[Talk] An Island is more than a Park: Stories on the eve of an eviction

In the fall of 2021 mayors from the Greater Montreal area officially announced a plan to develop île-Sainte-Thérèse (Sainte-Thérèse Island) into an Eco-Park. But the new park project comes at a cost of 50 family cottages that will be evicted from the island. While the proposed eco-park and impending eviction is reminiscent of a troubling history concerning National or Provincial Parks as a form of conservation, Île-Sainte-Thérèse offers its own story, albeit a fragmented one involving multiple actors, each with a claim to the island’s landscape and heritage.

For this presentation, graduate students affiliated with Montreal waterways and the Concordia Ethnography Lab Maya Lamothe Katrapani, Melina Campos Ortiz, and Amrita Gurung, will share and engage with ethnographic methods and imagery, along with the collective process of bringing these fragmented pieces together, not in a way that is definitive, fixed, or complete, but rather to demonstrate how these fragments move, and move us, when telling the story of an island.

This event is open to all. Join us in-person or online by registering for the Zoom meeting or watching live on 4th Space’s YouTube channel.