Trying and Always Trying

I’ve been part of this landscape for 26 years, walking these streets since childhood. Now, I see the power of the physical boundaries around me. Ville Saint-Pierre is changing, especially its youth, who are shaping the future of the neighborhood.

Trying and Always Trying is a documentary project that focuses on the neighborhood of the once called Ville Saint-Pierre located on the Island of Montreal;Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyang. This area is surrounded by highways and railroad tracks. In this project, I try to express the psychological effects that those physical borders have on the young residents of this neighbourhood at a time when the area is knowing changes by the reconstruction of the 55 years old highway Échangeur Saint-Pierre.

Trying and Always Trying presents a series of photographs that is built from my personal photographic archive from the last 10 years and some found archive images of Ville Saint-Pierre. I grew up in this neighborhood for the last 26 years. I remember it being an independent city of its own when I first moved here. In this series, I play with both the past and the present to recreate the Ville Saint-Pierre that I used to know with those kids that grew up around me at the same time that I grew up around them.

Trying and Always Trying is my way to give back to this neighborhood for what it gave me; an identity and a home.