“Today everything is environment,” proclaimed a Montreal newspaper at the beginning of the 1970s. The word “environment” had dominated the discourses and practices of artists, architects, social activists and intellectuals during the previous decade. Visitors of Expo ‘67, the event that galvanized the world’s attention on Montreal, commented the phantasmagorical presentations. Critics, including Reyner Banham and Sybil Moholy-Nagy, remarked how architectural objects and conventional spaces had been eclipsed by multimedia shows and a spectacular transit system. The Expo itself was perceived by many as a new and radical form of expanded, even extravagant, total environment.

Using diverse material on loan from several institutions and private collectors, Total Environment: Montréal, 1965-1975 traces the lasting influence of the notion of total environment created by ephemeral architecture in Montreal during the 1960s and 1970s.

Total Environment is the fourth in a series of CCA exhibitions developed in collaboration with universities.

Curators: Alessandra Ponte, Université de Montréal, with Christian Aubin, Marie-France D. Bouchard, William Leblanc, Jeanne Leblanc-Trudeau, Sophie Julien, Louis Stabile, and
Cuong Tran.
Graphic design: Sébastien Proulx, Montreal.