Category: Arts

Categories
Arts

Canopy: A community project foreseeing a greener society

Courtesy of Madeline Schmidt

Concordia’s Greenhouse hosts a project inspired by a utopian concept, to be presented April 22

After making your way up to the 13th floor of the Hall Building and passing through an inviting doorway, you might suddenly notice the smell of fresh soil as hoses on a “mist” setting crowd your sinuses. An overwhelming presence of life makes itself known; a sort of hidden life, perhaps. 

You’ve stumbled upon Canopy; The Hidden Life of Humans: a project that unites science with arts and crafts in pursuit of the idea that we, as humans, may one day be able to move civilization above the ground into canopies. 

Courtesy of Madeline Schmidt

Maddy Schmidt, who recently graduated from Concordia with a major in design, conceived the idea in August of last year while walking through Montreal and spotting a planter erupting with vines and other vegetation. 

At the same time, Schmidt was listening to a Radiolab podcast about copepods: small crustaceans found in various aquatic habitats, and even in above-ground ecosystems among trees. In their episode Forests On Forests, Radiolab states that about 50 per cent of all terrestrial beings live in trees.

“I saw this crazy web of vines, and they were all linking onto each other. It looks like they’re holding each other. I saw them linking onto the fence,” said Schmidt. “I saw them linking onto other plants. And I was like, there’s this completely interconnected world, it was so mind-blowing.”

The Canopy co-creator immediately called her longtime friend, first-year photography major Liliane Junod, out of inspiration. The “partners in vine” brainstormed ideas for a project honouring the concept of humans living from the top down, rather than the ground up.

Courtesy of Lilly Junod

The idea of the project is to hang all sorts of house plants, such as pothos, also known as devil’s ivy, around the Hall Building’s greenhouse. They would be linked together with grapevines and hung on trellising made from recycled materials. 

The Canopy team is gathering material from Facebook groups that are designated for sharing recycled materials, such as Creative Re-use: Ø Waste, or CRØW.

Canopy will be hosting a workshop in collaboration with Concordia Precious Plastic Project (CP3) and Concordia University’s Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR), on April 4 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.. Anyone is welcome to attend. 

CP3’s portion of the workshop will entail drawing lantern designs and learning how to transform them into illustrator outlines, which will then be cut into recycled plastic sheets with laser-cutters. 

The second part of the workshop, led by CUCCR, will focus on making arts and crafts with recycled materials, and techniques such as sculpting, drawing, painting, and printing will be taught by Concordia’s fine arts students.

“The end result of this project is going to be an exhibition where we create this magical canopy space in the greenhouse, and we’re going to include our artists from the community,” said Junod. “We’re excited to have not just people in fine arts, for whom art is their entire life, but also anybody. So we want to put forth the message that everyone can create for this.”

Courtesy of Lilly Junod

One of the Canopy team’s keywords is optimism, and their goal is to keep the community lighthearted when thinking about the environment.

“We really want this project to be as uplifting as possible,” says Schmidt. “Of course, we’re addressing tons of systemic issues, methodologies, but we’re exposing them through something much more artistic and colourful.”

The Canopy team is calling on any students from the Fine Arts, Arts and Science and JMSB faculties who are willing to lend a hand between now and the day of exhibit on April 22. 

You can visit the project’s Linktree @canopythloh for more information.

Categories
Arts Theatre

The radical importance of gigues in Quebecois culture

Courtesy Photo by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde

Pas Perdus | Documentaires Scéniques presented this year at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde

The Théâtre du Nouveau Monde presented Pas Perdus from Feb. 24 to a crowded room filled with an excited public. 

The design and direction of the play was helmed by Émile Proulx-Cloutier and written by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, who also acted as a silent narrator. 

The performance was prefaced with a short reading of the Ukrainian play A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War to commemorate the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Theatres across Montreal read excerpts to signify their solidarity with Ukrainians. The crowd was extremely moved. 

The play centers around eight characters, who seem to at first live categorically different lives, but are in fact united by their passion for dance. They are introduced within their life stories, and how dancing gigue orients their existence. 

The Quebecois gigue was inspired by Irish stepdancing upon their immigration to Canada in the late 19th century. It is a lively dance that consists of steps, the last one being more emphasized.

