Hannah Beach

Our Ways: Peel trail installation receives new additions

Indigenous art trail along Peel Street features 21 spherical sculptures. Photo Hannah Beach

Hannah Beach,
Local Journalism Initiative

June 3 launch marks completion of 21 sculpture trail celebrating Indigenous history of Tiohtià:ke/Montreal

The City of Montreal launched a new addition to a public art installation on June 3 as part of its ongoing long-term strategy for reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. The launch followed the installation’s first release in June 2023.  

The trail, called “Tsi niion kwarihò:ten” in Kanien’kehá:ka or “Our Ways: Peel Trail,” is composed of 11 stations running along Peel Street from the Lachine Canal up to the base of Mount Royal Park. 

The event was the culmination of about eight years of work to set up all 21 spherical sculptures, said MC Snow, a Kanien’kehá:ka visual artist featured in the exhibition.

“It’s about time we all know a little bit of our history,” said Snow. “There’s not a lot of art or anything like that related to who was there before the city.” 

The sculptures were inspired by the Kanien’kehá:ka ceremony of thanks (Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen), which translates to “Words Before All Else.” The installation also includes an audio component accessible through the application Portrait Sonore, featuring different recordings at each station available in both English and French. The clips include various Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists and historians discussing Indigenous legends. They also compare Indigenous and European settlers’ knowledge systems in areas such as botany, human anatomy and navigation. The clips are blended with music to provide a historical account of Tiohtià:ke/Montreal since European colonization. 

Archaeological work on Peel Street from 2016 to 2019 unearthed the remains of a 14th-century Iroquoian village. This discovery was the catalyst for Our Ways, with one piece of pottery even inspiring the cast iron tree guards. 

The spheres were a collaboration between Snow and non-Indigenous artist Kyra Revenko. They were designed to foster dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. 

“It’s about dialoguing between the Indigenous nations that still live here and the nations that came after, and that we all share the island of Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) with,” Snow said. 

The installation’s urban planning and design teams, members of the Kahnawà:ke band council and historians joined the inauguration, alongside visual artists and city council members who contributed to the project.  

Chief Ross Montour from the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke spoke at the launch, and a recording of the late Chief Christine Zachary Deom, who passed away in February, was also played. In 2017, Deom was presented with a key to the city—a distinction given to individuals who have contributed to the good of Montreal—for her work designing the new City of Montreal flag. 

Industrial engineer Christian Sanchez was excited to learn about the installation, which has its first two stations just across the street from his condo building.  

“This idea is magnificent,” he said. Sanchez said he plans to return to show his girlfriend the spheres and incorporate the trail into his running route.

Like Sanchez, Leilani Shaw lives in Griffintown just steps away from the trail. Shaw is the executive director of the Montreal Indigenous Community Network, a Kanien’kehá:ka artist who was mentored by Snow when she was a teenager and has since been featured alongside him in a 2023 Segal Centre exhibition. 

“I would love to see a lot more work moving forward, a lot more work by Indigenous artists,” said Shaw.  “Montreal has a deeper history than post-colonization.”

Our Ways: Peel trail installation receives new additions Read More »

Montreal debuts its first trans film festival

Montreal’s first trans film festival went on from Sept. 19 to Sept. 22, and showed 80 films from all around the world. Photo Ariana Orrego

Hannah Beach,
Local Journalism Initiative

EXPOSURES presents a diverse array of films by trans, two-spirit and gender-diverse creators

Montreal’s inaugural trans film festival EXPOSURES was held at Espace Transmission between Sept. 19 and Sept. 22, showcasing 80 works created by or in collaboration with trans, two-spirit and gender-diverse filmmakers.

The event featured 13 screenings that included three features and 37 short films, attracting a large audience with its diverse lineup of films across different genres and languages. The theme of EXPOSURES was “breaking new ground,” which recognizes its inception as the first festival devoted to trans cinema in Montreal, and one of six to exist globally. 

EXPOSURES was founded in 2023 by Iris Pint, a PhD candidate at McGill University studying trans and queer cinema. Since its inception, the collective has organized 20 screenings across Montreal, inspiring Pint to curate the four-day festival. The collective is dedicated to providing easy access to queer and trans-made media. 

“I’m bringing these films to Montreal and I’m making them accessible,” Pint said. “We always have solidarity tickets to give for events; people who need a discount or who need to come for free can always e-mail us or DM us. […] We always try to accommodate.”

Among the highlights were several Canadian premieres, including Dog Movie, which opened the festival on the evening of Sept. 19. Chicago-based director Henry Hanson joined a Q&A session after the screening of his improvised cringe comedy. About 150 people filled Espace Transmission’s loft space to see Dog Movie, which tells the story of a trans couple who have been hosting their friend Blue on their couch for six months, only to decide suddenly to adopt an elderly dog—also named Blue.

On Friday, Sept. 20, One Day League: Dead Mother, Dead All made its Canadian debut. The film was directed by Eugene Torres, a Manila-based filmmaker, and is a dramedy about an adoptive family coming together to reunite their all-queer volleyball team to fulfil the dying wish of the protagonist’s late gay adoptive mother.

That night brought another full house of about 150 people for Video Nasty, a body-horror-themed collection of shorts. Eleanor Anderson-Lafleur, one of the Video Nasty programmers and a self-proclaimed transfeminine movie nerd, introduced the screening. 

“Body horror is a very trans genre, both because you know it’s dealing with kind of the body not doing what you want it to and […] it offers up the possibility to consider new ways of inhabiting that body,” Anderson-Lafleur said. “It offers the possibility of the radical reconstruction [of] our bodies, and that’s something we are very familiar with as trans people.”

Throughout the screening of Video Nasty, there were squeamish reactions and gasps of surprise from the audience, but continuous laughs throughout.  

“When you have enough body horror on your own, it can be helpful to externalize it,” Anderson-Lafleur said.

One of the most talked-about short films was “Tastes Like Pork,” directed by Dante Dammit, about a cannibalistic cis woman determined to eat the penis of a trans woman. The film provoked many laughs, as well as grimaces and groans.

Another short film that caused strong reactions was “The Princess and the Peacock,” directed by Daniel Baker-Wells, which tells the story of Mona Guyard, a transfeminine “freak-show” performer. The film chronicles Guyard’s upbringing and her performance art practice in Berlin, which involves piercing her skin with peacock feathers.

Mia Poirier, an aspiring filmmaker, commuted from Longueuil for the Video Nasty screening. 

“If they do it next year, I’m going to want to go,” Poirier said. “It’s interesting, the whole link between queerness and weirdness and horror.”

Molly Maliszewski is the other Video Nasty programmer and one of the festival organizers. She said that having a festival focused on trans and two-spirit creators and stories is important in the current moment. Maliszewski explained that mainstream films, especially of the horror genre, tend to depict transness on the outside. She found it refreshing to see films that moved beyond the trope of transness being used as “shorthand for what is scary because it’s like a transgression against a norm.” 

“All those films together in a space full of trans people who were willing to engage with horror, that created something really special,” Maliszewski said. “It’s horror movies made by trans people […] for other trans people, [without worrying] about explaining themselves to another audience.”

Montreal debuts its first trans film festival Read More »

Scroll to Top