Living in a Sustainable City - Exhibition

Exhibition objectives

The Living in a Sustainable City Exhibition is a reflexion on sustainable urban development and aims to develop:

  • An understanding of sustainable urban development issues.
  • Knowledge of solutions, whether collective or individual, that were experimented with here or abroad and apply to Montréal.
  • Citizen engagement on an individual and collective level.

Target Audiences

  • Organisations, companies, other institutions in the Jeanne-Mance area, and all Montréal citizens.
  • People who live or work in the Jeanne-Mance area and other Montréal neighbourhoods.
  • Elected representatives at all levels of government.

The Exhibition

The exhibition has three parts:

  1. Examine the present situation – Visitors can learn about the current situation in Montreal's central neighbourhoods and participate in group activities where they are invited to contribute to the exhibition by leaving comments or drawings that represent their idea of a sustainable city. Statistics and other facts also show the scale of the challenges we are facing.
  2. Give ourselves tools – Inspiring examples from around the world are presented in the form of postcards to show that it's possible to make cities more sustainable. Each card shows examples of creative solutions, inspiring achievements, messages of hope, and success stories. Participants are also invited to measure their own ecological footprint.
  3. Dream the possible – Visitors are asked to propose ideas or make a commitment to taking action in their neighbourhood in order to make it a more liveable, sustainable, and just environment. Citizens can intervene on two levels: the neighbourhood (where they have the strongest connection) and the city.

Themes

All three parts of the exhibition are centered around three themes that concern all citizens in order to help them understand their living environment better, ask questions, suggest new individual or collective actions, and join forces to act and reflect on how to transform Montréal into a more sustainable city:

  • Consumption
  • Commuting
  • Housing

Team

An executive committee is in charge of seeing to the Exhibition's success:

  • The Carrefour financier solidaire, represented by Henri Jalbert
  • The Montréal Urban Ecology Centre, represented by Luc Rabouin, executive director
  • L’Écomusée du fier monde, represented by René Binette, director, and Éric Giroux, research and development officer
  • L’Institut du Nouveau Monde, represented by Linda Vallée, associate executive director and Aude Lecointe, project manager
  • UQAM's Community Service, represented by Claire Vanier, development officer

Team

  • Luc Rabouin, coordinator, Montréal Urban Ecology Centre (CÉUM)
  • Normand Brunet, exhibition curator, MUEC
  • Josée Magnan, commuting researcher, MUEC
  • Saleema Hutchinson, consumption researcher, MUEC
  • Alexandra Coelho, housing researcher, MUEC
  • René Binette, director, Écomusée du fier monde (EFM)
  • Claudine Viens, technical coordinator, EFM
  • Geneviève Dussault, graphic designer, EFM
  • Marie-Josée Lemaire-Caplette, project manager, EFM

Partners

Action Solidarité Grand Plateau; Borough of the Plateau-Mont-Royal; Borough of Ville-Marie; Caisse populaire Desjardins du Mont-Royal; Carrefour financier solidaire; Montréal Urban Ecology Centre; CSSS Jeanne-Mance; Commission scolaire de Montréal; Corporation de développement communautaire Centre-Sud; Corporation de développement économique et communautaire Centre-Sud/Plateau Mont-Royal; Écomusée du fier monde; Institut du Nouveau Monde; Société de développement de l’avenue du Mont-Royal, Table de concertation du Faubourg Saint-Laurent