Courtesy Photo by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde

It is danced alone or in front of an audience, usually in a room, each dancer revealing their steps. Most Quebec gigues dances are on a two by four tempo, while some places like Outaouais dance on three by four tempo. Gigue is a staple of Quebecois culture. 

Pas Perdus was conducted in a unique fashion, as characters did not speak, while a voiceover resonated between them, composed of excerpts from a podcast series Barbeau-Lavalette had created, centering the voices of the dancers. 

The actors were merely dialoguing through the movement of their bodies. This silence plays a symbolic role in the demonstration of dance as a language, and of spoken words as only parallel to the meaning of dance. They are introduced within their life stories, and how dancing gigues orients their existence. 

Courtesy Photo by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde
Courtesy Photo by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde

Each character is introduced separately, completing their daily tasks while the voiceover explains their lives. The first character, Réal, is from a rural town and spends his time knotting a pair of snowshoes and explains how dancing is a part of who he is, while others like Odile are presented in the workspace as the voiceover explains their life path, and what brought them to dance. 

This play questions the meaning gigue has in Quebecois culture, the shame that surrounds the dance, and the risk of forgetting it as time passes. 

The play layers on the tone of humour despite difficult times.

Courtesy Photo by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde

Barbeau-Lavalette discusses themes of shame around Quebecois culture, and how it directly produces erasure. One character talks about “collecting steps,” as she meets people within the gigues community, learns their unique steps, and is thus able to carry them with her. This prevents the steps from being erased, even when the person dancing gigue dies. 

Pas Perdus is a demonstration of the adaptation of Quebec culture to modern times, noting the importance of not constraining our history to the past. Although there are fewer people dancing gigue, culture cannot be forgotten. This play is an homage to preserving culture and steering it away from erasure. 

Categories
Arts Theatre

Manikanetish: What it means to belong

Manikanetish theatre perfomance at Duceppe Theatre - Courtesy photo by Danny Taillon

See the play at Jean-Duceppe Theatre from March 8 to April 8

Manikanetish is based on Naomi Fontaine’s novel by the same name. An author and teacher, Fontaine has published four books and translated various others. Manikanetish is her second novel, published in 2017, and her most recent work Shuni was published in 2019. 

This play is set in Uashat, a small Inuit community in Northern Quebec close to Sept-Îles. 

Most scenes are set in a high school classroom as the protagonist, Yammie, recalls her beginnings as a teacher to her son. 

Manikanetish theatre perfomance at Duceppe Theatre – Courtesy photo by Danny Taillon

Manikanetish discusses the author’s life as a teacher, while centering the voices of the children she teaches. Themes of death, resilience and belonging dominate. 

The resilience of these children is notably highlighted by the death of several of their relatives throughout the story. 

Fontaine plays a central role in the play, though her character is taken on by another actress. She acts as a parallel to herself, an omniscient character, of what she wished she had said. 

Manikanetish theatre perfomance at Duceppe Theatre – Courtesy photo by Danny Taillon

Though originally from Uashat, coming home to her community, Yammie finds that she is not accepted. She only speaks a bit of Innu, and admits not wanting to speak it because of her accent. She struggles with having left the community to study, and upon returning notices that the community has changed: she does not know anyone and is not trusted. 

This is notable in a scene where one student is disgusted that the teacher does not know why one of the students is struggling because their parent is dying. The community is so small and close that everyone knows everything about everyone, and Yammie at first does not fit into that space. 

Manikanetish theatre perfomance at Duceppe Theatre – Courtesy photo by Danny Taillon

Along the play, the director parallels the past and the present: what Yammie’s life could have been and what it is not. She voices spending her nights alone drinking wine, with a partner back in Quebec City, not making any time for herself. 

The first part of the play is conducted by her sadness and not understanding why her dream of being a teacher in Uashat is not what she thought. The second part focuses on the students’ strength facing the various hardships thrown at them. 

Manikanetish theatre perfomance at Duceppe Theatre – Courtesy photo by Danny Taillon

As the play goes on, she slowly constructs a relationship with her class as they start to understand her intentions. 

