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Going To, Making Do, Passing Just the Same: exploring attachment to territory

The Other Side of the Fence: Racialized Geographies and Gestures of Reappropriation is the first of a series of events  

The Other Side of the Fence: Racialized Geographies and Gestures of Reappropriation took place on Nov. 8. The half-day seminar was hosted by Suzy Basile, Rémy-Paulin Twahirwa, and Nayla Naoufal, as part of the exhibition Going To, Making Do, Passing Just the Same, which is currently postponed due to government restrictions.

Curated by Edith Brunette and Francois Lemieux, Going To, Making Do, Passing Just the Same will be exhibited at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, located inside Concordia’s J.W. McConnell Building. 

Basile is from the Atikamekw community of Wemotaci Quebec and is a teacher at the School of Indigenous Studies at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT).

Twahirwa is a community organizer and a Ph.D. student at the London School of Economics, who has gained expertise in issues related to discrimination, racism, and socio-economic inequalities and has been involved in social justice causes, such as human rights, particularly those of (im)migrants and refugees.

Naoufal was born in Beirut and is based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Naoufal is a cultural worker, art writer and independent researcher. She is a member of the Centre de recherche en éducation et formation relatives à l’environnement et l’écocitoyenneté at UQAM. Naoufal works with Indigenous artists in Quebec, Canada, and the world, and particularly artists and collectives working with environmental concepts and practices.

The Other Side of the Fence: Racialized Geographies and Gestures of Reappropriation was initially organized to be a live panel. Due to the pandemic, it had to be moved online.

The panel reflects on the upcoming exhibition and the conditions of people’s existence on what is currently known as Canadian territory.

Brunette and Lemieux want to explore the connection of land to people, specifically how land has been modified and damaged for many years due to society’s colonialist and capitalist ways of living. Themes such as the sense of belonging and the connection created with a certain territory as well will be discussed.

The panel focused on environmental racism and its relation to population displacements, the notion of territory, and the attachment that people feel to the land. It also pointed out the realities that Indigenous and other racialized people have been living in relation to the land, such as environmental racism, political dispossession, and mass incarceration.

Guests speakers also touched on subjects such as the resistance from Indigenous and racialized people that has been expressed throughout the years against dispossession, a person or a group of people being deprived of their land or property.

Two other events will be presented either online or on site, depending on future government restrictions. The events include a presentation of the performance Le Fil des jours by researcher and choreographer Catherine Lavoie-Marcus on the semi-abandoned grounds of the Royal Victoria Hospital and a discussion with Marisa Berry-Méndez, a researcher and writer who has expertise in immigration and settlement issues.

Going To, Making Do, Passing Just the Same remains postponed until further notice, and The Other Side of the Fence: Racialized Geographies and Gestures of Reappropriation will be available online. 

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Cinémania 2020: Three highlights

Cinémania 2020: Three highlights to discover before the festival ends on Nov. 22

The transition of film festivals to the online world remains a good opportunity to discov er exclusive auteur cinema and offers a change from the usual Netflix suggestions. It also, however, comes with its own challenges. For instance, there are often too many films to choose from, and they are often only available for a limited time.

I therefore embarked on a Cinémania marathon these last few days to help you choose some of the best francophone films the festival has to offer, and maybe save you some time as the festival approaches its end on Nov. 22!

Louis Bélanger: A retrospective

Louis Bélanger is one of Quebec’s most prolific directors, but he, unfortunately, remains  unknown to young audiences. Though he made some of his most acclaimed works in the 1990s and early 2000s, he remains active today, exploring many different themes and genres.

Cinémania is presenting a special retrospective of the director’s career, including his most celebrated fiction films; his lesser known, but still interesting, documentaries; and a special masterclass by Bélanger himself.

The festival has also produced its own documentary about the filmmaker. Directed by Kalina Bertin (Manic, 2017), Louis Bélanger : Portrait du cinéaste québécois traces the director’s journey from making experimental short films in the 1990s to directing big-budget comedy features more recently. It is available online for free, on the festival’s website.

Additionally, Post Mortem (1999) might just be Bélanger’s best film. Blending magical realism and a typical Québécois family drama setting, it tells the poetic story of a single mother’s resurrection in the most unusual circumstances. While the film only had one online showing last week at Cinémania, it remains available on various streaming platforms, and is a must-watch to understand Québécois cinema of the 1990s.

However, other interesting Bélanger films are still up for grabs on Cinémania’s website. I particularly recommend Lauzon Lauzonne (2001), a documentary about filmmaker Jean-Claude Lauzon (Léolo, 1992), and Les 14 définitions de la pluie (1992), a beautiful short film about two men who embark on an existential journey in the Quebec wilderness.

Si le vent tombe, by Nora Martirosyan (Feature Image)

Si le vent tombe is Martirosyan’s first short film, but it exudes great wisdom and finesse, most notably through its impeccable cinematography. It depicts the life-changing trip of Alain (Grégoire Colin), an engineer, who travels to Nagorno-Karabakh, a small self-proclaimed republic in Caucasus, to help reopen their airport.

As a France-Belgium-Armenia co-production that was selected at the latest Cannes festival, Si le vent tombe is a beautiful gateway to discover international contemporary francophone cinema.

Été 85 by François Ozon

Été 85 is not the most believable story, and sometimes resorts to clichés, but remains a compelling coming-of-age film. It could even be argued that Ozon assumes and accepts his clichés and plays with a classic rom-com narrative and 80s queer aesthetics to enhance his storytelling.

Depicting a tragic story of grief and jealousy, Été 85 remains a fun way to become acquainted by Ozon’s style, and to discover what makes him one of the most popular French directors today.

