The COVID-AM blog is a partnership between the UMI 3157 iGLOBES and the Institut des Amériques, coordinated by François-Michel Le Tourneau, Deputy Director and Marion Magnan, researcher at the Institute. About the blog.

by Matthieu Noucher is a geographer, a CNRS researcher (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), working at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne.

by Élise Olmedo is a geographer, post-doc researcher at Corcordia University in Montréal.

One of the most noticeable changes in the center of Montreal has to do with  the reconfiguration of the means of communication. In order to propose alternatives to people who have to get around, in order to avoid the overcrowding in public transportation and be able to respect social distancing (two meters / six feet in Canada), several large multi-laned motorized roads have been split: barriers isolate the furthest right hand lane, so that it becomes a bike lane or to widen the pedestrian sidewalk. "Buy local! Buy on-line!" can be read on orange signs tied to the metal barriers on the first "health corridor" tested on Mont Royal avenue. Successfully, since the city decided on April 17 to create dozens of other pedestrian spaces, spread accross nine districts.

These arrangements and all the subtle imprints that follow in public spaces are sometimes coordinated by the authorities, but more often are the fruit of individual initiatives. In Montreal, as in many other cities today, there are more and more signs on the ground to help with social distancing close to stores selling essential products. Just like the North American storekeepers that have gotten into the habit of doing it for the past few years [1], some stores (grocery and convenience) have encroached on the public space by putting portapotties on the sidewalk, often with signs and delimited by colored tape, forcing customers to respect security distance and disinfect their hands, under the watchful eye of security guards who are often gloved and masked.

These recommendations come from local, provincial and federal authorities, but as can be seen on an ice cream shop's directional map, putting them in place is left to the discretion of the stores themselves, leading to a slew of rules sometimes excessive, and to an increase in check points inside as in outside of its space, even on public property. From the adjacent area to the inside of the store, over 12 messages are directed at the customers, on social distance and hygiene, while other directives not linked to hygiene rules are also present, such as the refusal of certain types of payment and a choice of products being sold - here ice cream flavors - which also predetermine, as usual, possible consumer choices. An employee at the entrance asks questions relating to Covid-19: "Do you have a fever? A cough? Have you been to a foreign country in the past 14 days?". It is only by respecting this route that customers can access the sales outlet, given a variable wait time. 

Ice cream store route map in a Plateau neighborhood. In color: recommendations given to visitors by means of very visible and colorful signage and notices (signs at the entrance, at the sink and at the cash register); in blue and gray: store space, in particular windows, employees present and the counter. Made by Élise Olmedo, May 2020.

Just like new music scores and dances to follow, this flood of writings directed at the inhabitants transforms - perhaps long-term - the city and its habits. Much more commandeering than usual, these urban scores, very directive, do not allow for much free will. Posted or painted on this store's floor, these brightly colored messages rythmically placed along the itinerary personify a guidance system of bodies manipulated by a new kind of writing. This writing orients the customer's attention and actions, determines and constructs a new relationship to sensitivity in stores and public spaces. Adding these arrangements also shows how the store's usual space is now secondary and how the employees' presence has become unimportant and invisibilized in these extra-ordinary layouts, totally oriented toward the customers. In some cases, outside of the official recommendations, the injunctions sometimes even veer toward an explicitly authoritarian tone, if not aggressive, as in this sexist poster at the entrance of a Mont Royal Plateau grocery store.

On top of this outporing of writings, rainbow drawings are flourishing a little bit everywhere. Accompagnied with the slogan #ÇaVaBienAller (#AllWillBeWell) and displayed in windows of houses and stores, painted or drawn by children who haven't been to school for several weeks, the rainbow colors a city that emptied itself little by little, thank the confinement. It has become an emblem of hope imported from Italy. A witness to the success of this logo, its use for commercial and institutional purposes quickly followed. So the rainbow has recenty appeared on some of Montreal city's billboards, and a number of restaurants now propose delivery and take-out menus with the rainbow "label" which seems to subrepticiously represent a token of trust...

As a contrast to the official instructions, comforting posters or advertisements showing up in public spaces during this health crisis, other written forms of isoteric graphics, often unsigned, are popping up here and there. These posters, banners and stickers discreetly stuck under bridges, on bus shelters or garbage cans, shout out demands, in a more or less poetic way, or propose a few solutions to get out of the crisis. A few of these grievances, such as universal access to healthcare or rent control, are old but the on-going pandemic has given them a new resonance. Even during confinement and despite militant pratices being disrupted, such as the ban on gatherings, public spaces are still places for alternative expressions.

The complexification of the scriptural landscape of the town during this pandemic has therefore led to a competition between institutional, commercial and militant messaging. It creates a certain saturation of injunctions and incantations of which the hegemonic presence and the impact on the body and the spirit deserve to be questionned, while other demands, barely visible in the public space, have a hard time being heard by the authorities. It remains to be seen what will also be left...in the "after world".