant, is palpable.
We wanted our street mural to call attention to the species that inhabit our landscapes and that help maintain the balance of our ecosystems and the well-being of our planet.
The notion of the “large family” explored in Portable Universe was also a source of inspiration for us. This idea that human beings are not at the top of a pyramid, with everything else in the world below them. Everything is interrelated and precious.
View of the installation Inflorescence on Du Musée Avenue (summer 2023), designed by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with the MU team. Photo Olivier Bousquet (MU)
Would you say that this installation is representative of your projects in general, or is it unique in some way?
It takes up one of our recurring themes, which is the promotion of biodiversity. I mentioned earlier that we’re always talking about the landscape, but in different ways. Promoting and raising awareness of vegetation is part of this approach.
One aspect that’s different about this project is the links to the scientific content about the elements in the mural. You can access this content by using your smartphone to scan the QR codes located at various points throughout the installation.
Another distinctive feature is the use of salvaged wood, which is another way of manifesting our rootedness in and connection with the land. Most of our projects include vegetation, both as essential features and as a material. In this case, the wood lends an “organic presence” to the installation.
View of the installation Inflorescence on Du Musée Avenue (summer 2023), designed by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with the MU team. Photo Olivier Bousquet (MU)
Can you tell us about the challenges you faced in designing and implementing this project?
The first challenge was figuring out how to talk about biodiversity and local flora without being able to use real plants. Since it wasn’t possible to incorporate vegetation in the installation, we decided to work at the scale of the flowers and insects themselves – to create an experience around vegetation.
View of the installation Inflorescence on Du Musée Avenue (summer 2023), designed by Collectif Escargo and executed in collaboration with the MU team. Photo Olivier Bousquet (MU)
Another challenge we faced was sourcing the wood for the furniture. We wanted to use wood salvaged from the ice storm of April 2023. It seemed relevant to the theme, because it offered a way of talking about our local climate, our northernness, climate change, and the power of the elements all at once. The ice storm lasted just a few hours, but it paralyzed the region for upwards of three days. We had to search the parks, call around to the different boroughs and use our networks to find branches big and strong enough to serve as seats. We also had to find solutions to ensure the stability of the furniture, even if the wood wasn’t dry. But these are the type of constraints that push us to dig deeper and raise the bar in our projects.
Inflorescence
Until October 22, 2023
Du Musée Avenue
Credits and acknowledgements
Inflorescence was designed by Collectif Escargo at the request of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and executed in collaboration with MU, thanks to the invaluable support of Ville de Montréal, Ville-Marie Borough, and Denalt Paints.
