{"id":1650,"date":"2008-11-05T15:50:59","date_gmt":"2008-11-05T20:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/2008\/11\/05\/in-absentia-maps-mile-end-stories\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:46:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:46:17","slug":"in-absentia-maps-mile-end-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/11\/05\/in-absentia-maps-mile-end-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"In absentia maps Mile End stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"39c6b1f.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

in absentia<\/a>, a web-based art project presented by Dare-Dare, reads as a cross between a map and a novel. When you have lived in a place for long enough, every street corner is inhabited with memories and meaning, and a tour through in absentia<\/em> feels like exploring a much-loved place with a long-time local.<\/p>\n

The artist behind the work, JR Carpenter,<\/a> is also releasing her first novel, Words the Dog Knows<\/a>, this Friday November 7th. The novel and web-project co-evolved and draw on many of the same stories.<\/p>\n

Over caf\u00e9 au laits<\/em> at Club Social on Saint-Viateur, JR Carpenter says she vowed to move to Montreal and study art as a 12-year-old growing up in rural Nova Scotia. In preparation, she read books set in the city. By 1992, she found herself living on St-Urbain street, in the exact neighbourhood she had discovered through Mordecai Richler’s stories as a child…and writing about her old life on the farm.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until nearly 15 years later that Carpenter felt able to write about this city with the familiarity of home rather than the wide-eyes of a beguiled visitor. Many of her texts began as oral stories \u2013 scenes spied in neighbours’ windows or overheard in back alleyways: a cursing Greek matriarch, kids splashing in a back-yard pool, an upstairs neighbour\u2019s urgent\u00a0 love-making.\u00a0 An earlier web-based work, Entre Ville<\/a> captures the inevitable voyeurism of the neighbourhood’s close quarters.<\/p>\n

But by this time, Mile End was caught in a whirlwind of gentrification. \u201cI had finally figured out how to write about the neighbourhood and then it was all being ripped out from under me,\u201d Carpenter says.\u00a0 In absentia<\/em> is about the effects of gentrification: people’s lives and stories uprooted by the turnover of property ownership.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talk about it on a minute scale instead of the big issue, which is sort of unbearable,\u201d Carpenter says. \u201cA lot of those small things have to be documented \u2013 otherwise they will just disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teaming up with other writers and artists, both English and French, Carpenter gathered dozens of stories about her neighbourhood and linked them together in space, using a map of the neighbourhood. She says that her use of the Google Maps API as a backdrop for In absentia<\/em> was a deliberate appropriation of a sterile medium.\u00a0 She imagines that the impersonal Google Maps grid is how a developer might view the city. In absentia<\/em> interrupts this disengaged perspective and, by situating shared images and experiences right on the map, creates a sense of place.<\/p>\n

You can meet the authors at the launch party for Words the Dog Knows<\/a> (conundrum press)<\/p>\n

WHEN<\/strong>: Friday November 7th, 7pm
\nWHERE<\/strong>: skybluedoor (5403B boul. Saint-Laurent)
\nCOST<\/strong>: Free to attend; $15 for a copy of the book<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

in absentia, a web-based art project presented by Dare-Dare, reads as a cross between a map and a novel. When you have lived in a place for long enough, every street corner is inhabited with memories and meaning, and a tour through in absentia feels like exploring a much-loved place with a long-time local. TheContinue reading “In absentia maps Mile End stories”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7831,7832,11,7838,7839],"tags":[3226,320,3221,2409,3223,556,3222,38,125,19,3225,25,69,302,3224],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-culture","category-events","category-media","category-neighbourhoods","tag-api","tag-artist","tag-carpenter","tag-club-social","tag-earlier-web-based-work","tag-google","tag-jr-carpenter","tag-mile-end","tag-montreal","tag-new-media","tag-nova-scotia","tag-public-art","tag-social-trends","tag-usd","tag-web-based-art-project"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIn absentia maps Mile End stories - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/11\/05\/in-absentia-maps-mile-end-stories\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In absentia maps Mile End stories - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"in absentia, a web-based art project presented by Dare-Dare, reads as a cross between a map and a novel. 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