13 housing

real places: parc la fontaine, montréal québec darrel ronald

t he Charestville Bidonville is a protest installation in response to the funding cuts to the student loans and bursaries program of the Province of Québec. There are currently 185,000 students on strike in Québec protesting the cuts which were put into effect on March 30 2004, by Jean Charest’s Liberal Party of Quebec. After a year of diplomacy, students have now resorted to a massive strike, which has been going on for a month or so. Just this week (early April), some students have returned to school, while others continue to protest, with marches every day. This protest installation in Parc LaFontaine here in Montréal, the Charestville Bidonville , was put together by planning, landscape and architecture students about two weeks ago. They had local media coverage, an entire narrative/spectacle of ‘cutting the ribbon’ to open the shantytown, and even a press communiqué. This series of photos is by Monica Gaudet. c

Darrel Ronald is a graduating master’s architecture student at McGill, and has just won second prize in the 2005 ACSA student competition, which can be seen at www.acsa-arch.org/charrette/

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