Christeen Francis

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Christeen Francis, “The Rest and the Void” (detail), 2019

relief print on laser engraved paper, size variable (photograph by Morgan Wedderspoon)

Cities were once bastions of permanence where buildings of stone or brick stood unaltered for generations. In Warsaw, for instance, it was a shock to return to my home street after 20 years and find nothing, not even the paint or stucco cladding, had changed. It was like walking into a memory.

But for Montreal artist Christeen Francis, a screenprinter and installation artist who recently graduated with a Master’s degree from Concordia University, cities evoke something entirely different. 

Francis depicts urban sites in flux. Her exhibition, The Rest and the Void, at Edmonton’s SNAP Gallery until Nov. 16, looks at the fragility of contemporary cities amidst their ceaseless cycles of displacement and gentrification.

The sense of unease and transition is palpable. Random shards of wood – relief-printed from the chipboard sheets that sometimes wall off construction sites – overlay urban scenes. Viewers seemingly peep through a slurried haze of wood chips at digitally laser-etched photographs of the inner city. 

Urban centres are as intimate to Francis as woodlands to a hunter. She has walked and cycled through Montreal, Barcelona, Toronto and many other cities, photographing buildings. In this show, most structures are undergoing transformation: they are boarded up and surrounded by piles of bricks or overgrown derelict spaces.

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Christeen Francis, “The Rest and the Void” (detail), 2019

relief print on laser engraved paper, size variable (photograph by Morgan Wedderspoon)

Francis has strong personal connections to some works. One depicts the New York apartment where she lived for nine years before returning to Montreal. Her working-class neighbourhood, home to many people from South America, was becoming gentrified. 

Buildings with grandfathered rent controls, like the one that housed her apartment, were being renovated so owners could rent them at higher market rates. Her print shows her former balcony crammed with building materials – along with her old toilet, which had been removed by construction workers.

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Christeen Francis, “The Rest and the Void” (detail), 2019

relief print on laser engraved paper, size variable (photograph by Morgan Wedderspoon)

The show’s layout echoes the experience of walking through urban areas. One print is installed in a corner of the gallery: viewers stare between two buildings towards a vanishing point. Other images are placed at ceiling height, forcing visitors to look up. 

This scattered, asymmetrical arrangement underlies the show’s central theme. With its focus on skyrocketing rents and increased homelessness, it reflects on what is sometimes perceived as random urban change. 

Francis challenges that notion. “Who has the right to the city?” she asks. While her art offers no answers, posing the question is significant. Dialogue is a first step to improve urban housing policies and practices that can force the most vulnerable into more precarious existences. ■

The Rest and the Void is on view at the SNAP Gallery in Edmonton from Oct. 11 to Nov. 16, 2019.

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