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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Know Hope: Mont Royal

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Know Hope: Mont Royal
By Dave Bergeron and Kimberley Mok

“Know Hope” will be a series of illustrative vignettes exploring and re-imagining Montréal’s urban spaces, cultural life and other compelling urban mysteries which are always in the process of unfolding. Psychogeographical* in nature, this series of humourous visual reveries hopes to chart a slightly different map of urban consciousness.

This first installation is a mandala** depicting Mont Royal and her environs, inspired by a daydream of the tam-tams as the locus of intense energy in the city during Sundays, prompting the angel statue to fly off in the sky above a celebrating crowd.

* psychogeography: refers to playful and inventive strategies for exploring cities, and includes just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape. (Wikipedia)

** mandala: term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically; a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective, typically with three basic properties – a center, symmetry and cardinal points.

“Living totally now, one’s existence unfolds like a mandala. At the core, each person is the centre of their own compass and experiences, their own cardinal points – North, South, East and West.”

— José and Miriam Argüelles, Mandala

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2 comments

  1. Wow this is really amazing. Will love to see what more is coming up in the series.

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