May 22, 2020
CONTENT SOURCED FROM TIME OUT MONTREAL
Written By: JP Karwacki
It's hard to say when movie theatres in Montreal and around the world will be opening for now, but until they do, why not use some of that space for some plant life? As Audrey Hepburn put it: "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."
At the dine-and-watch movie theatre Cinéma Moderne in Montreal, they're hosting an art installation entitled Jardin de Passage - Serie 2 from the artist Nancy Guilmette. Described as a "greenhouse-gallery" that uses seeds from near-extinct plant species, locals can view the living laboratory through the cinema's street-facing windows. Once the projects runs the course of the month of May, sprouted seedlings will be given out at a closing event on May 30.
It's not your normal exhibition: Among the heated carpets, lighting, domes and thermometers, the artist performs the daily tasks of taking care of the seedlings in an orange jumpsuit from 6am to 11am, Monday to Friday, 6am to 3pm on Saturday and Sunday.
As the movie theatre writes, the exhibit is designed to explore "the intimate relations between art, design and nature... Light gives the vegetation, like cinema, its vivacity. Cinéma Moderne will be illuminated from the inside, as if the sleeping projector was waking up from a long sleep." This is the second of three planned exhibitions, with the next location undetermined for the time being.
It's new and innovative projects like this that can give spaces a new life since being forced to close down, giving a space like Cinéma Moderne a breath of life in uncertain times. Videos of the space in action can viewed on the artist's website here.