Since relocating to Montreal on April 24th, I have experienced several extraordinary moments. Some of the moments have taken place in the context of my securing a place to call ‘home’ and working through the details with the building managers.
What a journey of cross-cultural communication, as I navigate gendered and culturally laced modes of engagement. For example, upon moving in, I had a few repair concerns in my new space, and when I approached the Superintendent, he decided that yelling and rudeness would be his approach dejour aka his customer service.
After much, back and forth, I had to remind the building superintendent and management team that I was paying for a service and the basic right to have liveable dwellings without inappropriate behaviour, disrespectful conversations, and being yelled at when making a request to have a maintenance problem addressed.
The example, I briefly laid out above was resolved after I emailed a strongly worded letter along with photographs of my rotten balcony and a few well thought out references to the “Régie du logement et les dispositions du Code civil du Québec.”
After these experiences, I reflected on my understanding of customer service, and the implications of gender/culture on how each person perceived each exchange.
Other extraordinary moments, included sharing space and time with two lovely children and their mum. In addition, being asked by the 5 year old, the connection between several of my sketches and paintings, and why the similarities existed. The questions I was asked perplexed me and challenged me to think beyond my general artist explanations. I had to take the time to think through with clarity what my intentions were when I created each image, and subsequently, what I had taken for granted about what the ‘viewer’ may see, feel, or understand about my work.
Ironically, it has been within these extraordinary moments, I have been able to gather the threads of my imagination and creative spirit, and continue to move my communication processes forward to generate spaces for ‘new’ conversations/dialogues to occur.