For instance, when Yammie shouts at a student for sleeping in class, Fontaine’s character mirrors her and talks to the student in an understanding tone, offering a more sympathetic response. This serves as representation of what she wished she had said in those difficult moments. 

Manikanetish theatre perfomance at Duceppe Theatre – Courtesy photo by Danny Taillon

The audience gets to know six characters, their perils and their passions, their difficult upbringing in a remote town far from access to healthcare, and surrounded by discrimination. For instance, one student with a child brings up the injustice of their lack of access to proper medical care, while another speaks about the few future prospects they have because of the racism they suffer in school. 

The play concludes with united voices saying “our voices are heard,” both defying the public to question their existence and showing the strength of their resilience.  

Categories
Arts

Cinema Politica: Our Bodies are your Battlefields

Image from the Official Trailer for "Our Bodies are Your Battlefields"

The documentary Our Bodies are your Battlefields, screened by Cinema Politica, shows the lives of trans women in Argentina fighting for their rights and to be accepted

Image from the official trailer for “Our Bodies are Your Battlefields”

Cinema Politica screened the premiere of the documentary Our Bodies are your Battlefields on Monday, March 6 in the atrium of the Hall Building. Cinema Politica is a media arts non-profit which screens a selection of independent political films. The local at Concordia, active since 2004, is Cinema Politica’s longest running film showcase, attracting hundreds of people to their weekly screening throughout the semester. 

The film, written and directed by Isabelle Solas, shows the lives of trans activists Claudia and Violeta, as well as those of their compatriots, in their daily political struggle for acceptance in Argentina. Despite the reality of discrimination they face from upholders of the patriarchal society and trans-exclusionary feminists, among others, they manage to fight for political progress and form community with each other.

The films’ intimate portrayal of these women in both their activism and relationship to one another rings authentic. The different relationships these women have with their friends, families and each other demonstrates a vast diversity of trans experiences — something that is rarely shown and so often ignored. Claudia is close with her mother who supports her and her cause, whereas many other trans people were shunned or kicked out of their homes. They had to turn to sex work for survival, and have strived together for support and political activism in the community.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with two speakers, Anaïs Zeledon Montenegro and Elle Barbara, from the Action Santé Travesti(e)s et Transexuel(le)s du Québec (ASTT(e)Q), a project under CACTUS Montréal. ASSTT(e)Q is run by and for trans people, to help trans people in need of healthcare and social services. The program’s core funding is being cut in April and they are collecting donations.

Barbara shared how she related to the protagonists of the film since, prior to working at ASTT(e)Q, they were heavily involved in the grassroots project Taking What We Need which organized parties and fundraisers to give money to low-income trans feminine people in Montreal. This allowed Barbara to politicize transness. 

“That’s what transness was like to me, it is intrinsically political. And in that regard, I find the experiences depicted in the documentary are similar.”

Montenegro, who also has experience being on the streets, shared the importance of greeting people with love at ASTT(e)Q. 

“We’re trying to do our best at ASTT(e)Q to make people think that there’s hope. That’s what we talk about: hope.”

The Cinema Politica film screenings are always free with the possibility to contribute donations at the venue. Their funding also comes from the Canada Council for the Arts and membership  fees.

Upcoming Cinema Politica screenings can be found on their website. 

Categories
Ar(t)chives Arts

Love: an evening of art, song, poetry, and cocktails

Photo by Maryse Boyce

OPTIMISTA’s third event of four in a series of hope-themed cinéconferences

Love was presented by the non-profit arts and activism-centered Yellow Pad Sessions (YPS) in February at the Maison de la culture de Verdun. The event was part three of four in a unique series of hope-themed cinéconferences titled OPTIMISTA.

The evening included a live performance by vocalist and Cirque du Soleil artist Laur Fugère, and a live conference and spoken word performance from Innu poet Joséphine Bacon. It also included a screening of the feature film Je m’appelle humain and an exhibition of five oil paintings by former Concordia student Hannahleah Ledwell.

Fugère’s live music performance was spiritual, sensual, and entirely improvised. She kneeled onstage, surrounded by lit white candles and crystal bowls.

