Recently in Urban Art Category

Le Souk à la Société des Arts Technologiques de Montréal.

Photo by Simon Law from the Gamma 256 set

I was at Gamma 256, an event organized by the Kokoromi collective, a Montreal-based group of game developers. Gaming and the industry of gaming is definitely a big thing in this city.

November 24-25, 2007.

I've been participating in an online magazine called Spacing Montreal, the Montreal affiliate to Spacing. Since federal elections are probably coming soon, we're asking people to submit some of their most interesting pictures of electoral signs in the city, from past (or current) elections.

Did Day 2 of Osheaga 2007, on Sept 9th.

A museum you have to visit if you are in HK is certainly the Heritage Museum. Located in the tranquil suburb of Shatin (also known as the first "new towns" of HK), the Heritage Museum was completed in 2000 and houses a number of permanent and temporary exhibits. It's considered one of the main museums in the HK SAR and for some reason retain better memories of the exhibits I've seen there versus at the Museum of Arts and other ones in TST.

In 2002, there was the Baihua Qifang exhibit of selected works from the 9th Chinese National Art Exhibition (my photo), with what seemed like deliberately propaganda art (one painting with a Zhou Enlai portrait at the front of steam train).

Since then, the KCR built a new train line called the Ma On Shan Rail, which is right across the bridge from the Heritage Museum, but when I went last year, we took what was a pleasant walk proposed by the HK Tourism board.

That time, there was an exhibit called redwhiteblue, after the tricolor fibrous plastic fabric ubiquitously used in HK to cover things (from rain, etc) or used to make bags for blankets and other bulky things, but now used in an artistic context. Really a "cool" exhibit. I feel sorry to have missed Spaces and Places, despite still being around.

A lady approached me with a marketing questionnaire as I were about to leave the museum. With the CCA exhibit Les années 60 : Montréal voit grand in mind, I wrote in the comments section that some sort of exhibit on HK in the 60s or 70s would be very very interesting (at least that genre of exhibits seems to attract crowds in Montreal - why wouldn't they be just a wee interesting in HK?). Both of the upcoming ones, megARTstore and Hong Kong's Popular Entertainment are definitely must-see.

Picked up from the mtlblog, was this urbanphoto photoblog of a McGiller - whose most recent pictures turned out to be from the single other place in this world I've stayed in for more than a month time (it's weird to say it like this). While at it, let's repost.

In relation with this (my current computer bg), other people thought of it before (thanks for the link, Mel), obviously. It's stuff from my nightmares, I was going to say. For someone who was born and raised in a city like Montreal, I suppose Asia might be extremely foreign b/c of Orient, etc, etc, but surely b/c of the population density, and general lack of anything old in the cities. If you go to Japan, most of the buildings in the city were destroyed by fire-bombing during WWII, and while it seems cool, I must admit, it's uniformly that way (concrete, white, geometric shapes). In HK, it's a constraint of space - although I never really understood that, b/c there is *so much* green space outside of the urban areas. There're mountains everywhere in HK, which vastly reduces buildable land for sure, and makes transit lines very costly to build in order to develop new areas. So people generally build up, in HK, whereas in Tokyo, b/c it's mostly flat (and b/c if you built up, earthquakes will make sure to flatten it pretty quickly), urban areas can expand and expand until you don't see a single area of un-urbanized land.

This makes for very interesting walks. If you go to Asia, or HK more particularly, it's fantastic to walk in old quarters like North Point, which were probably built during the late 60s, or 70s. It's also interesting to see the more "popular" districts like Chai Wan where the buildings are white, but with floors of concrete with playgrounds and basketball fields that haven't been renovated for at least a decade. You may also want to visit the newest areas, like Tseung Kwan O (built in the 90s), or the sub-area of Tiu Keng Leng (area was opened just a few years ago - now already bustling with new middle-upper class young families). Or even try Repulse Bay (while you spend some time at what's said to be the nicest public beach of HK), where the high-end flats are built.

Forgot the rest of what I wanted to say. Gotta go.

Some hooligans painted comments all over some of the pictures part of the outdoor picture exhibit on McGill College Avenue, the portion between Président-Kennedy and Sherbrooke. Well, in 2002, the City of Montreal came up with a great idea of having those giant supports on the most downtown of all streets of Montreal, for an exhibit of uber-famous aerial photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. So instead of wasting the support things, the City recycled the idea the following years with various photo exhibits on themes everyone enjoys (Montreal, ma ville; Grands personages du 20e siècle; that sort of stuff). The graffitis were sort of funny. Probably some students with too much time in margin of Frosh activities right across the street...