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Welcome to Louis-Thomas Kelly, new member of CIRM!

Louis-Thomas was first a resident scholar at CIRM during the summer of 2023, to do his fieldwork as a Ph.D. candidate at the at the University of Amsterdam. In fact, we produced a video of a with him. We now welcome him as a student member. To mark the occasion, we asked him a few questions.

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You are working on "urban planning and design as a means of openly questioning the public space to colonial built heritage in Montr茅al." Can you tell us what this entails?

It is no surprise that Canada is a colonial state. It is no surprise that Canada has a troubling, genocidal history. The thing is people tend to associate these two things to the past and forget that they are very much contemporary. There is nowhere that this is more blatantly obvious than outside, in Montr茅al鈥檚 public squares. Canada鈥檚 colonialism is not past, but it presents in heritage buildings, memorials, monuments, fountains, plaques, statues, artworks, and street names that dictate our experiences of the city. My research aims to give people an outlet to imagine new horizons for this public space through collaborative urban planning and design intended to think critically about this colonial presence, and to bring new life to these spaces.

Why is Montr茅al a fertile ground to study contested public memory? How does Montr茅al compare to other big cities?

Montr茅al鈥檚 growth development as a city is well documented by academics. Notably, Alan Gordon wrote a about how 40 memorials were built in Montr茅al between 1890 and 1930. The main point of the book is to associate this 鈥渃ommemorative boom鈥� with the croissance of a Canadian identity, that did not exist yet in the new country. Montr茅al was the Canadian epicentre of society, politics, culture, and conflict between the two colonial communities (Anglophone and Francophone) for many years. These Anglo-Franco conflicts happened in many ways, even with monuments. Historically, interest groups on both sides of Canada鈥檚 linguistic fault line-built memorials and monuments in honour of how they saw the nation. All this to solidify their claim for national identity.

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You also use creative and artistic methods of participatory research. Can you tell us more about those?

When I moved to the Netherlands for my graduate education in urban planning, I found myself at a serious impasse: I could not speak Dutch, I could not communicate with the users of public space. How was I supposed to do participatory research on controversial topics like colonialism? Luckily, I came across the work of people within my faculty () about using creative/artistic methods of participatory planning research as a way of allowing emotionality into research and bypassing the limits of language through visual communication. Through creative/artistic research, we can academically work on complex topics, like art, memory, and the politics of public space, because it allows for affective experiences to coincide with research. To oversimplify something quite complex, memory is subjective, and so is art, so why not blend them together, and design research that is based in how we feel, rather than how we know and think.

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You contributed to the final report published by the Office of the Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. What are your thoughts on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada?

During my fieldwork for my PhD about how people use monuments for (counter-)memorial purposes, At , I came across a Sacred Fire ceremony that was held by Office of the (OSI). The OSI鈥檚 ceremony was meant to create a safe space for the attendees of their conference nearby. It was also meant to be in counter-positional juxtaposition with the disgraced also at Canada Place, that was just a few meters away. Through the power of good coincidence, I was one degree of separation away from the people of the OSI, and they asked me to advise them about the Macdonald Monument, in particular, but also the role of urban planners in the resistance to colonialism, in general. For context, the Macdonald Monument is found atop thousands of graves: before being a public square, the site was the St Antoine Catholic Cemetery, that was notably used to bury victims of cholera. Suspicious, don鈥檛 you think?

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You work as a development agent for Concertation Ville 脡mard/C么te St-Paul. How does your work and your research feed (no pun intended!) into each other?

Practice what you preach! I argue in favour of community-based research and intervention in my PhD. Therefore, outside the academic realm, I actively support community-engaged work, and believe in the power of Montr茅al鈥檚 civil sector.

A perfect day in Montr茅al?

I work 9 to 5 during the week, and Saturdays I tend to work on my academics, which leaves Sunday as my day of doing exactly what I want. My Sunday routine, maybe more of a ritual, is as such:

1. I head to Jean-Talon and have a solo lunch in one of the neighbourhood鈥檚 Vietnamese spots (either a banh mi or pho).
2. I go to Jean-Talon market for fruit, vegetables, meat, and seafood, from people who care about their craft and believe in their products.
3. I carry my bags down St-Laurent boulevard towards my home in the Mile End, and I always stop at Caffe Italia, and take a seat at the bar for a coffee, and to soak up the atmosphere.
4. Once back in the plateau, I sit at Parc Lahaie or Square St-Louis and I either watch the world go by or read a book.

3 must-see symbols?

• No site better represents Montr茅al鈥檚 memory than . You find , Montr茅al鈥檚 first public artwork ( honouring British Naval Conquest), and the , a counter-memorial feature intended to contest Nelson鈥檚 presence. This shows us the layers of history in Montr茅al, but also shows how public space and monuments are objects of political conflict, as well as subjects of our imaginations.
• and next door鈥� Disgraced monuments, monuments to colonial warfare, a statue of a with no link to Canada, a statue a Francophone Prime Minister (), and then extensive . There is also a cannon from Sebastopol, Crimea that was given by Queen Victoria. This site is fascinating, and it encapsulates Canada鈥檚 nationalism oh so well. This site is radioactive in terms of politics, memory, and conflict.
• : a reminder to Canada鈥檚 persisting submission to the British Crown. Colonialism is alive in Canada, and Victoria is an epitome of this.

Favorite neighbourhoods?

• Little Italy!
• Plateau-Mont-Royal, more specifically the Mile End.
• Promenade Wellington in Verdun. Imagine a fully pedestrian street year-round. Beautiful. Fingers crossed.

References on public memory, counter-public memory and community based participatory research:

• Young, J. (1992). 鈥溾��. Critical Inquiry 18, no.2, 267-296.
• Stevens, Q., Franck, K., & Fazakerley, R. (2012). 鈥溾��. The Journal of Architecture 23, no.5, 718-739.
• Stevens. (2019). 鈥淒esigning for Difficulty: Agonistic Urban Design鈥�. Edited by Q. Stevens & P. Aelbrecht. . Milton Park: Routledge.
• Cento Bull, A., & Clarke, D. (2021). 鈥溾��. Constellations 28, no.2, 192-206.
• Cento Bull, A., Hansen, H., & and Colom-Gonz谩lez, F. (2022). 鈥淎gonistic Memory Revisited鈥�. Edited by Stefan, Berger. & Wult, Kansteiner. , 13-38. Palgrave Macmillan.