The Hidden Life of Monuments: Reflections from the Lost Stories Project

Abstract

SINCE 2012 I HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH historians, educators, artists, and filmmakers to develop the Lost Stories Project, which seeks from the public little-known stories from the Canadian past, gives these stories to artists who transform them into inexpensive pieces of public art on appropriate sites, and documents the artists’ creative process through the production of short films.1 When I came up with the concept for the project it was largely in the context of my own research over the past 15 years, which had explored the public representation of the past in both Quebec and Atlantic Canada with a particular emphasis upon the backstory that is usually impossible for the casual observer to perceive. In the case of Quebec, I examined the public memory of Samuel de Champlain and Mgr. François de Laval, generally viewed as the founding fathers of French-speaking Quebec: one the secular father (responsible for the settlement at Quebec City) and the other the religious founder (the first Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec).2 In regards to Atlantic Canada, I focused my attention on efforts in the early 21st century to commemorate both the founding moment for Acadians – the attempt to establish a permanent settlement on Île Ste-Croix in 1604 (so four years before Quebec City) – and their moment of trauma – the deportation of the Acadians between 1755 and 1763, or what they call “le grand dérangement.”3 I learned from these projects what others have also observed: namely, that public remembrance of the past – through such tools as the construction of