The performance began with the ringing of a bell, followed by a sigh. Each sound cut through the near-complete silence of the audience. Gradually, Fugère incorporated sounds from a rain stick, crystal singing bowls, and a flute. Her voice was ethereal and at times transcendent, ranging from soft breaths to near-sobs.

“There is something that I feel like I’m tapping into,” Fugère said. “And it makes me very emotional […] it brings me into this state of awe for being able to be a channel of what wants to come through.”

Bacon entered stage left, wearing red and white socks with no shoes. She began to read her poetry in Innu-aimun, and then in French. Her calm, earthy voice was layered over the otherworldly song of Fugère’s singing bowls, and the two women looked at one another and smiled. The intimacy of this moment was extraordinary.

“[Bacon] embodies simplicity, and she embodies the heart, and she entrains us in her world of connection,” said Fugère. “Just dancing with her words and with her eyes […] it was wonderful. I loved it.”

“Dis-moi que je suis ton au-delà, / Dis-mois que tu es mon au-delà, / toi, l’animal blessé, / tes ancêtres t’ont conduit à moi / pour me raconter les images / de tes rêves” (tell me that I am your beyond, / you, the wounded animal, / your ancestors led you to me / to show me the visions / of your dreams) Bacon recited. Even when the language could not be understood, the steady flow of the performance was compelling and had a beauty of its own.

Photo by Maryse Boyce

Fugère and Bacon were joined onstage by two Indigenous children: a boy and a girl. “Ça va?” (How are you doing?) asked Bacon. She took a seat in the middle of the stage and the children sat on either side, passing a microphone between themselves.

“Ç’est quoi, l’amour?” (What is love?) asked the girl.

“C’est son grand-père, c’est ta grand-mère. C’est ton père, ta mère, ta sœur. C’est tout le monde,” (It is his grandfather, it is your grandmother. It’s your father, your mother, your sister. It is everyone) Bacon responded. “L’amour, c’est aimer nos origines. L’amour, il est grand.” (Love is to love our origins. Love, it is great.)

The screening of Je m’appelle humain followed a brief intermission and brought with it a sense of love and hope. Directed by Abenaki filmmaker Kim O’Bomsawin, the film is a biographical piece of visual and aural poetry in exploration of Bacon’s life and raison d’être.

The film opens with a picturesque view of rock sculptures in formation along the ocean shore. “To me, poetry is intimate moments like this one,” said Bacon. “The word ‘poetry’ does not exist in Innu. I don’t think we needed the word in our language because we were poets simply by being with the land.”

Bacon writes her poetry in both Innu-aimun and French. “My dress is called lichen / My headdress is called eagle / My song is called drum / I am called human,” she recited. She spoke of the importance of preserving and knowing her language. 

“When the elders are telling a story and you understand all the words, you join them in their story and see what they’re seeing,” she said.

She dreamt about living as her elders did. She spoke about her time in the residential school system, though briefly. “It hurts to talk about it,” she said.

When she reaches the ancestral land of Papakassik, she is overcome with emotion. “I live in the present, the past of my ancestors,” she said. “This is an ancestral land. You can feel their presence […] I am free on the land of Papakassik.”

Throughout Je m’appelle humain, Bacon takes us through the lands she knows: the streets of Montreal and the Innu territories of Pessamit and Natashquan. “When we got to Montreal we were pretty much homeless,” she said.

Je m’appelle humain is at once the story of Bacon and the people she loves, and a fight against the loss of her language, culture and its traditions. The film ends with Bacon whispering her gratitude to a dead caribou she will presumably eat. “I embrace you,” she whispered. “The caribou is a nomad, just like the Innu.” What is left after the closing scene is a sense of simultaneous hope, loss, vulnerability, and strength.

Ledwell’s ongoing exhibition Anthromorphe was meditative, erotic and intimate, painting an exploration of the various forms of love. “For me, my work is all based in memory, reliving moments and going back into a kind of muscle memory. And a lot of [those moments] end up being intimate moments because those are moments where we feel a lot of complex emotion,” said Ledwell. “I go back into those moments when I’m painting. Usually blast music, dance a bit, and I think that’s what creates a lot of the movement in my paintings.”