The entire programming is available here. It costs $8 per individual film, or $65 for the entire online selection. 

Also make sure to consult Cinémania’s online schedule, as most films are only available within specific 48 hour time slots.

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Cinetrii merges computer science and film

Your next movie night is about to get a whole lot more interesting

Movie recommendation websites and generator apps rarely produce satisfying results. For the most part, the films recommended either share the exact same cast or are way too similar to be exciting. Well, most recommendation websites.

Cinetrii is designed to establish connections between films. These connections can be anything from recurring themes, motifs, explicit references, and homages. It’s simple interface is easy to use and each search yields a multitude of results.

“The results range from profound to quite spurious, but for certain films with rich discourse surrounding them it works pretty well,” says Nils Everling, creator and founder of Cinetrii. “For example, I am a fan of Michelangelo Antonioni who made a string of great films in the 60s and 70s. Through Cinetrii I found Burning by Chang-dong Lee since critics had compared it to L’Avventura.”

Everling got the idea for Cinetrii after watching a YouTube video wherein the narrator discussed the importance of understanding the lineage and history of art, in all its different forms.

“The subject of the video was a Rihanna song, but it got me interested in exploring the “lineage” of cinema in some way as I’m more of a film nerd,” says Everling. “I was studying computer science at the time, so I thought to apply natural language processing to movie reviews and see what insights could be gained from it.”

While most film recommendations are based on popularity, likes, and ratings, Cinetrii’s algorithm analyzes written critic reviews for a given film; it can recommend works that have been influenced by it and works that have influenced it.

In regards to traditional recommendations systems, Everling says, “While the results can be more consistent, they usually exhibit a strong bias toward the most popular movies, stuff everyone has already seen.”

Instead of recommending popular box-office films, Cinetrii looks for mentions of other films in reviews of a particular film and tries to evaluate whether the mention is interesting, explains Everling.

For example, a search for Taxi Driver will yield The Assassination of Richard Nixon, among others, both old and new. The recommendation links to a 2004 review stating that “The character [of Richard Nixon] is based on a real person and true events which also may have been the inspiration for the similarly named Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.”

“Two films with intersecting casts are unlikely to make up an interesting connection, a connection will score higher if multiple critics establish it, and so on,” says Everling. “Under the hood there are a sequence of technical problems that have to be solved, like finding reviews, determining which parts of a web page constitute a review of a particular film and resolving references to other films.”

Since finishing his studies in computer science, Everling employs data science in other, less artistic, ways. Cinetrii remains his creative pass time.

“There is plenty to do within Cinetrii still, such as improving the coverage of international films and reviews in other languages,” says Everling, adding that he is in the process of updating the Cinetrii algorithm. “I maintain Cinetrii because I use it myself and it may be of interest to others.”

Everling encourages viewers to reach out via Facebook to let him know if their favourite movie is missing.

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Subversive strength: Alice Munro’s confident, unassuming prose

Alice Munro writes without a trace of didacticism or judgement

A lot has been said about Alice Munro. Her writing: incisive, intuitive and economic. Her voice: ineffably poised — on paper and on camera, on the rare occasions this reclusive writer offers interviewers a piece of her mind. Yet, some have remained skeptical of the richness of possibilities offered by Munro’s narratives, real and fictitious.

Perhaps, in the end, Munro’s stoicism in the face of all these assumptions is her most lasting legacy. 

When she first won the Nobel Prize in literature seven years ago, reactions from the literary community were mixed. Many were agape at how Munro, with her outmoded, interior backdrops, conventionally feminine characters and preferred short story format (which is often considered a diminutive of the novel) managed to secure a win from the Swedish Academy.

If Munro was aware of any incoming controversy, she seemed unsurprisingly nonplussed: “Well, I don’t care what they feel as long as they enjoy reading the book,” she said, when asked by the Academy if she feels she had inspired writers — women, particularly — with her win.

Her habit of being coy —  showing rather than telling —  naturally lent itself to the question of feminism, where Munro remained similarly noncommittal. Her answers on the movement have continued to waver over the years. She remains steadfast, however, to the definition of her writing as a product of intuition — a desire to illustrate her visions of girl and womanhood, rather than expressing a concerted effort to follow political theory.

Maybe what is most feminist and remarkable about Munro, then, is exactly this ability to draw out the hidden agency of characters in circumstances of disadvantage. Marlene Goldman, a literary scholar who has written extensively on Munro, said of the twists and turns in the architecture of her narratives: “Munro’s stories don’t promote the view that we’ll live happily ever after. Instead, they insist that life is full of radical, shocking, sometimes supernatural transformations.”

Munro’s canon is indeed stuffed with transformations. Rather than settling characters in their positions of poverty or pitifulness, Munro renegotiates their power without making that human hunger — a reckless reach for freedom — a revolutionary act. Each human impulse is treated with compassion and empathy, as a simple fact of life.

On the inspiration front, she isn’t doing too badly either, despite previously apparent nonchalance. Sonja Larsen, who won the 2017 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction for Red Star Tattoo: My Life as a Girl Revolutionary, said reading Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women in her early twenties was a formative experience for her.

“She had people who were vulnerable and underdogs, but also not without their own power,” Larsen says. “The women were oppressed, but not powerless. That was eye-opening to me.”

The portrayal of human beings as neither victims nor perpetrators is something Munro does masterfully, added Larsen. Munro’s ability to craft prose that is simple but emotionally impactful has remained with her as she progressed in her own career as a writer.

Larsen’s sentiment will resonate with many Munro fans. And to those who continue dismissing Munro’s proficiency, her catalogue of award-winning books persists, as she did, in quiet defiance of all who belittled her ability to make the small meaningful.

