McCord Museum is celebrating its centenary with free admission for 100 days

The McCord Stewart Museum has announced that the celebrations marking the McCord Museum’s 100th anniversary will officially launch on October 13. As of this date, visitors can enjoy free admission to the McCord Museum for 100 days, thanks to the support of BMO Financial Group. The public is thus invited to visit (or revisit) Montreal’s museum of social history and its exhibitions, completely free of charge, until January 19, 2022.

To mark the Museum’s 100thanniversary, we wanted to offer Montrealers of all backgrounds and all visitors a gift. For the duration of these 100 days of free admission, our exhibitions and activities will be available to a wider audience. In addition, the Museum’s centenary is an opportunity for us to look to the future, reflect,exchange points of view and forge bonds with diverse communities while using our collection to recount history in a critical and inclusive manner,” noted Suzanne Sauvage, President and Chief Executive Officer.The McCord Museum’s 100th anniversary celebrations are being produced in collaboration with the SAQ.

Inaugurated in 1921, the McCord embodies the vision of a passionate collector, David Ross McCord, whose abiding wish was to shed light on the history and cultures of his country and thus bring its people together. Administered by McGill University when it first opened, the McCord Museum became a self-governing, private museum with an independent board of trustees in 1987, thanks to the generous support of the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation. Initially housed in “Dilcoosha,” a building belonging to McGill University, the McCord went on to occupy several locales before moving to its current location on Sherbrooke Street West in 1971. After being closed for three years to undergo a major expansion, the Museum reopened in 1993. Since then, it has mounted numerous exhibitions, including the highly popular Montreal, That’s Hockey,Wearing Our Identity:The First Peoples Collection, Notman: Visionary Photographer and Fashioning Expo 67. In the past decade or so, the Museum has merged with both the Stewart Museum and the Fashion Museum, working to preserve,restore, catalogue and disseminate their respective collections. As Montreal’s social history museum, the McCord Museum has constantly adapted to the society in which it operates, most notably engaging in a process of indigenization and decolonization.

“Though celebrating its centenary, the Museum is more contemporary than ever. This landmark anniversary is enabling it to not only continue, but accelerate the pace of its decolonization process to become more relevant to all Montrealers and reflect the concerns of visitors of all backgrounds,” stated Ghislain Picard, Chair of the McCord Stewart Museum Board of Trustees and Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador.

MUST-SEE EXHIBITIONS

INDIGENOUS VOICES OF TODAY: KNOWLEDGE, TRAUMA, RESILIENCE
The Museum’s new permanent exhibition bears witness to the still unrecognized knowledge of Indigenous peoples as well as the deep wounds they carry and their incredible resilience. The exhibition presents visitors with about one hundred objects accompanied by numerous personal stories, which enable them to learn more about the reality experienced by members of Indigenous nations.

EXQUISITE SCORE
Until February 27, 2022
This exhibition, presented as part of the MOMENTA Biennale de l’image, invites visitors to immerse themselves in a world that blends the sounds of Laura Ortman, a musician of White Mountain Apache descent living in New York, with the images of Caroline Monnet, an artist of Anishinaabe and French heritage who lives in Montreal. They present the installation From My House To Yours, the result of correspondence from their respective homes in Montreal and New York over several months.

CHAPLEAU, PROFESSION: CARTOONIST
Until January 9, 2022
With his incisive pen and devilishly sharp strokes, Chapleau shows us the hilarious side of Quebec society.Politicians, celebrities and other public figures—everyone is fair game for the Montreal cartoonist’s scathing humour. The exhibition, which includes more than 150 cartoons, sketches and original illustrations, reveals new facets of this multidisciplinary artist. With the focus inevitably on satire, the exhibition looks back at 50 years of Quebec popular culture and current affairs.

www.musee-mccord.qc.ca

To visit the Museum, people must first reserve a spot by purchasing a ticket online, even though these tickets are free of charge for 100 days as of October 13. While Quebec’s vaccination passport is not currently required to visit the Museum’s exhibitions, it must be presented, along with photo ID, by those ages 13 and up who wish to take part in cultural activities held in the Theatre.