Love is part of OPTIMISTA’s Fall 2022-Winter 2023 premiere and Yellow Pad Sessions’ latest endeavour to leverage the power of art and persuade social change. 

“OPTIMISTA is really born out of a response to the pandemic,” said executive director and co-founder of YPS Grace Sebeh Byrne. “We used to put on more traditional film festivals, but we saw that clearly there was a very big shift in perspective, generally speaking. There was a lot of hopelessness, despair.”

“We wanted it to be more of a festival of hope,” added Patrick Byrne, co-founder of YPS.

OPTIMISTA’s last event of the series, Community, took place on March 4.

Categories
Arts

Beyond mainstream media: how Léo au féminin portrays love realistically

Screenshot Léo au Féminin

First screening of the mini web-series Léo au féminin

The mini web-series Léo au féminin premiered on Feb. 21 in a full room, brimming with excited people, at La Tulipe on Papineau Ave. The evening was dedicated to featuring the first four episodes of the ten-episode web series. The series centers around the tribulations, anxieties and health concerns of a young CEGEP student named Léo and her friends. 

Co-director and screenwriter Éléonore Delvaux-Beaudoin recounted being inspired by her personal life to create this auto-fiction. She was studying in CEGEP when she  pitched the idea as a short film to her friend and classmate Catherine Quesnel. The pair decided to turn it into a mini web-series, recruiting some of their classmates and friends in the process. 

Screenshot Léo au Féminin

“We realized the strong link we had while writing,” said Quesnel. “It’s an auto-fiction we wrote together, but it’s mostly based on Éléonore’s life and I really immersed myself in her world.”

Delvaux-Beaudoin shared her experience of living with an invisible disability, something rarely portrayed in cinematography. She has several life-threatening food allergies and shared that, a few years ago, she almost died because of them. 

Screenshot Léo au Féminin

“Catherine and I also wanted to show the mental pain that comes with these invisible disabilities,” said Delvaux-Beaudoin. “We don’t realize that people with these autoimmune diseases live in a state of constant fear: a fear of eating, touching, sharing, kissing.”

The subject was treated in a subtle way, which captured its complexity with finesse despite the episodes being short. Each episode contains a sequence focused on a meal, showing the anxiety that Léo experiences around food because of her allergies. 

Screenshot Léo au Féminin

In addition to these explicit scenes, details that seem insignificant at first become more important when we notice the seriousness of the character’s allergies. Examples include when she has to remind her boyfriend to brush his teeth before kissing, or when she scrutinizes food labels.

The series also touches on queer relationships, open and non-monogamous relationships and love in all its forms. After being bombarded with classic rom-coms by Netflix during the Valentine’s Day season, this series created by young people for young people is a breath of fresh air with its very realistic and wholesome portrayal of relationships. 

Screenshot Léo au Féminin

For co-producer Lu-Sergei Denaud, showing queer relationships and queer joy on screen was an important aim in the production. They pointed out that traditional TV in Quebec rarely portrays queer stories in a good light and that Léo au féminin aimed at showing both the complexity and beauty of queerness.

“I think that this series also serves to show that we are a more open generation, that we are freeing ourselves little by little from the heteronormative confines,” said Denaud. “I find that with Léo au féminin I can finally say, and I hope that our generation will be able to say, ‘finally, I see myself’”.

Screenshot Léo au Féminin

Despite the fast pace of the mini-series format, the scenes never seem forced. While featuring the usual topics found in coming-of-age dramas, this take on youth felt refreshing. 

Set in Montreal with a cast of CEGEP students and created with a very minimal budget, the series gives a more realistic vision of transition into adulthood without falling into classic tropes of teen movies, all while maintaining a poetic fiber. 

Léo au féminin delves into Gen-Z themes beyond traditional coming-of-age stories. Léo, for instance, spends a whole dinner explaining to an older person what the LGBTQ+ acronym means, has panic attacks in her workplace or even spends $300 to adopt a cat.

The production is now working on finding a platform to host the series which will come out in a few months. You can follow Léo au féminin here.

