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11.10.

How does a shoppingmall become a place?

In the Galeries de la Capitale, it’s a mega shoppingmall as large as a village, you will find every known and unknown chain in the world.

And also in Place Saint-Foy, I was strolling around a mall without end; that is a place, where people don’t evenhold the door open for each other. They are the same people but the place gives their encounters another meaning. One walks straight through the mall without an aim, the place makes clear what it wants. Buy, buy, buy, don’t waste time on odds-and-ends.

In contrast, on the Escalier de Faubourg one may become unintentionally involved into conversations with strangers. For example the french-spanish speaking canadian, who asks me, where I come from and if I was going to Limoliou. Yes sure. Oh well Limoliou, he responded, as we were descending the staircase, he had lived there with his wife, before she threw him out. C’est dommage, I said, and he said, nous sommes encore des amis. We are still friends.

Places are places where you can tell your sad stories as well.

So why don’t we turn malls into real places where we can tell each other our saddest stories – even if it’s just a story about the shopping malls.