 

Visuals by Laura Douglas.

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Korean Film Festival Canada is now open to the public

Eunhee tries to find her place in her family, in which all members struggle with their own personal issues.

Shedding light on the works of women directors from Korea

The 7th edition of the Korean Film Festival Canada (KFFC) is here. It has selected distinctive works from entirely female, Korean directors, including feature films, shorts, and documentaries from Korea, as well as films from Korean-Canadian directors.

The online festival features unique and compelling stories that highlight the theme Narratives Beyond Borders: The Korean New Wave Cinema by Women Directors (1950-2020, Series I).

The KFFC is a non-profit cultural organization in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang (Montreal) founded in 1996 that presents works by emerging and established Koreans and/or Korean-Canadians in film, media, and digital arts.

The film festival’s mandate is to create a cultural exchange between Korea and Canada, but also bridge audiences from around the world to engage with Korean film and media.

The festival is taking place online, giving the public the opportunity to watch the many feature works. KFFC 2020 offers single tickets for $4.50 and a full pass to watch the entire catalog of films for only $9.50. The audience can see a movie of their choice or have access to the full selection.

Now, what to watch? Here are some recommendations:  

For instance, The Recorder Exam (2011), directed by Bora Kim, tells the story of nine-year-old Eunhee who is anxiously preparing for her recorder exam as she tries to find her place in her family, in which all members struggle with their own personal issues. The film is only 29 minutes long, but it is sincere and there’s a sense of comfort found in Eunhee’s character.There is a great presence of love even when it isn’t shown properly. Simply sad, yet beautiful.

I’ll Be Seeing Her: Women in Korean Cinema (2003) by So Young Kim is captivating film footage of the energetic world of South Korean cinema from the 1950s to early 2000s, highlighting the importance of womens’ presence in cinema and reconstructing the history of Korean cinema. Actresses such as Eun-hee Choi who has played in My Mother and Her Guest (1961) and Jung-hee Yun from Mist (1967) are voices heard in the film, sharing their perspectives of women in the cinema.

Another poignant film to see is A French Woman (2019) directed by Hee-Jung Kim that tells the story of Mira, a 40-year-old woman who visits her native Korea after 20 years of living in France —  following her divorce with her French husband who cheated with a younger Korean woman. When she arrives in Korea, Mira meets up with her old friends at a bar. When she goes to the bathroom and returns to her friends, time has reversed by 20 years.

The movie explores Mira’s sense of being torn between two places: France, which was at one time a foreign place to her, and her native Korea, which feels foreign to her now. Mira seems to struggle with her present life, as she relives moments of her past.

The works of these women directors are exceptional and depict different aspects of Korean society from their own perspective. These are only a few of the many remarkable films presented by the film festival.

The KFFC also presents ART-Talks, a small conference created to discuss the perspectives of women filmmakers, sharing their accomplishments and stories. Directors, artists, film critics, and researchers will discuss their thoughts and research on the topic of “Perspectives of Women in Film” in a series of short videos that are now available online.

All proceeds will be donated to art and women’s film organizations in Quebec and Korea to support artists during the pandemic.

Films are available to watch until Nov. 29. Tickets are sold exclusively online.

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Tiktok’s Ratatouille musical scurries into hearts worldwide

A Ratatarticle about TikTok’s Ratatousical

There are few things that are better than the TikTok theatre community coming together to turn Ratatouille into a musical.

Ratatouille, the 2007 animated film, follows the story of Remy, a very personable rat, who finds his way into a declining French restaurant and dazzles critics with his cooking prowess. Naturally, he can’t be seen as the chef; therefore, he enlists the help of Alfredo Linguini, a gangly dish boy desperate to keep his job at the restaurant. Remy (consensually) controls Linguini’s movements by tugging on specific strains of his hair and cooks up a storm. It’s safe to say that it’s a masterpiece.

Even before talks of a musical, Ratatouille was considered by many as one of the most meme-able movies, and was popular on TikTok and other social media sites for that reason. Its vibrant characters and dramatic plot, however, make it a lively story to adapt for the theatre.

The idea for the Ratatouille TikTok Musical didn’t just happen overnight. Em Jaccs, a TikTok content creator known for her musical numbers, posted a video on Aug. 10 of an original song based on the movie.

Quickly, the video gained traction and reached other people who thought that this musical was rat up their alley. For example, Daniel J. Mertzlufft, a composer and arranger on TikTok, saw Jaccs’ acapella song and added orchestration and an ensemble, giving it the full musical theatre effect.

More and more of theatre TikTok creators became enthralled with the nostalgic thought of a Ratatouille musical, affectionately known by some as the Ratatousical. They’ve been using Mertzlufft’s audio to come up with choreography, which others have been dueting with their own vocals. Some have begun writing their own original songs and even designing sets and playbills for this show.

While extremely entertaining, these videos were simply blessing For You pages worldwide without any clear direction.

That is until someone called Josh Abram rectified this problem by creating a TikTok account called @RatatouilleMusical.

At the time that this was written, the account had already garnered 75.6 thousand followers and 186.6 thousand likes. On Oct. 26, Abram’s first video was posted, calling actors, singers, tech designers, musicals, composers, songwriters, choreographers and dancers to come together to make this dream a reality.

“I don’t know how we’re going to do this, but we’re going to do it,” Abram says, urging people to email him with original art, dance, song and design.

The next day, an update video was posted, thanking creators for their overwhelming support. Abram explained that the first round of auditions will be held on TikTok, but further details would be announced shortly.