Categories
Arts Photo Essay

Portraits of an emblematic figure of Montreal drag scene: Bambi Dextrous

Photo by Elisa Gallot

For the ninth Monday in a row, drag queen Bambi Dextrous hosted a Trivia Night at The Diving Bell Social Club on Saint-Laurent

Photo by Elisa Gallot

It is around 8:30 p.m. and The Diving Bell is full. Bambi Dextrous — a drag queen for over 10 years — has just arrived to greet the participants. As she stands next to the bar, we improvise a photoshoot before she goes on stage.

Photo by Elisa Gallot

Before the quiz begins, the drag queen likes to introduce each Trivia Monday with a traditional lip-sync performance.

Photo by Elisa Gallot

After the show, time for reflection. Our host gets ready to enumerate the questions that she tailor-makes for each quiz night.  

Photo by Elisa Gallot

Forty general knowledge questions later, Bambi Dextrous gives the audience a last performance before announcing the winning team.

Photo by Elisa Gallot

Sitting under the stage, I try to capture as many movements, facial expressions, and colours as possible.

Photo by Elisa Gallot

It is almost midnight when Trivia Night comes to an end and Bambi Dextrous invites me into the dressing room to take some final pictures. In this more intimate environment, I get to learn more about this multidisciplinary artist who combines passions for modeling, make-up, or acting in front of the camera. Beyond drag, Bambi Dextrous hopes to develop her acting career as well.

Categories
Arts

Créatique: Connecting Creative Practices and Research

On Feb. 16, the English Department of Concordia University launched Créatique, an event featuring a discussion with PhD students about their creative writing and research practices

I attended this gathering held inside the Richler Library seminar room, located in the LB Building of Concordia University. The evening’s host, professor Jason Camlot, gave me more insight into the origins and the objectives of Créatique. 

Initially, he noticed that there were a high number of talented poets who were pursuing PhDs in the English and Humanities departments. In the Creative Writing program, students study literature, so they have to explore the connection between literary creation, literary criticism and reflection.

“We thought it could be useful and interesting to have a forum where they could talk about the relationship between their creative practice and their research practice,” said Camlot.

This is an opportunity for people who are not familiar with poetry to learn more about creative processes. At each event, two research artists are invited to read from their work, reflect on it critically and explain their process of incorporating themes and concepts into their writing.

Charlotte Wetton, an AHRC-funded (Arts in Health Research Collective) PhD candidate from the University of Manchester, and Professor Alexei Perry Cox of Concordia’s English Department were the two speakers last week.

Wetton’s poetry focuses on labour, more specifically the impact of gender roles and social class in society. Her creative work addresses concepts from eighteenth-century literature. Wetton’s passion for poetry began when she read novels as a child. The pleasure of reading sparked a curiosity about finding the proper words to express herself.

“When I started writing, it was just so satisfying to find the right words to express something, capture moments and experiences,” revealed Wetton in an interview after the event.

When she began her career, Wetton was unable to find many poems about labour. She decided to spark meaningful conversations about work that were lacking in literature in her opinion.

“Actually, I always feel very nervous before readings. Reading any kind of creative work puts you in a vulnerable place. But when I start, I feel very confident because these are the words that I’ve committed to paper and I enjoy sharing them,” she added.

Professor Cox’s creative work focuses on nationalism, immigration, liberation, and the search for identity, among other subjects. Cox’s curiosity about life and finding ways to escape reality with art fuels her passion. We spoke about her experience that evening and ambitions about poetry.

“I love being in the thrill of it and feeling that exchange of energy with the folks who are present,” said Cox.

“As an academic and creative writer, you’re able to gather and bring ideas together. Those ideas can then become more expansive through activism and have impact daily on larger conversations, especially in terms of policy-making,” she said.

Categories
Arts Exhibit

Yea I made it up, Yea it’s real: Examining digital culture, social media, and the meme-sphere

"Promise me You'll never unfollow me" by Dayana Matasheva and Edson Niebla Rogil, featured in Yea I made it up, Yea it's real. Courtesy Edson Niebla Rogil

Concordia students and alumni adopt internet aesthetics to explore the human experience in the digital age in new exhibition

On Feb. 17, artists Edson Niebla Rogil and Dayana Matasheva hosted the vernissage for their exhibition Yea I made it up, Yea it’s real out of their shared Plateau studio.

