I’m writing this from a small apartment in Montreal. Our lovely snow is now being melted by rain, reflecting the combination of dread and sorrow I feel as we approach the holidays. I’m disappointed and I’m scared about the shape of the near future (to say nothing of our long-term climate future).
The chances are high that you share these fears. So I wanted to start this issue with a little hope. The opener art for this piece is la maison rose—Montreal’s pink house. My colleague, Ann-Louise Davidson took this picture (you may remember both her article and her photographs from the September issue [1]).
Silos, both in use and abandoned, help create Montreal’s unique landscape. The “Farine Five Roses” sign shown in Figure 1 is an iconic part of our landscape. Viewed from or alongside our island’s bridges, this sign in particular welcomes me home.
Figure 1.(a) Farine Five Roses sign on top of brick building. Photo by Jean Gagnon, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minoterie_ADM_06.jpg . (b) Nighttime image of the Farine Five Roses sign with bridges in the background and the sign reflected in the water. Photograph by Emmanuel Huybrechts, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
While the Farine Five Roses sign is a beloved corporate logo, la maison rose is something else entirely. This piece of guerilla art is still a mystery. Police have not investigated as they only investigate complaints—none have been lodged for this mysterious pink house [2].
This original art has brightened our landscape and cheered me immensely. Street art has long been part of cities, democratic movements, and democracy.
Unlike la maison rose, another Montreal street artist elicited numerous complaints in the 2000s. Known as Roadsworth, this artist was eventually apprehended and unmasked as Peter Gibson. His crime? Painting unauthorized, imaginative bike paths in Montreal. A 2008 documentary details his art, trial, and eventual punishment (it’s worth a watch) [2]. In a quintessential Quebec penalty, Gibson was given community service in the form of mural painting. Figure 2 shows an example of work commissioned by the city of Montreal, while Figure 3 shows some of his work that has been reproduced in other countries.
Figure 2.(a) Place Émilie-Gamelin with the giant chessboard, sculpture, and building in the background. Photograph by Art in the City, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0. (b) Giant chessboard by Peter Gibson located in Place Émilie-Gamelin sponsored by the City of Montreal. Photograph by Jean Gagnon, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.
Figure 3.Roadsworth piece reproduced in the Basque country by artist X10. Photograph by Euskal Herria. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
Today, the city of Montreal is committed to active transport and has doubled the number of bike lanes in the past decade [3]. New bike lanes are being created and are now maintained even in the winter. Bike lanes have become the focus of local democracy—both in their advocacy and for those who object to them. This conflict is at the heart of local democratic action; for the climate, bike lanes are an obvious, urgently needed and insufficient step. Ensuring people can safely cycle is the cheapest, easiest pro-climate policy possible. In a time where governments are abandoning climate pledges, and even kept pledges are insufficient to reduce warming, this level of animosity toward an inexpensive pro-climate move is profoundly disappointing.
The power of cities is often opposed by federal and provincial governments intent on suppressing democratic and local action.
This conflict shines a light on cities as the site of democracy, activism, and art. Guerilla art actions like Roadsworth and la maison rose exemplify the creative energy and commitment that cities foster. The title of this UN opinion piece encapsulates the role of cities in climate action: “Cities are at the forefront of climate change action. The world must follow” [4]. Cities are at the heart of climate action because they are also the heart of democratic action.
The power of cities is often opposed by federal and provincial governments intent on suppressing democratic and local action. Cities are at the forefront of voting rights movements in active opposition to voter suppression at the state and federal levels in the United States. Some cities are expanding voting rights to younger voters [5] or to all residents (regardless of citizenship status) [6]. The Cities Vote initiative highlights local initiatives to increase voting and ensure that all votes are counted. Their stated commitment to free and fair elections evinces the threat to those free elections [7]. In Canada, we see provincial legislation to suppress local action. Premier Legault of Quebec abolished school boards for the French system in 2020 [8]. The English system was able to retain school boards through legal action [9]. Now, school board members are only elected for the English language schools. In Ontario, premier Ford is moving forward to remove bike lanes. Ford’s plans to remove bike lanes are purportedly aimed at decreasing traffic gridlock. This is demonstrably untrue—bike lanes lessen congestion and improve overall safety [10]. The city of Toronto estimates that removing just three Toronto bike lanes will cost U.S. [Math Processing Error] 48 million and increase gridlock, both in the short and long term [11]. Governance in the absence or in spite of expertise is another hallmark of weakened democracy. The fact that Ford must fight cities in order to achieve bike lane removal is in itself a demonstration of the transformative power of local governance and leadership at the city level.
Cities’ abilities to lead on climate action and in democracy speak to the power of collective action and to the potential our individual action has when we can make common cause at the local scale.
Cities’ abilities to lead on climate action and in democracy speak to the power of collective action and to the potential our individual action has when we can make common cause at the local scale. Collective action paired with expert knowledge action is essential to maintaining functioning democracy. When done well, this pairing can create badly needed change. Art, and in particular public art and community-based art, is a way to connect expert information to the general public. It’s especially a way to facilitate the transmission of complex information into something we can connect to deeply as humans. This message isn’t exactly one of hope, but of the power of individual and collective agency. Guerilla artists like Roadsworth and the unknown artist behind la maison rose can hopefully inspire our own action, whether that action is done under cover of night or through long, boring meetings at city council.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Terri Bookman, Pamela Tudge, and Cynthia Schmitt for excellent edits and comments in very little time.
Author Information
Ketra Schmitt is an associate professor at the Centre for Engineering and Society and an associate member at the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, Canada. She is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine and serves as a board member for the IEEE Society for the Social Implications of Technology. Email: ketra.schmitt@concordia.ca.
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