A week later, on Nov. 3, an FAQ video was uploaded to @RatatouilleMusical. It starts with a screen recording of the many emails the team has received and explains that they’re doing their best to respond as quickly as possible.

Abram says that in order to become involved, creators should show their work by tagging the account in their videos and emailing in their portfolios. It’s also specified that this is purely a “passion project” and that the Ratatouille TikTok musical has no affiliation with Pixar or Disney. As for how it’s going to work, they’ve decided that their first goal is to create a concept album and then expand the project to create a full virtual production.

I think considering everything that’s going on, it’s a really fun thing to be focusing on,” says Aleah, a first-year student in Concordia’s Acting for Theatre program who prefers not to disclose her last name.

Vassiliki Gicopoulos, a third-year Dawson Theatre student, says that she “laughed” upon hearing about the musical, but echoes Aleah’s sentiments that “it’s just a really cool way to unite people throughout the pandemic, because there’s not a lot of art going on.”

Lisa Rubin, the artistic and executive director at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, finds this project “impressive and entertaining.” She commends the TikTok creators for “the speed at which they seem to be able to turn out such unique content in such short little bursts, and also their talent, their vocal ability, and their writing ability.”

Using TikTok as a platform for the Ratatousical also renders the show more accessible. Aleah recalls that in order to watch the Mean Girls musical, she had to watch a “bootleg” version recorded on YouTube. She says that “something like this is great” because it allows everyone to enjoy it.

Even more than that, people are coming together from all corners of the world to create and watch the musical together. In this way, TikTok’s Ratatouille musical “shows that the theatre community is a community,” according to Rubin.

Collective creation within the arts is not a new phenomenon, however. Melanie Thompson, communications manager at the Segal Centre, remembers a time when Weezer crowd sourced one of their CDs on YouTube. Nonetheless, she explains that the “resources that TikTok gives you and the medium of it allows you to do so much more.”

Therefore, Ratatouille’s “anyone can cook!” philosophy is echoed in the birth of the musical on TikTok — anyone can, and should, partake!

Anyone interested in contributing can email Josh Abram at ratatouillethetiktokmusical@gmail.com.

 

Visuals by @the.beta.lab

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“Richest programming of its history” at Cinémania 2020

À travers les murs, by Larissa Corriveau (Canada), is one of the short films selected at Cinémania this year.

The francophone film festival will be held entirely online and available across Canada

Against all odds, this year’s edition of Cinémania is set to begin with great optimism. From Nov. 4 to 22, Canada’s largest film festival dedicated to francophone cinema is presenting its most ambitious programming to date — entirely online — proudly adding new features such as a short film program and homemade documentaries.

“We were simply ready,” said Guilhem Caillard, the festival’s managing director, about having to face social distancing measures in the second wave of the pandemic. “The most important aspect is that our public has access to our films, and honestly, in terms of programming, this year is the richest of the 25-year history of the festival.”

Along with other institutions in the film and performing arts industries, Cinémania was put under tremendous stress recently. Until last week, they hadn’t been able to confirm whether they would be able to show their films in theatres. When the provincial government announced that red zone restrictions would remain in effect until Nov. 23, the festival already had an online platform ready to go —  one they had been working on since last April.

In total, only eight films (out of 130) could not be moved online as their distributors didn’t allow it, but Caillard has promised that when it’s permitted, these films will come to theatres in Montreal.

Among those removed from the festival was the opening film, Aline. Directed by and starring renowned French actress Valérie Lemercier, Aline is a fictional film heavily inspired by the life of Céline Dion. The most anticipated feature of the festival, its release on both sides of the Atlantic has been postponed to an unknown later date.

Cinémania is now bigger than ever, adding short films and homemade documentaries this year.

“Opening to short films allows the festival to open up even more to emerging filmmakers, to diversity, and to more francophone countries,” said Anne de Marchis, the director of marketing and communications at Cinémania.

This year the festival adds short films to its programming for the first time ever, including more than 30 films encompassing many different genres. Most of them are from Québec, as Cinémania will also present films that were set to be shown at Regard, a short film festival in Saguenay, which was cancelled on its first day, in March, due to social distancing measures.

Another addition this year are two documentaries produced by the festival itself: a short documentary about Louis Bélanger, this year’s festival’s guest of honour, directed by Kalina Bertin (Manic, 2017), and another by Gauthier Aboudaram on the film La nuit des rois, Ivory Coast’s 2020 Oscar submission, which is also featured at the festival.

A diverse programming to discover francophone cultures worldwide.

Once again, Cinémania proves to be an eloquent testament to francophone cinema’s diversity; encompassing many genres, approaches, and themes.

“This year we observed a strong presence of Quebecois cinema, stronger than ever at the festival,” said Caillard. A good example that might interest Concordians, according to Caillard, is Maryanne Zéhil’s La face cachée du baklava, a comedy about how Lebanese people are perceived in Quebec. Also, for every ticket sold, a dollar will be donated to the Canadian Red Cross for reconstruction in Beirut.

L’État Sauvage, a feminist western and a France-Quebec coproduction, is another of Caillard’s favorites this year, “which brings out the western side of the Quebec landscapes,” he said, and depicts a French family in the midst of the American civil war.

Caillard also noted that many of his films this year — more than ever — centre around LGBTQ+ issues, allowing his audience to discover how they can be seen and portrayed around the world. Among those are A good man by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, which tells the unconventional story of a transgender man’s pregnancy, or Deux, by Filippo Meneghetti about the beautiful lesbian love story of octogenarians.

Cinémania also presents itself as a good opportunity to see some high-profile directors’ work, including films that were part of the official competition at Cannes this year, and new anticipated features such as François Ozon’s Été 85, or Cédric Klapisch’s latest, Deux moi.

