A Forced Reckoning: The Vivre Ensemble Memorial Commemorating the Victims of the Québec Mosque Shooting

On December 1, 2020-nearly four years after the January 29 Québec Mosque shooting-Québec City unveiled Vivre Ensemble [Living Together], a memorial to the six victims of the attack and a tribute to the more than 40 people who suffered injuries, their families, and their community. This paper analyzes the Vivre Ensemble memorial as a forced reckoning concretizing the activist mobilization of grief. Against the scaffold of community organizing and mobilizing to keep the issue of Islamophobia and its victims in the public limelight, this paper explores how the design of the Vivre Ensemble memorial interpreted and animated this grief. The text draws on an interview with the artist of the Vivre Ensemble memorial to discuss its symbolism and intended effects on the community and the city. Finally, this paper places the memorial within the ideological underpinnings of Québec City, considering specific cultural factors such as the virulent Islamophobic talk radio shows that exert significant ideological influence within the city and laws that infringe on the Muslim community's rights. It interrogates the imaginary of an inclusive Québec City, highlighting the discord between what the memorial exhibits and what it conceals.