
By Colin McGregor
A hundred years ago, the only treatment for tuberculosis was fresh air. Near La Tuque, in the Mauricie region, think of a pristine lake, unpolluted, glistening at altitude. This is Lac Édouard. Accessible by rail in 1809, the notables of the day created a little town as a TB quarantine.
As the years went on there were expansions and additions. By the 1930s, a vast hospital complex had arisen on the scene to treat wealthy tuberculosis sufferers.

Then came antibiotics, and the need for such places evaporated. Lac Édouard’s sanatorium closed its doors in 1980. Abandoned, it fell into ruin.
The great grandson of the site’s founder bought the whole thing. Each year he restores one building. To paint the facades, he organized an event with muralists. For the 3rd edition in 2022, 50 artists were at this happening to show off their talents on the buildings.
A few Café Graffiti artists were involved, including Monk.E, Korb and Audrey-Anne Néron. When they were there, the artists there constituted almost a quarter of the village’s population of 230!
The project was a hybrid between history (tuberculosis, the creation of a village to care for the wealthy) and modernity (a graffiti convention assembling artists from all over Québec).

“The owner renovates his buildings,” Monk.E explains. “He buys all the paint, pays our transport and feeds us. We work pro bono.”
“There’s a lot of history,” Korb says. “There’s a healing force thanks to the altitude.” Lac Édouard is the highest lake in the region and is not fed by any rivers, so it remains perfectly natural and clean, he explains.
“It’s almost a tradition,” says Monk.E. “These are the same artists that go every year. There’s a familial feel. Thanks to the altitude it’s peaceful and refreshing to go there.”
“Le San” includes 14 period buildings on its site, and there are now 40 murals there, some on very large surfaces. For his weekend of work, Monk.E painted “The Doors in my Community,” inspired by his time in Ouakam, a suburb of Dakar in Senegal. He visited Africa during the pandemic. Indeed, he voyaged out of Canada 11 times during the pandemic! “When you work, you respect other people’s space,” he explains. “But I wasn’t scared. That’s how I live my life!”

The scene he painted of Ouakam from photos now decorate a wall thousands of miles from Senegal.
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