The entire programming is available here. It costs $8 per individual film, or $65 for the entire online selection.

 

Photos courtesy of Cinémania.

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daphne: A space for sharing Indigenous knowledge and experience through art

An Indigenous artist-run center is set to open in January

The first Indigenous artist-run center in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang, also known as Montreal, is scheduled to open in January. This might be the city’s most exciting art news in a very long time.

The Indigenous artist-run center, to be named daphne, will exhibit contemporary First Nation, Métis, and Inuit art. The project was first conceived in late 2018, initiated by four artists: Kanien’kehá:ka artists Hannah Claus and Skawennati, and Anishinaabe artists Nadia Myre and Caroline Monnet.

Claus is a transdisciplinary artist of English and Kanien’kehá:ka heritage that applies Onkwehon:we epistemology in her artistic practice. Claus currently teaches Frameworks and Interventions of Indigenous Art Practice in Concordia’s Studio Art department Skawennati is a multimedia artist that incorporates the themes of history, future, and change in her works. Along with Jason E. Lewis, who teaches Computation Arts at Concordia, she is the co-director of a research network called Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC) that focuses on creating and investigating Indigenous virtual environments.

Myre is a visual artist who is interested in conversing about identity, politics, resilience and belonging through her art. She has many permanent exhibitions in various places such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Canada. As for Monnet, she is a multidisciplinary artist and a filmmaker. She is known for her installations and films, like her experimental film Ikwé that she presented at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009.

Lori Beavis is an art educator who will be the first director of the artist centre. Beavis is of Michi Sagiig (Mississauga) Anishinaabe and Irish-Welsh descent and is part of Hiawatha First Nation of Rice Lake, Ontario. Beavis has been curating exhibitions as an independent curator for six years.

In a recent interview, Beavis explained that the inspiration behind the artist-centre’s name comes from Anishinaabe artist Daphne Odjig, known for her pictographic style paintings. Odjig was the first First Nations woman artist to exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada, and was a feminist and an activist that helped bring an Indigenous voice into contemporary Canadian art. daphne will serve as a space to commemorate her.

Just like Odjig, Beavis and her team “intend for Centre d’art daphne to be a space for artists to find strength in community, generated through relationships with curators and audiences, and, equally significant, to participate in the art conversations that are taking place in and across borders.”

daphne will serve as a community space where Indigenous and non-Indigenous people may gather and engage in conversations with the artworks and programs that will be exhibited at the artist centre. It will invite curators, artists, and various other audiences to join in an exchange of knowledge. daphne will give the opportunity to Indigenous artists to share their knowledge and experiences.

Beavis wants to bring as many people as possible to the artist centre. The director plans to contact various Montreal organizations where Indigenous people gather. For instance, Beavis would like to get in touch with language programs in Montreal, such as Native Montreal that has a language revitalization program that offers Anishnabe, Cree, Innu, Mohawk, Inuktitut, Huron-Wendat, Atikamekw classes for adults and Inuktitut classes for children.

Beavis would be thrilled to get involved with people engaged in that program, and to bring students to daphne, as she believes hands-on experiences and handling materials enrich language learning.

Youth groups and secondary-school classes are the type of people she would love to see at the artistic centre. daphne will also serve as an educational space where the younger generations would come to learn and get involved with the works presented.

Beavis is also looking forward to facilitating a variety of activities at the artist centre such as art talks, performances and film screenings. Such activities will attract visitors to come take a look at the artist-centre and engage with the works that will be shown at the exhibition space.

“We have great plans, we are very excited about getting into the space, and having people come see our gallery and visit with us — whether or not we must wear a mask!”

Beavis and her team want to “encourage artists to become a part of [their] community. [They’re] hoping in the future to be able to create a curatorial internship so that people can learn to propose, organize, and curate exhibitions.”

As daphne already exists, the founders have created a fundraiser to furnish the exhibition space. Their fundraising goal is $20,000. So far, they have raised $9,200, demonstrating that people are supportive of the project. The team hopes to reach their goal soon and looks forward to welcoming visitors to their exhibition space.

Donations can be made to this website.

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yolk: bringing Montreal’s literary community together

yolk literary is more than just a publication

“Short. Punchy. Poignant,” says creative director Curtis McRae, when describing the name yolk. “I will say this, though: it didn’t resonate at first.”

A literary journal of non-fiction, poetry, and visual arts, yolk is a Montreal-based digital publication. They have created a multi-faceted, interactive platform where both emerging and established writers can at once be experimental and sophisticated.

“We want to take the beauty of art and translate it into a social arena where individuals can celebrate that beauty together,” says Josh Quirion, Editor-in-Chief.

Their inaugural print issue, released in September, centred around the theme “circles.” However, according to Chelsea Moore, yolk’s managing editor, further issues will not have a theme. Their intent is to release print issues biannually.

According to Alexandre Marceau, fiction editor, the idea behind the magazine originated as Marceau was digitizing Bishop University’s literary journal, The Mitre. He adds that he and his fellow literary-enthusiast friends, McRae and Sean Lee — both masthead members of yolk — were, at the time, having long discussions centered around their place in the literary timeline and what they could do to represent what their generation has to offer.

But with a multitude of digital and print literary magazines constantly surfacing within the market, what sets yolk apart from the rest?

“We’re very much our own,” says Quirion. “I prefer to think of yolk as a literary (cultural) ‘community,’ rather than a literary magazine.”

Very much their own, indeed. Their first event, Egg the Poet, yielded over 70 guests, who gathered at Gham & Dafe, a visual arts centre in Hochelaga. Audience members were invited to throw eggs at the authors and poets as they recited their works.

