Mile-Ex Montrealers, it's time to vote for the mural you want to see in your neighbourhood!

Canderel and MASSIVart are joining forces to bring uplifting and colourful art to the Mile-Ex district in Montreal. After consulting with the Mile-Ex community about their vision for the neighbourhood’s future, a call for artists was shared with the Montreal artistic community to submit their best creative proposals linked to the survey results and themes.

The overall project aims to rehabilitate the building located at 6600 St-Urbain in the Mile-Ex through various architectural enhancements. Two murals will be incorporated into the rehabilitation of the building with the aim to promote the local arts community while highlighting the neighbourhood’s colourful past.

Canderel’s main objective is to create an impactful and engaging dialogue with the local community through art. The company wants to create an inspiring place that will bring colour and life to the building and resonate with the community.
 

COMMUNITY RESEARCH AND THEMES

• The history of the area has been the prominent theme of the realized community survey. The angle is less about the industry that has been part of the creation of Mile-Ex and more about the people, the workers, and the residents of yesterday that have left their anonymous marks on what has become known as Mile-Ex. The social fabric of the area is central to this project and deserves to be reinforced in the art integration. This needs to play a key role in the murals.
• Another key finding is that the local ecosystem’s quirkiness, past and future, should be somehow integrated. Bringing colour, geometry, inspiration and greenery, in a bold fashion that is thought-provoking are also key findings that will be promoted in the brief.
• The community wants to have something that will lift their mood and communicate their aspirations and inspirations, combining the past, present and future, showcasing local storytelling.

? Mile-Ex Montrealers, click here to vote!
 

The local residents will once again get the opportunity to express themselves by voting for the mural they would like to see in their neighbourhood. The finalists include:

Isabelle Duguay‘s work Émergences cohabits between the urban/industrial and the natural/organic. Supported by the contrast of styles, reflecting the eclectic aspect of Mile-Ex, the work’s narrative unfolds in as many lines, textures and forms that evoke the buildings of the area and are juxtaposed with unpredictable vegetation. A fingerprint on the mural is also a reminder of the human impact, whose traces remain. Over time, Mile-Ex has opened its doors to change leaders who propose inspiring models. The neighbourhood’s industrial past can now be harmonized with a sustainable future.
 

Inspired by Quebec’s floral heritage, the Fringe mural offers a colourful, poetic and vibrant visual. Between abstraction and figuration, Cyndie Belhumeur, Bryan Beyung, Olivier Bonnard and Cyrielle Tremblay combine their universes to create a unifying work that highlights our natural wealth. Inspired by the community’s desire to see a rich and diversified landscape, the work Fringe integrates plants native to Quebec – milkweed, blue iris, red cohosh and others.
 

The work of the Art du Commun collective links Mile-Ex’s past, present and future, as well as the people who have shaped it. Illustrative at close range, with meticulous detail on a human scale, the work becomes, with distance, a more abstract mosaic, supported by the clearing of surfaces. In the form of patchwork – a practice born of reused fabrics – Art du Commun incorporates visuals specific to the history of the area, creating a zone of eclectic mix and cohabitation, a reflection of this neighbourhood, its textile industrial past, and its spaces transformed over time and successive vocations.

 
? Mile-Ex Montrealers, click here to vote!