Montreal in Polaroid

In keeping with its role as Montreal’s museum of social history, the McCord Museum has since April been encouraging Montrealers to contribute to the “Polaroid Project” by donating their photos to the participatory, evolving work of art displayed in the last room of the exhibition, The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology.

In addition to this open invitation and to pursue its education and community engagement mission, the Museum has asked 11 community organizations to join in the project: Centre social d’aide aux immigrants (CSAI), Enfants Transgenres Canada, Fondation Massimadi, Centre d’Apprentissage Parallèle (CAP), Auberge Madeleine, Centre d’éducation et d’action des femmes (CÉAF), SINGA Québec, Dans la rue, YMCA Centre-ville, ELOGIA du groupe Maurice and Passages.

As part of the Conseil des Arts de Montréal’s démART-Mtl program, multidisciplinary artist Narcisse E. Esfahani has given over 20 workshops on Polaroid photography at these organizations and will be extending this outreach activity to children attending the McCord Museum’s annual day camp.

So far, 193 participants have experimented with Polaroid and added close to 200 photos to the exhibition’s collective work of art.

Narcisse E. Esfahani

Narcisse E. Esfahani is a multidisciplinary artist of Iranian origin who has been actively involved in the city’s art scene since her arrival in Montreal in 2012. She has volunteered in various projects for Diversité Artistique Montréal (DAM), the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) Canada and Fondation Marcel Barbeau. She has also directed the artistic development of cinematographic works, plays and exhibition spaces, and in recent years has acquired extensive experience in various fields of art, design and cinema.

Very active in the arts, she has been carrying out numerous photography projects since 2012. She deepened her skills by obtaining an ACS in photography at Dawson College in Montreal in 2017, and today she expresses herself through photography, video, installation and volume. Thanks to this curiosity, she has gained expertise in various manual techniques as well as digital technologies. She is quality conscious and has garnered attention by exhibiting her artistic projects as well as writing articles relating her artistic approach.

Ms. Esfahani’s work was recognized by the Conseil des Arts de Montréal in the Young Patrons Grant Program in 2016 and by M.A.I (Montréal, arts interculturels) in the Mentorship Grant Program in 2014. She recently received the Dawson College Graduation Project Excellence Award in Commercial Photography in 2017.

Amplify Montreal
In partnership with Dans la rue

Besides the démART-Mtl program of the Conseil des Arts de Montréal, the McCord Museum’s Education, Community Engagement and Cultural Programs department has invited young people involved with the organization Dans la rue to take part in a series of workshops on the history of photography, as well as to continue to pursue their exploration of photography by joining in a walk through the streets of Ville Marie.

The young people’s photos of this seminal Montreal district are now on show in Amplify Montreal. Ville Marie, in downtown Montreal, is one of the city’s most vibrant, cosmopolitan neighbourhoods. Through young people’s eyes, the city’s buildings are revealed in the way they relate to one another: churches, skyscrapers, shopping centres, small cafés and imposing hotels rub shoulders in the urban space. Amplify Montreal pays tribute to the engagement of its participants, and to their creativity and talent.

It is being presented alongside The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology on Level 1 of the McCord Museum from mid-June until September 15.

The Conseil des Arts de Montréal’s démART–Mtl program

DémART–Mtl is an initiative aimed at encouraging established arts organizations to host culturally diverse, newly arrived or first-generation artists and cultural workers. The program gives organizations an opportunity to collaborate with professional artists or cultural workers from cultural communities on a jointly designed project.

The program also helps artists or cultural workers to become immersed in the arts community so they can develop their art, learn about the Montreal arts scene and take an active role in the development of the host organization.