“Our first event proved that people want more literature — not simply to read words, but to be a part of them — to read, listen, throw eggs, shout, and dance,” says Marceau.

As a result of the great reactions garnered from their first event, their goal is to make Egg the Poet a monthly reading series, once the confinement period is over.

“There’s certainly a desire in Montreal to populate ‘poetic’ spaces, and we want to create one of those spaces,” says Quirion.

In addition to creating a space for the arts and like-minded artists via events, submissions are reviewed anonymously and yolk remains committed to sharing the voices of any individual affected by structural inequality, says Lee, poetry editor and social media manager.

Submitting to journals should be a deliberate and intentional practice, says Quirion, adding that aspiring writers must note that just because a work is good, it doesn’t ultimately mean it is right for a certain publication. He notes that many very good works have been rejected because they didn’t align with yolk’s voice and resonate thematically with the kind of work they aim to curate.

“If you don’t see a space for yourself, your voice, and your art, there’s an opportunity for you to create that space on your own accord,” says Lee.

Submissions for yolk’s second issue will be opening in mid-November. Writers and artists interested in submitting work can find more information on yolk’s website.

 

Photos courtesy of yolk literary.

Categories
Arts

Art Mûr’s latest exhibitions explored the multifaceted world of sculpture

During the pandemic, we can still partake in the joys of art in-person

I entered Art Mûr searching for a break away from my two-dimensional companion for the past several  months — my screen — and let myself be immersed into the three-dimensional art of four artists. David Umemoto, Emily Jan and duo Hélène et son mari were my new companions for the next hour and a half as I wandered and wondered about their respective exhibitions and their sculptures, sculptures and sculptures.

David Umemoto’s Infrastructures are roofless edifications completely and complicatedly made in cement with dozens of stairs leading nowhere, or to the edge of somewhere. With structures complete with windows, arches and skylights facing the openness of the gallery, they all have an almost perfectly smooth finish of raw cement, that paradoxically feels as if decades of inhabitation by Escher-esque civilizations have passed. Maurits Cornelis Escher was a Dutch draftsman and graphic artist who is well-known for his mathematically inspired drawings and paradox spaces. His work has inspired the work of many artists and filmmakers, including Inception (2010). I could pin down many inspirations that come to my mind when I see Umemoto’s art pieces, but I cannot stop thinking about Ascending and Descending or Relativity, some of the lithographs where Escher reimagines architecture and reality. Each and every plinth is unique and infinite, demanding every window, door, corridor and corner to be inspected.

In my trance, the administrative director of the gallery Noémie Chevalier warmly welcomed me on a tour of the exhibitions. Leading me through Umemoto’s microcosmos, Chevalier told me about the artist’s architectural background. Umemoto, originally from Hamilton, Ontario, has a vivid interest in the passage of time, nature and human impact. This is concretely expressed in a collection of short videoclips of his sculptures being exposed to the elements, which played in a loop projected in the middle of the room.

I felt an immediate change of ambiance, from cold cement to warm jungle once we left Umemoto’s exhibition and entered Emily Jan’s The World is Bound by Secret Knots in the next room. Set at the back of Art Mûr’s ground floor, the dark green room was inhabited by magical creatures living luxuriously on vintage furniture. These hybrid mises-en-scène allowed me to slow down and better observe how they were made. As I got closer to the sculptures, made by the Californian artist who graduated from Concordia in 2014, I saw the creative use of unusual materials and textures to evoke issues of ecology and the human psyche. Jan’s creatures are sculpted using a mixture of wet felting and needle felting techniques that are evidently reminiscent of traditional methods of taxidermy. Chevalier and I stood between a snake made of stuffed fabric tangled to a branch that was emerging from an old table with a built-in sewing machine and a pair of majestic tropical birds, complete with floral feathers and a wooden shelf for a nest.

To the south of the equator’s ambiance, my guide and I climbed to the second floor to see the third and final exhibition from Quebecoise duo Hélène et son mari. Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the pastel colors predominating the space that Hélène Chouinard and Jean-Robert Drouillard jointly created. A character covered in a blanket welcomed us to Les couleurs de la terre, where many pieces of colorful ceramic emerged from faces and bodies made of wood. Each of the other human-like sculptures had their own personality and nuance. They all faced the back wall filled with dozens and dozens of ceramic bottles, handmade by Chouinard using an experimental colouring technique that incorporates the pigment directly with the clay. Closest to the stocked shelf were sculptures of twin boys, both named Leo, sculpted out of wood by Drouillard, and appeared to be painted with Chouinard’s colour palette. Chevalier led me around the floor, as she expressed her excitement for hosting the first exhibition where the name and work of Chouinard is highlighted, after years of collaborating in her husband’s shows.

As I analyzed the concentrated gaze of the sculptures towards the main piece, the thousand bottles, I rejoiced in the fact that I was finally not looking at art through a screen (although I do appreciate every opportunity to engage with art, of course). 

There’s something about the tactile world of sculpture that is so fulfilling to experience in person, rather than online. The three exhibitions closed on Saturday, Oct. 24, but remain accessible in a series of videos on Art Mûr’s YouTube channel to reach the extended virtual public.

 

Photos by Christine Beaudoin.

Categories
Arts

The Concordian staff’s top halloween movies

Bringing you our favorite spooky flicks

Halloween is almost here! But with distancing measures in place, participating in the festivities that many of us usually look forward to is no longer an option. So, cozy-up and grab a few snacks… here are The Concordian staff’s top movie picks to keep you busy on Halloween night.

