When we consider the relationship between the real world and its representation on maps, we cannot help but notice that people tend to overestimate their shaping influence. Just because a phenomenon is represented in a very simplified form in cartography, its complexity in the real world does not diminish. And just because we erase a river, for example, from the map, even contain it and build over it in the real world, it has not disappeared. It has just become invisible.
Anna-Maria Dutoit roams the urban landscape of Montreal in search of the water veins that were once a feature of this area. Centuries of settlement and urbanization have polluted, buried, and shifted them underground. Only circling seagulls and manhole covers remind us of what lies below. Guided by some of the oldest maps of Montreal, “Vanished Past” follows the forgotten rivers of the megalopolis and explores – accompanied by a sometimes burbling, sometimes splashing soundtrack – the unique aquatic universes that unfold in its hideaways. A cursory glance may find that the element of water no longer seems to play a role in the concrete urban landscape. At least until heavy rain pours down, flooding the streets – and reminding the city of its supposedly vanished past.