Meet the thinker – Mélanie Courtois
Mélanie Courtois
This fourth instalment of ‘meet the thinker’ looks at Quebec’s cultural powerhouse through the expert eyes of Mélanie Courtois.
Mélanie lived and worked in France as an artistic director, until she met Montreal. What was meant to be a 12-month stay is now 12 years and counting, an intrusive cat, citizenship and an unwavering commitment to local creativity. In this interview, she gives us the inside scoop on how Montreal’s cultural identity and festival legacy are faring and fighting for the future.
What does Montreal’s identity as a ‘city of festivals’ look like on the ground? Is it ‘always on’?
The festival season really does change the city. Entire neighbourhoods downtown are essentially shut down for the summer months thanks to the constant performances on their streets. Whilst most of the activity is concentrated within the Quartier des Spectacles, the sheer scale of some festivals has produced offshoots that offer more intimate takes on the world-wide attractors. The Off Jazz Festival is the smaller, smoother, jazz-purist younger brother of the rambunctious International Jazz Festival.
There’s a lot going on, but ‘always on’ might be a stretch – it gets a bit too cold to keep going year-round. That said, I’ve seen people dancing through snow in ski jackets during winter festivals… It’s part of life here. We love to party!
And what does it look like for local creativity and culture?
There is definitely a strong everyday arts scene outside of major events, and it’s actually this ‘backstage’ art life that made me fall in love with Montreal. It’s unbelievable the amount of creativity you can find behind the doors of artists’ studio buildings all over the city! Lighting companies, craftsmen, scenographers, recording studios, shared workshops… There are hidden germs scattered through the city’s neighbourhoods, and it’s the life of these spaces that creates the vibrant art scene. They are the invisible and essential links within Montreal’s cultural ecosystem.
But Montreal’s festival identity can be a bit of a double-edged sword for local creatives. With performers in the spotlight, other sectors (such as visual artists) and other types of space (like those for making and practicing rather than presenting) struggle to get the funding, attention and strategic support they need.
Sectors being in competition with each other is really detrimental to the potential for collective vision. Montreal’s identity as a haven for culture stemmed from its affordability for artists of all disciplines. In the last decade, this has come under threat through rapid development and increasing cost of living, so now we are seeing artists leave both Montreal and the creative sector.
Australia has seen a wave of festival cancellations or postponements due to rising costs and shrinking audiences. Is the city of festivals immune to this because of how key they are to its international identity?
Absolutely not. We are seeing festivals ‘pause’ while they reckon with sharply increasing costs. Thankfully, the audience is still there – free outdoor programming will never be cost-prohibitive – but the business models of the festival industry are at a pivotal point. And if the city doesn’t get control of its space and affordability issues, the talent might not be here in the future.
Ironically, the development of some of Montreal’s largest arts presentation spaces have displaced those vital ‘behind the scenes’ spaces. The practice spaces we have now will produce the performers of the future. While the responsibility to resolve these space issues doesn't sit only with festival operators, some of them are recognising that the local talent pipeline relies on a dwindling pool of studios.
What approaches are Montreal taking to shift the dial?
Since I arrived in Montreal, I’ve witnessed numerous occasions of artists mobilising to preserve their studios. In 2018, a historic cluster of artists’ studios was redeveloped for residential and tech hubs. The resistance of artists in these studios led to new support from the public sector. In other cases I’ve seen artist mobilisation lead to exclusionary rezoning which protected bustling studio buildings from residential redevelopments.
The Grover Building, where Mélanie began her journey in creative space. Credit: La virée des ateliers
In terms of delivering new spaces, there are currently some existing avenues to incentivise studio development, such as bonus schemes in some districts’ zoning plans, that can be designed especially for the use of artist’s studios . But this practice is not well utilised throughout Montreal: developers don’t have the experience required to facilitate affordability or navigate the creation of legal entities that can utilise concessions for land taxes, which currently represent a major burden for arts organisations.
These concessions are only available to professional cultural organisations who either own their space or rent from a not-for-profit landlord. Unfortunately these conditions exclude studio providers and renters from private landlords. Montreal is also exploring other models, including a land trust and a ‘single desk’ for creative space, but these conversations are a long haul and involve many stakeholders.
The urgent need to preserve space means there is plenty to be done on a project-by-project basis. When arts organisations have an articulated space need and are looking to develop a plan to operate sustainably, I assist them with securing funding and other support from potential partners across government and the private sector. And on the other side, I work to ensure that cultural operations and capital asset management go hand-in-hand from the outset so that they are working together in the long-term, not against one another.
In your work supporting the creative sector to pursue space projects, you’d see under the bonnets of plenty of artist-led organisations. If you could snap your fingers and impart one piece of knowledge or one skill to every organisation across Montreal’s creative sector, what would it be?
That’s a good question, but I have to say ‘none’. Artists are already doing so much, between fighting to prove the value of their work space, trying to secure funding, paying rent and – not to forget – making art. Are we asking real estate agents to become artists? No! Why would we ask artists to enter real estate?
What I would impart is to the local government, and it would be better recognition of the upstream value of funding space projects. Montreal does still express its French genes when it comes to government funding for the arts. But there needs to be recognition that space is deserving, and vital to the programming Montreal is famous for.
There is also so much room for improvement from the private sector and philanthropy: currently in Quebec only 5% of charitable contributions go to the cultural sector.
And lastly, from your experience working for an artist studio provider, do you think there is capacity in that layer of the sector to standardise the approach to operating affordable space?
Often people assume that providing space at scale will be more sustainable, but I have come to question that mindset. The more spaces you have to operate, the more challenges you could face. I think in many cases, it would be better to focus on maximising the security of one space – working towards ownership if possible, taking advantage of tax concessions available to cultural organisations.
Again, letting artists be artists is so important to Montreal’s cultural identity and future. They have already taken so many steps ‘meet in the middle’ with landlords and funders. They don’t need to be taking on more operationally, they need to have the value their current spaces bring to the city recognised. And then they need to be supported as such.
