Dearly Beloved:
Important religious texts are often buried among people, and sometimes given headstones. This book is having a shiva.
On March 23, we invite you with Sonia Bazar to come pay your respects to Pathways.
Pathways is a short self-published book of art and poetry. Pathways explores the physical and emotional space of Montreal’s oldest Jewish cemetery, Back River. Over time, a neighbourhood has encompassed it. The Back River Cemetery exists in distinct contrast to the Metro station, gas station and one-star hotel that surround it. Black-and-white photos and maps ground the poems in the real world. Every cemetery contains many moments of grief.
Using the framework of Sheila Clark’s grief map, poems move through different stages of grieving while focusing on the history of the cemetery and rituals of Jewish mourning. Pathways combines the personal and historical, to create curiosity for this crumbling monument to Jewish life and death in Montreal.
This event is a part of the Museum of Jewish Montreal’s Microgrant Program for Creative or Cultural Exploration, which is funded by the Quebec Community Group Network's Community Investment Fund. We also thank Violet Bakehouse and Talk Death for their partnership.
More Information:
Dress code: Please wear black.
Copies of Pathways will be for sale for 15$ (Cash only).
A reading and short eulogy will take place at 5:30pm.
In accordance with current restrictions, this is a mask-on event. Free shiva-themed snacks will be available to take home. All food will be gluten- and dairy-free so even cousin David with the IBS, and aunt Naomi with the Celiac will be able to enjoy themselves.
Location:
Violet Bakehouse, 2009 boul. Decarie (Vendôme metro)
About Sonia:
Montreal-born and based. Sonia Bazar earned a BFA and MFA in Photography at Concordia University. Through sculpture, photography and poetry, their practice examines the notion of alien landscapes and how the body belongs to space. Their work has most recently been shown as part of a zine in “Repair Manuals and Cosmic Sounds. Self-publishing to heal the entire universe” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain.