Lorenza Mezzapelle, Arts Editor

Thriller and horror are my favorite genres, which made choosing a movie difficult. Finally, it came down to gore. I think that if you’re going to watch a movie on Halloween it should sort of be, well … gross. So, my pick is Carrie (1976). Blood! Telekinesis! What more do you want? Also, bullying is central to the plot which always makes for an entertaining film. If bloodshed is not what you’re looking for, then It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) is a good ol’ wholesome, festive classic.

Abigail Candelora, Copy Editor

If you’re like me, a silly little ball of anxiety who is frightened of basically everything, look no further! Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge, a Disney Channel Original Movie from 2001, follows young witch Marnie Piper and her grandmother as they race against time to save their beloved Halloweentown – and, in turn, the world! This movie really has it all: early 2000s nostalgia; generations of spunky witches; an engaging, if silly, central plot; “evil” spells that are basically just normal spells but en français; Debbie Reynolds. And for my fellow sapphics: this movie has a special place in my heart (and lesbian awakening) thanks to Gwen Piper and her button-ups. All in all, you can’t go wrong!

Louis Pavlakos, Music Editor

Out of all the places to find a gory, gut-wrenching horror series, NBC is not what I had in mind — until I started watching the disgustingly beautiful Hannibal series from Bryan Fuller. If you’ve seen The Silence of the Lambs, then you know how disturbed the cannibal Hannibal Lecter can be, and this new iteration of the beloved maniac is a whole new level of insane. Mads Mikkelsen playing the titular character is one of the finest casting choices of the 2010s and Hannibal’s chemistry with opposite Will Graham, played by Hugh Dancy, is engrossing. Hannibal lasted three amazing seasons, but was ultimately cancelled due to low viewership. That started my on-going beef with NBC since it was arguably the last time they created a good hour-long series. Thankfully, it’s available on Netflix now, so no excuses! It truly is one of the best horror series ever.

Wesley McLean, Assistant Music Editor

With so many run-of-the-mill slasher and found-footage horror movies out there, I’ve always loved the original A Nightmare on Elm Street for how truly unique it is. Having a villain that exists only in peoples’ dreams opens the movie up for a lot of creative scenes and makes Freddy Krueger completely unavoidable. Just a quick power nap on Elm Street can lead to a character’s demise. The movie also has a chilling score, and Robert Englund perfectly captures the role of Freddy Krueger. Sure, the film is pretty dated by today’s standards, but the well-balanced mix of visual horror and campy humour makes it the perfect spooky season movie.

Juliette Palin, News Editor 

Recently, I struggled to find a horror movie that was able to make my skin crawl. As a horror movie junkie in the spooky season, I have watched many horrible films that immunized me to jump scares and the typical scary stuff. But then came The Shining, which kept me up for days. The scary, gloomy scenes are beautifully shot, and the soundtrack will stick to the inside of your ears, making your whole life sound eerie for days to come. I can always appreciate a slow-paced horror film. It may take longer to get to the climax, but the anticipation just makes it a whole lot better.

Aviva Majerczyk, Commentary Editor

I am completely incapable of watching scary movies. Just a trailer or DVD cover art for a horror film can keep me awake at night. So, my Halloween film pick is less spooky and more campy: The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I first saw this movie musical at a Halloween party when I was 13, and I’ve been watching it every October since. Typically on Halloween, Rocky Horror fans would get dressed up and go to a theatre to watch a screening, complete with audience participation, but I think it’s just as fun to watch at home with friends. There is nothing more exciting than initiating a first-time viewer (or so-called “Rocky virgin”) into this cult-favourite film and watching them be simultaneously entertained and completely confused. The songs are super catchy, the characters are bizarre and iconic, and the plot is gloriously raunchy. It’s an absolute kitschy fantasy distraction, but that’s sort of what we need right now.

Chloë Lalonde, Creative Director 

I had to think about this for a while. I am a big fan of thrillers, true crime and hauntings, but not horror and gore (unless it’s oldschool). I decided to go with the first, the OG, the underrated, Interview with the Vampire, starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Kirsten Dunst. The movie is based on a novel by Anne Rice, and is absolutely iconic. It’s incredibly dramatic, features both zombies and vampires, provokes social and racial discussions, and has amazing outfits. Oh, and it’s set during the plague, so its relevance ensues. To add some more umph to this, I wanted to include a moment from the film that my best friend and I think is hilarious, but I couldn’t quite remember it, so I sent her a text, begging her to remind me: “Do you mean the part when Brad Pitt is chopping everyone?” she wrote, or maybe, “the gasoline in the coffins?” or this: *sends me a picture of Brad Pitt kissing Antonio Banderas* … Need I say more?

Katerina Barberio, Revenue Manager 

Halloween is my least favorite holiday — except for all the Kit Kats and Tootsie Rolls, of course. The thought of bats, black cats, and jack-o’-lanterns is not something that brings me much joy. I love movies but seldom do I watch scary ones. I remember one Halloween night in high school, my girlfriends wanted to watch a scary movie because it was an “excellent night for an exorcism.” Regan’s eyes in The Exorcist still haunt me to this day. I refuse to watch it again years later. I will stick to the type of scary movies I admire like Ghostbusters and pretend I love Halloween while eating Kit Kats.

