Montreal | Chicoutimi | Baie St-Paul
Squat Polaire (“polar squat”) is a militant allegory based on the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It showcases a family of completely depressive polar bears reduced to living in a trailer after having lost all notion of their identity. No longer able to feed themselves as a result of the accelerated thaw of their ice caps, our bears have flown south and now live a numbing hand-to-mouth existence, moving from dump to dump and trying to raise public awareness of their plight. In the original story, Goldilocks intruded into the bears’ home, plundered everything, then ran off—just like what we have been doing with the environment for far too long... The installation unfolds like a play and the public plays its role by entering the trailer, where it is guided by an audio tour through this modern-day Goldilocks tale, at once dreamlike and informative. Inside the trailer, one sees the extent of the damages, the signs of a dissolute lifestyle analogous to the state of our planet; the image of the bears on all the items bears witness to our exploitation of them. A screen features instructional videos and a PowerPoint presentation on the general status of the situation; as well, an assortment of documentation is available to the public.
slideshow
Political activism is also on the agenda, by way of an activity called Ouvre ta boîte (“open your box”). The public is invited to create postcards out of cereal boxes, biscuit boxes, and the like, previously recovered from communities, and to write a message urging the Government to cease running away like Goldilocks and instead take on a responsible role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming.
VIDeO