Koby Rogers Hall / Frédéric Biron Carmel: [P(re)]occupations – The Living archives of Occupy Montreal

October 19 – November 17, 2012
Opening on Friday October 19 at 5:30pm: Potlach!

A symbol of redistribution of wealth and barter the Potlach is a communal meal where everyone brings something to share. Bring your whole family and come hungry!

Project Description

A copresentation of The HTMlles 10: RISKY BUSINESS, this installation is the final phase of a three-part project at Skol, which included participation in the Skool summer internship program (June-July 2012) and a research residency in September 2012. Two emerging artists from Montreal share the gallery with Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle in order to create a variable environment; at once installation, motor for exchange and ground for action.

The installation is a participatory space, enabling the public to engage with the crossroads of art, activism, and media that continue to emerge from the Occupy Montreal movement. As both multidisciplinary installation and digital environment, the archives inspire relational creativity and further participants’ abilities to connect and to create extended networks of self-organizing communities.

On Saturday November 3, 10 and 17, a guest artist and/or actvist will present an intervention (performance, conversation, or workshop) and the artists Frédéric Biron Carmel and Koby Rogers Hall will be present to exchange with the public.

November 3: Collective creation of protest posters with Clément de Gaulejac et Mathieu Jack – 1pm
Diffuse and Resist 4

At a time when CLASSE is in a state of dormancy and Occupy has left La Place du peuple, Diffuse and Resist looks for new ways to use the motivating powers of the screen-printed protest poster in order to maintain underground mobilisation. We invite you to join us in the gallery to collectively conceive of and print a series of protest posters which become necessary at a moment when our sense of urgency is fading. Bring an image or a slogan, keeping in mind that these will undoubtedly be modified during the conversation.

November 10 : Social knitting or the art of knitting the links between us – 1pm

Maille à Part invites you to come knit, chat, and share your reflections on the notion of social fabric and the links that unite us. In an era where austerity politics are producing budget cuts from all sides, technocrats, politicians, and other bureaucrats continue to unravel our social net. To avoid falling through the cracks of a system that is interested in profit at whatever price, it has become necessary to knit our social struggles together. Come and reflect with us on the ideas of social links, community building, solidarity, consensual allyship…No need to know how to knit or crochet: there will be folks present who are happy to share their knowledge with you.

November 17 : Workshop / Closing Party / Book launch

Resisting the narrative of endings and the foreclosure on ideas, this ongoing collaboration between artists and allies invites you to participate in creating extended networks of self-organising communities and ongoing relational creativity during our final Saturday event. Stick around for the closing party and launch of our collective publication.

Workshop with Pascale Brunet – 1pm
Individual and collective well-being – Walking Towards Creating Sustainable Communities
Pushed by a society that is always running, too often we’re trying to be as efficient as possible while working towards social change. Another protest, an extra meeting & one more conference; we fight for social justice… until we break down and feel guilty for not being “enough”. This workshop will be a space to reflect on self-care and collective well-being, and we will share stories, ideas, and practices to create sustainable communities. It will be a moment to think about our needs surrounding those issues, as well as which strategies are already in place or could be implemented.

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Closing Night Party // Publication launch – 7pm
Will the grass grow faster if you pull on it?
Join us for a closing night party featuring the launch of our collective publication + food politics (and eating!) with La Cuisine du Peuple + projections from artist in absentia Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle (now in Barcelona) + music and more.

Keys

1. The works of Suzanne Lacy are based on research in relational aesthetics and community participation in developing, creating, and presenting works of art and the accompanying dialogue.

2. The politics of narrative and representation in the documentary Black Power Mixtape highlights the importance of participatory documentation practices in enabling protest action.

3. Out the Window is a powerful theatrical play by dramatist Liza Balkan, and The Brain is an attempt to create an online visualization of the vast reserves of information on the Web that fully exists only in the author’s mind, and to give audiences access to the open-source code where they can interact with the content of the representation before and after the representation.

4. [P(re)]Occupations website