The Art of Close Looking: Sketching at the Border of Shaughnessy Village and Westmount

Course Description

How can visual arts practices like drawing help us to better understand the places we live in? This plein-air drawing course will consider Montreal’s long and storied history of divisions and antagonisms by focusing on the border of Montréal’s historic Shaughnessy Village and the independent enclave city of Westmount. Shaughnessy Village is one of Montréal’s most cosmopolitan and central neighbourhoods, hosting densely populated housing and segments of the most bustling portions of Ste. Catherine Street, one of Montréal’s most iconic and central thoroughfares. Meanwhile, Westmount was once Canada’s most affluent city, boasting 1/5 of the population density of Shaughnessy Village with several quaint residential and commercial streets. Through walking, drawing, and discussion, this course will explore the history of these neighbourhoods and the distinctive features that characterize them today. Where exactly does Shaughnessy Village end and Westmount begin? Are there antagonisms present in the border between Westmount and Shaughnessy Village, and if so, are they perceptible in the built environment? What social meanings can close observation of this border provide?

Class time will be spent drawing at predetermined sites, engaging in critical dialogues, and receiving art instruction that will balance skill-building and conceptual investigations. Each week will also have assigned readings relating to broader course themes such as the concept of borders, the arrangement of urban space, and how drawing has been used as a method in urban studies, anthropology, geography, and arts-based research. We will experiment with other kinds of artistic attunement as well, including painting, sound and sense, and walking as inquiry.

Course Details