Marconi-Alexandra

I have always regretted not taking conscious notes when photographing the Mile-End when I was living in it (1999–2007).

I did take a lot of shots, but my eyes were looking elsewhere, my attention, fleeting.

Hochelaga-Maisonneuve took forever to gentrify. Mile-End, a couple of years.

Now that I witness change in front of my eyes accelerating at a staggering speed, I can tell there is proportions involved; Marconi-Alexandra is tiny, it will go quickly.

The funny thing is, I lived here, for 3 years, when it was an unknown hole in the medias. And I could tell how cool it was, how unique.

After a hiatus of 2 years, I am back… and the change is here, crawling everywhere, on every corner, in new spaces created and inside buildings that were dead.

One day, I felt this urge to take visual and written notes, of every building, on every street, and to express what I felt, still feel when walking around, when everyone is gone.

After the 5 à 7, when the Alexandraplatz is closed, in the deadest hours of a week’s evening, after supper and before bed. I look around and listen to the faraway sounds of the city, surrounded by a silence uninterrupted by cars long gone.

My hope is vain, there is nothing to hold, to call mine. It’s already gone, whatever it is I felt was mine.

All that’s left are ghosts for me to capture before the light comes back.