The show featured 12 artists, including Niebla Rogil and Matasheva, whose works address the effects of the internet on the human experience through mediums ranging from AI-generated audio to livestreaming-inspired video compilations.

Courtesy Photo by Edson Niebla Rogil
Courtesy Photo by Edson Niebla Rogil

For Matasheva, who graduated from film production in 2020, the internet represents an aesthetic endeavour. “I think aesthetically, no one is using the visual vernacular of the internet. We are interested in its aesthetics specifically, rather than just its subject matter.”

After noticing a lack of representation of internet subject matter within traditional gallery spaces, Niebla Rogil and Matasheva issued an open call for like-minded artists.

“There’s a really big focus on technology as a medium, but there’s very little about the cultures that are growing online and changing the landscape of how people interact with each other,” said Concordia intermedia major Liz Waterman, whose sensorial TikTok-inspired video projection Doom Scroll was featured in the exhibition.

“I think that it’s shaping culture and psychology in a way that’s really interesting, and we don’t see enough work about it.”

Courtesy Photo by Edson Niebla Rogil
Courtesy Photo by Edson Niebla Rogil

Yea I made it up, Yea it’s real is the first exhibition organized, hosted, and curated by Niebla Rogil and Matasheva, but the pair have ambitions to move future exhibitions out of their studio into larger spaces, and to continue to host their networking event The Net Worker.

“It’s a recurring event where people shamelessly network and there’s no other purpose to it,” explains Matasheva. “People come together, exchange DIY business cards, they wear business attire and everything. It’s a little bit performative, but it actually is serving a purpose for artists.”

Information about upcoming exhibitions, networking events and more can be found on Niebla Rogil and Matasheva’s Instagram profiles.

Categories
Arts

Art Therapy: one of the many roles traditional art plays in the digital era

Courtesy Photo by Rachel Chainey

Concordia Arts Hive conjures the psychological and spiritual aspect of arts

The history of art therapy goes back to around the 1700s, when art was being used in various modes of psychological treatment. According to Lois Woolf, founder of the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute, art therapy was first explored in Europe and North America in the 1940s.

The study of this subject and human psychology was explored in increasing depth for years. Unlike art creation, art therapy focuses on the process of art rather than the result.

The Centre for the Arts in Human Development at Concordia University provides creative art therapy for people with disabilities and special needs, as well as for people with anxiety and depression. Senior associate director Lenore Vosberg says that instead of teaching art skills,  the centre helps people express themselves through different art forms.

“It’s a very supportive place. People get a lot of good and positive feedback for everything they do here,” Vosberg said. The centre works to build participants’ self-esteem and self confidence, as well as build relationships and trust through the process of art creation.

Courtesy Photo by Rachel Chainey
Courtesy Photo by Rachel Chainey

As art is a genre of work that embraces different ideologies, art therapy is useful for all kinds of people. It’s an alternative to traditional therapy for people who find it easier to express themselves through an art form rather than speaking to a therapist. 

The Concordia Art Hive is a public practice art therapy space, located on the first floor of the ER building downtown and on the fourth floor of the central building at Loyola in the G-Lounge. The spaces are accessible to anyone who wishes to achieve self-expression through art. Students sit around a table to communicate with each other while creating their crafts. 

Rachel Chainey is an art therapist who coordinates the Art Hive HQ located at Concordia’s downtown campus. She says that one of their challenges is getting people to understand what art therapy is.

“Some people would be intimidated by arts because they think they should be good,” Chainey said. “[But you approach] it from an angle of play. It’s not a performance, or result, but more of a process.”

There are more than 30 art hives in Montreal. Traditional arts are spreading internationally into many other fields, like technology, creating endless possibilities for artists everywhere. 

Courtesy Photo by Rachel Chainey

Art education student Kaida Kobylka stopped by the Art Hive with the goal of observing art studios in a public space. She explained the process of an AI project that she had explored, in which she had to put the artistic idea first to let it create. “AI can learn and create, but it can’t just make something out of nothing yet,” said Kobylka. “I have to put the artistic thoughts into the input, it isn’t just replacing an artistic mind.”

