Language Hotel

Wishing to preserve the link between Saint-Norbert's Art Centre (SNAC) and its past vocation as a monastic guest house attached to the former Trappist Abbey of Notre-Dame-des-Prairies, I visited the community's archives in Holland, Manitoba, where they had relocated since 1978. I spent three days at the new monastery, following the monks' prayer services and looking for historical photographs that could express the ideal of brotherly life suggested in the opening verse of Psalm 133, an excerpt used in the installation « La vie fraternelle » completed during the « Language Hotel » residency in December, 2000. The psalm excerpt is in French and Latin, both languages used by the Trappist community of St-Norbert, initially composed of monks from Abbaye de Bellefontaine in France, later joined by French-Canadian monks. Latin was the language of Roman Catholic services up to the 1960s.

A publication was produced following the residency, with essays by organizers Sheila Butler and Marie Bouchard.

~Denis Lessard

Photos : Sheila Spence