A Typographic Tribute Honors the Residents and Neighbors of a Now-Demolished House in Sainte-Marie
All photographs © Paprika, shared with permission
For 5 days in November 2020, a home in Sainte-Marie, Québec, recognized all of its residents and neighbors on Saint Louis Avenue. Antoine Audet, Maude Faucher, James Audet… the listing included a whole bunch of names inked on strips of white paper and pasted to the clapboards.
The ephemeral design was the challenge of Louis Gagnon, inventive director of the Montréal-based studio Paprika who lived in the home as a baby and needed to honor its tenants and buddies earlier than it was demolished. Again in 2019, major flooding swamped the town, and the federal government required that probably the most broken residences be razed. 283 Saint Louis was certainly one of practically 60 to be torn down that summer time.
On the time, 93-year-old Béatrice Vachon had been residing in the home for practically seven a long time. “She hoped to spend her twilight years on the identical handle,” the studio mentioned. “Sainte-Marie is the form of tight-knit group the place everybody is aware of everybody, from one era to the subsequent. Right here, neighbors noticed kids being born and rising up; and neighbors serving to one another was merely a typical observe. Only a few folks have ever walked away.”
As the town ready for such life-altering change, Gagnon reached out to his sisters to assist keep in mind former residents, frequent guests, and others with ties to the neighborhood. Earlier than printing the names, he tweaked an present font to mirror the ornamental architectural particulars, and most of the letters function curved prospers with higher factors evocative of these on the entrance porch columns.
One picture of 283 Saint-Louis simply earlier than it was leveled reveals Vachon standing outdoors her house plastered with the typographic tribute. “As darkness arrives, the home stands earlier than its imminent destruction, bearing witness to a lifetime of tales and recollections,” Gagnon mentioned. “A final hommage. An act of resilience.”
For extra photographs and video from the demolition web site, go to Paprika’s Behance.
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