Imagining the City of Festivals: Festivalization and Urban Space in Montréal Amy Alexandra Ross Macdonald Art History and Communication Studies McGill University, Montréal December 2012 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Communication Studies © Amy Alexandra Ross Macdonald 2012 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................. ii Résumé .................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... iv Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1 Spectacular Tensions: Festivals and Festivalization in Academic Literature ......... 9 Chapter 2 Image and Imaginary: The Evolution of Montréal’s Festival Landscape ............. 39 Chapter 3 Reminders, Residues, and Blurred Boundaries: The Presence of Festivals in Montréal’s Everyday Urban Life ........................... 72 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 101 References .......................................................................................................... 105 ii Abstract This thesis explores the concept of festivalization as it applies to the situation in Montréal, with particular attention to the domain of everyday life. As cities around the world find themselves pressed to respond to economic troubles by developing continuous events, festivals, and other cultural tourism attractions, scholarly examinations have begun to address this phenomenon as “festivalization.” However, many studies tend to view contemporary urban festivals as mostly overcommercialized, spectacular, and inauthentic, and by extension festivalization as an erosion of a pre-existing everyday life. In response, I argue for the importance of understanding the ways in which festivals participate in and continually construct everyday urban life, constituting an everyday dimension of festivalization. Examining the development of Montréal’s festival landscape, particularly official administrative and policy-based articulations of its urban imaginary as the “City of Festivals,” demonstrates the thoroughgoing influence of festivals upon the development of Montréal as a material and immaterial construct. Meanwhile, the placement of festival advertising and materials such as programs and posters, festivals’ use of everyday vocabularies of routine movement around the city, and the simultaneous demarcation and destabilization of festival territory through banners, signs, and digital technologies trouble the notion of festivals as separate from or corrosive of everyday life. In Montréal, festivalization involves an oscillation between the imaginary of a City of Festivals and an enduring hum of the festival fact in the city’s circulatory flows, a movement through which festivals are implicated in local conditions and terrains of negotiation. Festivalization, I suggest, might be best understood in Montréal’s case as the fact of ongoing change, imbrication, mediation, and modulation between the festival and the city such that, rather than one displacing or eroding the other, both are changed. iii Résumé Ce mémoire porte sur le concept de la « festivalization » tel qu’il s’applique à la situation de Montréal, en se concentrant sur le domaine de la vie quotidienne. Au moment où les villes à travers le monde sont contraintes de répondre aux pressions économiques par le développement continu d’événements, de festivals, et d’autres attractions de tourisme culturel, les études académiques ont commencé à aborder ce phénomène en utilisant le terme « festivalization ». Cependant, de nombreuses études tendent à considérer que les festivals urbains contemporains sont généralement hypercommercialisés, spectaculaires, et inauthentiques, et par extension la festivalization est considérée comme l’érosion d’une vie quotidienne qui existait avant ce processus. En réponse, je vise à souligner l’importance de comprendre les façons dont les festivals participent à et, d’une manière continue, construisent la vie quotidienne urbaine, ce qui constitue une dimension quotidienne de la festivalization. Une analyse du développement du paysage des festivals de Montréal—en particulier les articulations officielles et administratives, et ceux qui reposent sur les politiques urbaines, de l’imaginaire urbain de Montréal en tant que « Ville de festivals »—démontre l’influence profonde de festivals sur le développement de Montréal comme une construction matérielle et immatérielle. De plus, la localisation de publicité de festivals et celle des matériaux tels que les programmes et les affiches, l’utilisation de vocabulaires quotidiens qui régissent le mouvement de la routine urbaine, et les actions simultanées de déstabilisation et délimitation du territoire festif à travers des bannières, des enseignes, et des technologies numériques contestent la notion de festivals comme séparés de, ou même corrosifs, de la vie quotidienne. À Montréal, la festivalization implique une oscillation entre l’imaginaire d’une « Ville de festivals » et un bourdonnement constant du fait du festival dans les flux circulatoires de la ville, un mouvement par lequel les festivals sont impliqués dans les conditions et les terrains de négociations locales. Dans le cas de Montréal, je soutiens que la festivalization serait mieux comprise comme le fait continu du changement, de l’imbrication, de la médiation et de la modulation entre la ville et ses festivals tel-quels, plutôt qu’un déplacement ou une érosion de l’un à l’autre, les deux sont modifiés. iv Acknowledgements First, sincere thanks are due to my supervisor, Will Straw, for his insight, guidance, and good humour throughout this project, as well as for welcoming me into his festival-related research activities, which helped shape this project in its nascent stages. Thanks as well to Darin Barney, Carlotta Darò, Becky Lentz, and Jonathan Sterne for their engaging classes and scholarly inspiration, and to Rob Shields for his continuing support. I am very grateful to the interviewees who took the time to sit down with me and share information and observations about Montréal’s festival landscape. Their contributions have significantly improved and enriched this project. My research enjoyed the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through a Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Master's Scholarship. Additional support has been provided through research assistantships with Will Straw through the Media and Urban Life Research Team (funded by an FQRSC team grant), and with Tina Piper in the Faculty of Law. Gabrielle Dussault provided French translations of interview materials, and James Goddard and Hugues Tremblay Manigouche helped me keep my French sharp and continually improve it. Lotfi Gouigah assisted in editing my French-language abstract. Nathaniel Laywine very generously helped me complete the submission process from afar, for which he will always receive first dibs on my fresh baking. Finally, my wonderful family, friends, and loved ones have variously nudged, nourished, encouraged, reality-checked, and cheer-led me through the past two years, for which I am deeply thankful and very lucky. In particular, I am blessed to have the tireless support of my parents, Beverley Ross and Alex Macdonald. Last, I offer my loving thanks to Steven Sych for his companionship, patience, and kindness. 1 Introduction In July 2010, I moved from one festival city to another. Edmonton, Alberta, my hometown, stakes an earnest and optimistic claim to being “Canada’s Festival City.”1 Among others, it boasts North America’s oldest fringe festival, which along with its folk music festival enjoys a solid international reputation and arrives each year with a great deal of local fanfare. Nonetheless, Edmonton’s thirty-something festivals pale somewhat when set aside Montréal’s hundred- plus.2 Having participated in various festivals as an attendee, volunteer, and performer, and having seen through those experiences the ability of festivals to transform and transmit impressions of a city, I was curious about how this process operated in Montréal. Like many Canadian musicians, I was well acquainted with stories of Montréal’s artistic vibrancy, bohemian character, low cost of living, and abundant joie de vivre;3 it seemed fitting to me that the city also be known as a mecca for festivals. Living in Montréal, my curiosity increasingly piqued by the question of festivals as urban phenomena, I began to notice festival programs and pamphlets strung through the bars of wrought iron fences, lying trampled on sidewalks, wedged into mirror frames in café bathrooms, and abandoned on tables in restaurants and any number of other places. I also began to run into festivals by accident while moving around the city, whether walking, riding my bike, or taking public transit. After a time, I found this experience elicited an odd mix of surprise and indifference due to the ubiquity of festivals in the city’s central 1 “Edmonton Festival City,” Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, accessed August 25, 2012, http://www.edmonton.com/for-visitors/festival- city.aspx. 2 Except when converted to certain measures