PHOTO : MOMENT FACTORY PHOTO : MOMENT FACTORY
ANOTHER LOOK FOR THE JACQUES CARTIER BRIDGE
MULTIMEDIA SCREENS AT NEW YORK CITY ’ S MOYNIHAN TRAIN HALL
the different types of citizens passing through ; with office workers coming in every day , how do we treat it in that space ? How do we want the space to be from nine to five ? How do we want the space to be in the evenings , how do we want the space to be in on the weekends ? So obviously , in the public sphere , you want to keep it as active as possible and you want it to be as safe as possible . You want it to be “ activated ,” you want people to go there , you want people to get together and gather as a community . So , their values are very different .
We were working with one client recently , a municipality , and there was also private funding involved . And for them , what was really important was reconciliation with the Indigenous community and that was quite present in that . So , sometimes it ’ s about just activating a space , but sometimes it ’ s about storytelling . And how do you bring the community together around a story that we can tell ?
But there ’ s also the fact that these often have to cohabitate as well , because if you ’ re talking about a public space , or an urban space , there ’ s the business owners around it . There are the people that own the office buildings , there ’ s the stores , there ’ s the restaurants .
So , you ’ re dealing with the value of that public space , not only for the audience or the people walking through it , but the businesses as well , which is quite the challenge .
I would tend to say , in public spaces where projects are publicly-funded , or to a certain degree publicly-funded , there ’ s a lot of scrutiny ; people are thinking , “ These are public funds that come from our taxes .” So , there ’ s going to be another level of questioning about how the money is being used and who it ’ s serving .
So , it ’ s always a nice balance to work with different people . But I think one of the big challenges , since these are public spaces , is the “ audience .” I call it the audience , but the people transiting through these spaces , and they ’ re not paying to see a show . They ’ re the larger public that ’ s just there on a day-to-day basis . So , it ’ s a very different kind of audience .
PLP : To further explore the idea of cohabitating , what happens in a situation where , for example , a client wants to do something in a given space but another tenant in the same general area objects to it ? How do these situations work themselves out logistically ?
Catterall : I ’ d say there ’ s two aspects to that question . One is , “ Do we have the technical infrastructure ?” If you want to put in dynamic lighting , if you want to be able to program it , as well , so that it can be different things at different times of the day , or different seasons , for instance ; if you want to attract people downtown for Christmas events , it ’ s going to be different than how you ’ re going to attract them downtown for , I don ’ t know , a busker festival , right ?
So , one is technical , obviously . And because it often involves other property owners or different laws or different zoning and things like this , it gets complex , just from a logistical point of view . And if you have to install new infrastructure , you have to close the spaces down . So then , how do you redirect circulation , both cars and pedestrian ? It gets a bit complicated .
Then from a creative point of view , if I ’ m a business , and my neighbor next door is putting up a big screen or LED lighting , how do you navigate that ? It ’ s a challenge . It ’ s the challenge of living in a city and living in an urban area where you have to negotiate and you have to make sure that everybody [ is happy ], and again , if I go back to this whole notion of value , what ’ s the value for the different people ?
I ’ d say that at Moment Factory , something that we ’ ve gotten really good at is these multistakeholder projects where people have many different agendas . Some of them are political , some of them are financial , and some of them are reputational . And you do workshops and you do consultation , you make sure all the stakeholders around the table are satisfied so that you can really create something , because ultimately it ’ s not for the people that are paying for it . It ’ s for the public and for the community , so you have to keep that in mind all the time .
PLP : It ’ s fascinating to me that within this domain there seems to be an unprecedented standard of cooperation happening on so many levels . Can you give an example of one of those more highly cooperative projects ?
Catterall : Yeah ! I would say that the one of the projects that ’ s been the most challenging for us in the last few years has been the Jacques Cartier Bridge lighting . That involved the federal government , municipal government , provincial government , it involved the provincial police ; because if you have things on the bridge , and you ’ ve got traffic , how does that impact security and safety for people driving ? Then you ’ ve got environmental concerns ,
24 | Summer 2021