Un Centre des Histoires
Site-specific project, Old Montreal, 1993
Walter completed an MFA from Concordia University in Montreal in 1993. Her graduating thesis looked at the idea of the museum and the impossibility of representing a singular history of the city. She used ruins as points of departure to critique urban development, and explore loss in the pursuit of Western ideals of progress. Walter's "museum" occupied a vacant building at the foot of boulevard St Laurent in Old Montreal, around the corner from the city’s official Centre d’Histoire.
The main floor lobby space displayed layers of material remains from surrounding developments—tree roots, concrete, and railway spikes. In an anti-room, a 16mm film loop projected an image of the Lachine Rapids, the landmark that halted further exploration up the St Laurence River in the 1500s and led to the so-called "founding" of Montreal. Photographs and documents made up an archives of the surrounding cityscape on the second floor where images of ruins were positioned as counterpoints to images of development sites in the area. Upon leaving, visitors were given a “souvenir” tape of the sound of water flowing through the Lachine Rapids.
The project ran for three weeks in May 1993. Over several evenings, a slide projector positioned in the second floor window projected the image of a bulldozer on the neighbouring concrete wall.
The main floor lobby space displayed layers of material remains from surrounding developments—tree roots, concrete, and railway spikes. In an anti-room, a 16mm film loop projected an image of the Lachine Rapids, the landmark that halted further exploration up the St Laurence River in the 1500s and led to the so-called "founding" of Montreal. Photographs and documents made up an archives of the surrounding cityscape on the second floor where images of ruins were positioned as counterpoints to images of development sites in the area. Upon leaving, visitors were given a “souvenir” tape of the sound of water flowing through the Lachine Rapids.
The project ran for three weeks in May 1993. Over several evenings, a slide projector positioned in the second floor window projected the image of a bulldozer on the neighbouring concrete wall.
His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
Walter's research included this excerpt from Walter Benjamin's Angel of History published in "Illuminations," translation. Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
Walter's research included this excerpt from Walter Benjamin's Angel of History published in "Illuminations," translation. Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken Books, 1969.