As a rising fourth year student in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Literature and the Arts, I was fortunate to spend my summer interning at the Laboratory of Urban Culture through the Arts Internship Office at McGill. My goals in completing this internship were not to receive course credit, but rather to more fully acquaint myself with the artistic culture of Montreal, as well as achieve a greater understanding of the transfer of that culture among generations.
The Laboratory of Urban Culture is a research project from McGill’s Institute of Health and Social Policy. It operates in Little Burgundy and across Montreal’s Southwestern neighborhoods. Its mission is to offer artistic programming, workshops, and exposure to those historically underserved communities.
My responsibilities as an intern included managing day-to-day operations of workshops and events, the coordination of several end-of-term shows and exhibitions, and administrative duties as we produced workshops across the Quartiers du Canal. Some highlights of my internship include learning about the Southwest’s contributions to the Montreal digital soundscape and gaining a broad knowledge of the artists who work in and out of Little Burgundy and Pointe Saint Charles.
This internship has given me an awareness of the realities of non-profit artistic work. While incredibly rewarding, this work is often hampered by bureaucratic hoops and underfunding. I recognize my incredible privilege and wholeheartedly thank the Faculty of Arts Internship Award and Dean Antonia Maioni for the grant which has permitted me to dedicate my summer to my work at the Laboratory of Urban Culture. Without the grant, I would not have been able to gain exposure to the non-profit art world, and I am very grateful for the experience it gave me.
The funds from the grant allowed me to live, quite frankly, and carry out the work of offering artistic programming to communities who otherwise would have been starved for it. Our workshops at Bâtiment 7 were often very fruitful exchanges of ideas and ways of thinking. Additionally, being afforded the opportunity to escape from “the McGill bubble” gravely changed the relationship I have with Montreal and with Montrealers.
