Andrew Emond is a Montreal based photographer whose projects, primarily documentary in nature, examine the built environment. His work has appeared in numerous books, galleries and international publications. In 2006, he began photographing Montreal’s sewer system. Emond has chronicled his experiences on his website undermontreal.com. More of his work can seen at www.andrewemond.com.

Artist statement

Source Points

Since 2006, my work has involved covertly exploring Montreal’s network of sewers as a means to better understand how my city functions and how it has evolved. These sewers serve as conduits for human waste, but they also act as synthetic pathways for natural water-- water that once flowed openly through Montreal via a far-reaching arrangement of creeks. These watercourses played a considerable role in the development of the city and while most have been diverted underground and removed from our collective awareness, they are still very much alive below us today.

Source Points reflects on the perpetual nature of water in the city and the transformation of its path from creek bed to sewer pipe. The first component, incorporating four windows situated at street level, is a digital recreation (or re-imagining) of the now-buried La Riviere Petite St-Pierre. It is a virtual reclamation of its water from the underground systems encapsulating it; a testimonial to both its disappearance and of its possible return.

The second component consists of four underground scenes, each illustrative of a particular era of sewer construction between 1874 and 1991. These photo/video hybrids attempt to highlight the constancy of water in spite of their static enclosures. I am positioned in the centre of each frame. There is no daylight anywhere here. All light is electric and controlled by my actions. My surroundings are equally manufactured, and while much of the liquid streaming past me stems from household and commercial waste, there also exists in it a significant portion of naturally occurring water, which will continue to flow regardless of our attempts to eradicate it.

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Samuel Thulin is a musician, researcher, and media artist living in Montreal. His work explores the intersections of mobility, place, and sound, as well as the history of media and technology. He is a member of the Mobile Media Lab and a PhD candidate in the Communication Studies department at Concordia University.

Artist Statement

River Flow, Sewer Flow, Street Flow

River Flow, Sewer Flow, Street Flow is a two-part sound exploration of Montreal’s former creek, the Petite St. Pierre, the sewer that has replaced it, and the streets adjacent to its initial path. The work begins with a ‘music route’, a movement both physical and musical, that takes the listener toward the now absent waterway. Composed entirely using field recordings of Old Montreal, streams in Quebec, as well as noises from within Montreal’s sewer system, the ‘music route’ blends and transforms these sounds, re-imagining the spatial organization and sonic materiality of the city. Exploring rhythms and resonances between natural watercourses and the built environment, both above and below ground, the music route invites listeners to imagine the multiple layers –immediate, invisible and forgotten – that define the path through Old Montreal and the history of the Petite St. Pierre.

In the second part, the aural architecture of the sewer system is brought to the surface. Sounds recorded outside the PHI centre, including city workers pumping out a storm drain, are processed with samples of reverberation recorded within the tunnels below. Though the rushing water of the Petite St. Pierre is materially absent from the soundscape – its sound only imaginable among the echoes - the installation is premised on the flowing stream and the possibility of its recreation. Its intention is to offer a meditation on both the layered spaces that now take its place and the potential of their reorganization.