“Everybody has the crisis when they are an artist, like does what I made matter or would painting exist in the future,” Kobylka said, “but the answer is yes, the paintings are still evolving and relevant.” 

Indeed, art has been always seen as a form of self-expression and materialized thoughts throughout the existence of humankind, and this is how traditional art participates in society in a psychological and spiritual way. 

Categories
Arts Photo Essay

Delve into the parallel world of barbershops: a photo essay

Photo by Valentine Alibert

Capturing barbers and clients in their daily lives

Photo by Valentine Alibert
Photo by Valentine Alibert
  1. Co-owner of Savvy barbershop Dave Lechasseur cuts the hair of his client. Feb. 1, 2023. The barbershop Savvy is located on St. Hubert Street and has a vintage and busy old-fashioned style.
  2. Barber Franck Duval gets closer to his client. The Emporium barbershop is located at the corner of St-Zotique and Parc Avenue in Mile-Ex.
Photo by Valentine Alibert
Photo by Valentine Alibert

3. Co-owner of Savvy barbershop Mikey Rose shaves his customer’s beard

4. Barber Franck Duval shaves his customer’s beard with a razor.

Photo by Valentine Alibert
Photo by Valentine Alibert

5. The barber Mikey Rose shaves the beard of his customer with his razor. The barbershop Savvy is located on St Hubert Street and has a vintage and busy style.

6. Franck Duval shaves his customer’s beard with a razor.

Photo by Valentine Alibert
Photo by Valentine Alibert

7. The barber Mikey Rose shaves the beard of his customer with his razor. The barbershop Savvy is located on St Hubert Street and has a vintage and busy style.

8. Franck Duval shaves his customer’s beard with a razor.

Photo by Valentine Alibert
Photo by Valentine Alibert

9. Mikey Rose massages the beard of the client with his hands.

10. Barber Frank Duval sits in one of the armchairs and watches a customer walking through the door.

Categories
Arts

Meta-musical One Day showcases at Segal Centre

Cast of "One Day" at the Segal Centre Jared Lackman-Mincoff/The Concordian

The Montreal-based musical, which has been a work-in-progress for six years, showcased before a sold out audience

The musical is made up of four main characters — all of whom are queer men. Two of the characters are writers collaborating on a musical. Throughout their entire process, they are focused on writing what they know. Their musical is based on their lived experiences. 

“The way the two in the play were writing was basically my experience writing this show,” said writer and director Trevor Barrette. In the show, the two writers are scrambling to make a deadline to submit their musical, which Barrette says was precisely his experience when he was presenting the musical. But the musical has evolved into more than that.

“Over six years, we’ve turned it into the piece it is today, which I think is a really solid play,” Barrette said. “But it’s gone through a lot of change.”

Barrette started by writing the two characters of the musical within the musical, who were based off of characters he had written previously, and then he added the writers of the musical as characters later.

“I was finding the writing experience really fun,” he said. “It actually started with the characters and then going ‘No, I’m more interested in me writing for them than their own story.’”

The two writers within the musical often bring up the theme of ‘writing what you know,’ which was important for Barrette in the production process, but it was only a starting block.

“Sometimes you start off by trying to make some parallels with your own life,” he said. But a lot of the meaning in what he produced was only clear to him after the fact. “Sometimes you write something and people come up later and [say] ‘it’s so interesting you went that way or talked about this or made those connections’ and you [think] ‘oh I didn’t think I did, but I guess I did.’”

Barrette said that the feedback he has received since the showcase has been nothing but positive. “Everybody is finding different ways to relate, to connect to the story,” he said. “That’s been really, really exciting for me.”

He wanted to hold the showcase to get an idea of how his work is being perceived. “The audience is such an important part of theater, that’s why we do it,” he explained. “We’ve spent so much time making this piece what it is now, and we were so eager to share it with an audience. This is really the last big moment of development for us for the next little while.”

The musical contains many specific mentions of Montreal, which makes it more interesting if the musical were to showcase elsewhere. “I want to start it in Montreal but then I also think the play can be very easily translated to other places,” Barrette assured, joking that “there’s always a West Island.”

Exit mobile version