“We applaud the talent of the winners, who were able to see this competition’s full potential, both for stimulating creative activity in Montreal and for creating exceptional winter experiences. In Luminothérapie, Montreal has a unique platform for expression, on which a broad spectrum of artistic disciplines come together to imagine new ways of celebrating urban design, both for visitors and Montrealers,” said Jacques Primeau, chair of the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership board.

“The Quartier des spectacles inspires local creative and talented artists who showcase original and daring works as part of design competitions such as Luminothérapie. I would like to congratulate the winners and finalists of the competition for their contribution to the creative impetus that exemplifies our cultural metropolis. Luminothérapie helps to promote Montréal’s international reputation as a UNESCO City of Design, by proposing new ways to occupy and use public spaces, and by promoting Montréal know-how in the field of cultural entertainment. I invite Montrealers to discover new talents in the Quartier des spectacles this winter and to marvel at the imagination of the Montréal creative force,” said Élaine Ayotte, member of the Montréal Executive Committee, responsible for culture, heritage and design.

The winning projects

PART 1: SHOWCASE AND ENLIVEN PLACE DES FESTIVALS

Entre les rangs by Kanva, in collaboration with Udo Design, Côté Jardin,
Patrick Watson, Boris Dempsey and Pierre Fournier – Place des Festivals
Thousands of flexible stems topped with white reflectors make up this large-scale urban metaphor for a wheat field in rural Quebec. The designers were inspired by the shape and arrangement of the province’s lots and rangs, the product of the land surveying system established by the French regime in New France, which still shapes today’s landscape. In the winter wind, bathed in reflected light from the projectors in Place des Festivals, the stylized stalks wave, creating sparking effects like those of wheat swaying in a blustery country field. This nod to Quebec’s roots opens an original dialogue between the province’s agricultural history and its current urban reality. Through the use of symbols, it also makes connections between seasons by transplanting summer bounty into a winter setting, where visitors wander through a timeless space between ages and seasons. Music sources, separated spatially but synchronized, give the impression of moving melodies, like the sound of wind in a wheat field. What’s more, the stalks’ arrangement opens paths punctuated by music sources that invite visitors to take a bucolic multisensory walk in the heart of Montreal.

Kanva
Founded in 2003, Kanva is a multidisciplinary architecture firm that combines architectural design, construction projects and art installations. It approaches every project as an opportunity to tell a story, improve the built environment and broaden the reach of art and architecture. Kanva has won several awards and produced a number of exhibitions (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Grands Prix du design, Jardins de Métis, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Maison de l’architecture du Québec, Société des arts technologiques…).
For more information: mtlunescodesign.com/en/project/2013-Installations-for-public-spaces
PART 2: DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF VIDEO PROJECTIONS FOR THE FAÇADES OF QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES

Trouve Bob by Champagne Club Sandwich – Quartier des Spectacles building façades
Trouve Bob is a large scale animated game that uses the city as a screen. It will give Montreal’s winter the same liveliness and colour as its summer festival season by reimagining the popular game Where’s Waldo? The eight sets of Quartier des Spectacles projection façades will light up with the fantastical world of a nutty character accompanied by an odd assortment of adorable companions. The public will be asked to find Bob, lurking somewhere in the outlandish background of the eight dynamic scenes. This city-scale game makes connections between the buildings in Quartier des Spectacles used as projection surfaces by presenting a series of animations with an exciting mix of formats, graphic compositions, colours and levels of difficulty.

Champagne Club Sandwich
A collective comprising Gabriel Poirier-Galarneau and Rémi Vincent, Champagne Club Sandwich is dedicated to designing and producing animated, humanized, graphic content with sound – everything from music videos to architectural projections. Their clients have included Adidas, Artv, Cirque du Soleil, Moment Factory and the National Hockey League.

For more information: mtlunescodesign.com/en/project/2013-Video-Projections
The Luminothérapie competition
The Luminothérapie competition, which has two components, is aimed at presenting an interactive winter experience for visitors to Quartier des Spectacles, as well as stimulating creativity in Montreal. In the Showcase and enliven Place des Festivals component, Entre les rangs was one of five finalists chosen from 44 entries. In the second component, Design and production of video projections for the façades of Quartier des Spectacles, Trouve Bob was one of three finalists chosen from 14 proposals.

A multidisciplinary jury
The finalists in both competition sections were selected based on proposals submitted anonymously, in order to ensure transparency and openness to new talents. The next step, the selection of the winners, was centred on a paid presentation to the appropriate jury.
The jury members were:
Part 1
• Brigitte Poupart, director, actor, theatrical director, co-artistic director of Transthéâtre and jury chair
• Gabriel Pontbriand, director of the Environment team, Moment Factory
• Pierre Fortin, executive director, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership
• Michel Gagnon, programming director, Place des Arts
• Hélène Godin, executive creative vice-president, Sid Lee
• Pascal Lefebvre, programming director, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership
• Benoît Lemieux, director of operations, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership
• Eugénie Manseau, industrial designer, Studio Dikini, Phyllis-Lambert Design Montréal grant recipient
• John Zeppetelli, curator, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art (now executive director, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal)

Part 2
• Olivier Goulet, president, Geodezik (jury chair – replaced at the second stage by Janicke Morissette, designer, Geodezik)
• Lucie Bazzo, lighting designer for professional dance and theatre productions
• Patrick Doyon, illustrator and animated film director, Doiion
• Pierre Fortin, executive director, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership
• Pascal Lefebvre, programming director, Quartier des Spectacles Partnership

ABOUT LUMINOTHÉRAPIE
Luminothérapie is a winter event based on two competitions: one for activities that showcase Place des Festivals and one for the design and production of video projection content for eight building façades in the Quartier. The competition is run in collaboration with the Bureau du design de Montréal. During the event, public spaces become open-air galleries that bring light to winter and showcase Montreal’s creative talent. With this program, Quartier des Spectacles hopes to increase the number of inspiring productions and help make Montreal one of the world’s top cities of light. In 2012-13, the competition delighted the public with Iceberg by Atomic3 and Appareil Architecture, an installation for Place des Festivals and the Place des Arts Esplanade, and the series of video projections titled Le jour des huit soleils, by Pascal Grandmaison, presented on eight façades façades in Quartier des Spectacles.

ABOUT QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES
Quartier des Spectacles has been Montreal’s cultural heart for more than a century. Today, it is also a hub of economic, urban and cultural development, with many assets that are helping establish Montreal as a leading cultural metropolis. A vibrant creative zone, open to artistic diversity and cultural cross-pollination, the Quartier has something for everyone, from digital-arts aficionados to fans of world music. Every month of the year and every hour of the day, Montrealers and visitors converge on its 80 venues, 40 festivals and seven squares and public spaces. Part of a unique urban fabric, the boldly illuminated Quartier des Spectacles is an essential destination for anyone looking for a thrilling cultural experience. For more information, visit quartierdesspectacles.com.

ABOUT MONTRÉAL, UNESCO CITY OF DESIGN
Montreal is part of UNESCO’s international Creative Cities Network in the Cities of Design category. The Network includes 34 cities in 18 countries. It helps creators in member cities share their experiences, while promoting the international exchange of best practices and knowledge. The Ville de Montréal’s Bureau du design worked with the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership on preparing and running this annual competition. Such competitions are among the many commitments taken on by the city and the partners in Action Plan 2007-2017 – Montréal, Cultural Metropolis, which aims to promote excellence in design and architecture while affirming Montreal’s status as a UNESCO City of Design.