Lily Cowper, Production Assistant

Because I need to get my yearly dose of Christopher Walken and refuse to watch Hairspray for the 50th time, The Dead Zone is my go-to spooky flick, about a psychic man who can predict tragedy using the power of touch. The film, based in wintery New Hampshire, has all the markers of a 1980s classic (eerie soundtrack, dramatic one-liners, and oversaturated colors), and is also incredibly picturesque. Another Stephen King adaptation, Children of the Corn, casts a similar vibe. The movie features stunning vistas of the American Midwest, where a couple driving cross-country happen upon a rural town where all of the children have been corralled by a demon to revolt by murdering all the adults. If you like corn, and you’re uncomfortable around children, you should find this film sufficient. While you’re at it, why not throw The Happening into the mix? Zooey Deschanel stars in this modern classic with ol’ Marky Mark himself. The plot follows a group of people bonded together in an apocolyptic world where all the plants have begun to release gas that triggers a person to commit suicide. Seriously, these are three of the most unsettling, cringiest films I have ever watched — make it a movie marathon if you’re in the mood for some bleak nightmaring.

Jacob Carey, Managing Editor

As a kid, I always loved going to watch horror movies in theatres. Of all the flicks I have seen, I always remember being most frightened by The Grudge and The Amityville Horror. There are some jump scares that were so perfectly executed and petrifying that I still remember them to this day (the under-the-covers scene in The Grudge and the mirror scene in Amityville, to be specific). Admittedly, nothing that’s been released in recent years stands out to me as much as these two do. Getting older has made me appreciate creepiness over a temporary jump scare in horrors. Midsommar is the most recent movie that stands out to me as a truly great horror movie, although it’s definitely more eerie than scary. In retrospect, I don’t know why my parents allowed their nine-year-old kid to watch all these terrifying and brutal slasher movies…

Maggie Morris, Head Copy Editor

I was somewhat of an adrenaline junky as a 12-year-old, and spent the summer between grades seven and eight becoming well-versed in horror movies. My girlfriends and I spent many evenings huddled up on each others’ basement couches, forcing ourselves to sit through the fear. While my love for horror films has dwindled, I still catch the occasional new fear flick in theatres. To this day, though, nothing has spooked me quite like Paranormal Activity did. I was probably one of few people on earth who actually bothered to watch the sequels — all the way up to Paranormal Activity 4, and honestly, they did get worse, but some of those jump scares have stuck with me to this day.

Lillian Roy, Editor-in-Chief 

For someone who really, really, really loves Halloween, I sure hate horror movies — too many jump scares for my frail heart to stand. While my movie pick isn’t a classic Halloween movie, it certainly has Halloween energy: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Wizards and witches? Check. Werewolves? Check. Crazed mass-murderers on the loose? Check. Freaking dementors??? Check. Teen angst? Check. Crookshanks? Check.

 

Graphic by Lily Cowper.

Categories
Arts

HEAR US NOW! supports artistic practices of BIPOC artists during COVID-19

Concordia’s Ethnocultural Art Histories Research group (EAHR) has done incredible work in creating a space to highlight the works of 20 BIPOC artists during the pandemic.

HEAR US NOW!, an exhibition presented by EAHR, displays various artworks, including installations, photography, and performances that engage with numerous topics, such as climate change, racism, and social justice activism.

According to their website, the EAHR group is a research group led by students from the Department of Art History. Since the summer of 2011, EAHR has been facilitating the possibilities of exchange and creation through various projects which aspire to provide a stimulating framework allowing problems of ethnic and cultural representation in the visual arts in Canada to be studied.

A call for submissions was announced in mid-June and closed at the end of August. As people were experiencing their first summer during the pandemic, the group decided to create an Instagram project to diffuse the works of BIPOC artists during these tumultuous and uncertain times.

Artists could submit a maximum of five artworks in any type of medium that could be posted on Instagram. After submitting the works, artists would receive a notification from the EAHR group within two weeks. Selected works would be posted every two weeks, allowing the audience to take a look at the different projects.

The works of multidisciplinary artist Jayce Salloum can be found in the online exhibition. Salloum is a grandson of Syrian immigrants and was raised in Syilx (Okanagan territory) in B.C. Salloum’s work originates from an intimate engagement of places. His works in the exhibition are from his project beyond now (2020), which are writings of texts that he selected to make sentences. On the slides, the audience can read sentences such as “racism inbred in the fabric of the constructed nation” and in smaller text “a pandemic of inequality.”

A second selection of Salloum’s work was shown recently for ISEA2020 (International Symposium on Electronic Art)’s collaborative projects with EAHR, entitled (pre)existing conditions. Salloum’s work exposes other fragments of texts such as “why does a virus have to appear to reveal how connected we all are” with a hashtag #impact_the_social or “white names our streets they’ve no claims here wrecking consciousness still stolen lands” with the hashtag #decolonize. Salloum’s text fragments are straightforward and represent ongoing social tensions.

Viewers can also appreciate the works of Cantonese visual artist Florence Yee, whose work in the exhibition focuses on Cantonese-Canadian history. Yee’s work also examines queerness, racialization, and language. Whitewashed, vinyl on plastic bag (2018) is an installation consisting of a white garment bag hung on a clothing rack with “they said I was whitewashed, but Chinese people only run dry cleaners” written on it.

In their statement, Yee describes their practice as beginning with researching historical references to Cantonese-Canadian history, and now having “moved into a more intimate, more self-doubtful examination of diasporic family respectability from a queer lens.” Using “textile installation to question the stoicism of assimilationist imperatives, by holding space for personal and intergenerational failure and cultural loss.”

As HEAR US NOW! has come to an end, EAHR has selected seven of the 20 artists to take part in a collection of new media projects with ISEA’s theme this year “Why Sentience.” This is in reference to various events that have been happening this year, such as wildfires bursting on the planet, systemic racism, and more contemporary issues.

You can check out HEAR US NOW! exhibition through the hashtag #EAHR_ISEAC2020 on Instagram and the archive on the group’s website. 

 

 

Photographs courtesy of EAHR, Jayce Salloum and Florence Yee.

Feature graphic by Lily Cowper.

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