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Artmaking and teaching during the pandemic

Transcendence raises questions about the future of art education

Presented by student-teachers in Concordia’s undergraduate Art Education program, Transcendence explores growth during isolation. The exhibition, which was created for ARTE 432, Community Art Education: Theory and Practice, offers a varied body of work that aims to explore notions of making and teaching, and their effects on one another, during the pandemic.

Showcased with artsteps, an online platform for creating virtual spaces, Transcendence, which opened on Dec. 3, offers viewers an immersive experience. Viewers can interact with the works, which are exhibited in a realistic, simulated gallery-space named Tempo Gallery.

The viewer can make their way around as if they were in a video game. Clicking on an empty patch of grass leads their “player” running to the selected location. Other viewers, or players, can be seen walking around the gallery and its surrounding space.

Maybe this is the future of art-viewing and art making.

The viewer can explore around the outside of the building, which is situated on a waterfront — probably the closest they’ll come to being near the beach for a while.

Around the perimeter of the building, the works of three artists are exhibited. Among them, a multimedia graffiti piece in tones of red, orange, and blue titled Start Where You Are, by Gardenia-Jane Duverger Sarroche.

“Graffiti helps [express] my spontaneous thoughts with the possibility to spray-paint over my written fears and insecurities,” writes Duverger Sarroche in her artist statement. “Starting with scribbled intrusive thoughts on a drawer I found on the streets, I spat colors until I could not perceive my fears anymore.”

Inside the gallery, a series of nine paintings line the first wall. Each one of them features rocks and pebbles balancing atop one another, painted in muted tones of grey, blue, and orange. The digital illustrations, titled Douce Metamorphose, by Pauline Acchab, explore balance and growth.

“Cairns, stacked stones, act as a sign to guide travellers on the right path,” writes Acchab. “The assembled elements, defying the laws of gravity, demonstrate a level of tension with its surroundings while depicting harmony, fragility and stillness.”

Similarly, around the corner, a series of three works by Kassandra Quinteros explore self-growth and development. Braiding Threads is a vibrant photograph featuring a beaded mask worn by a figure who holds and weaves multiple braids in bright purples, yellows, and pinks, which contrast the black background.

“The multitude of threads being braided represents the infinity of information given to me during this academic journey and my personal experiences,” writes Quinteros. “The braid is my way of assembling these threads into one strong creation that defines my own self as a professional and as a person.”

Further into the gallery space, a series of five photographs fills a wall with collage-like images of roads and parking lots. The works, titled Forever Forward, by Rhea Bergeron, all feature a sunset and represent the changes that occur as seasons pass.

“[The sunset moments] could mean that, when a day ends, another begins,” writes Bergeron. “Also, the topic connects to my identity that is constantly changing and evolving throughout the years.”

Be it through Emmanuelle Lemieux’s upcycled papier maché sculptures, Kamila Dube’s mixed media paintings, or Liana Gomes’ photographs and digital illustrations, one thing is certain: self-reflection and experimentation are common themes that have risen as a result of artmaking practices during isolation.

Transcendence makes it clear that isolation is an extraordinary situation which has pushed artists and educators beyond the limits of what is normal. Despite this, these extraordinary measures have allowed for the possibility of creating what could be considered transcendent.

Transcendence will be available for viewing here.

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A look into the digital generation through paintings

Questioning the politics of contemporary media, network and consumption culture

As the year is ending, Projet Casa has initiated a dynamic exhibition for the second part of its program created for Pictura, an event dedicated to showcasing contemporary painting in Montreal.

Projet Casa, created by visual art enthusiasts Danielle Lysaught and Paul Hamelin, is an initiative that serves to present cultural events.

Curated by Caroline Douville with the help of Venessa Appiah, Echo Boomer: Digital Natives exhibits the works of nine emerging artists who, through various paintings, depict the way that the world has radically changed due to technology.

The artists presented at the exhibition were found on Instagram. Douville, who is a painter, is inspired by old digital work and was in search of similar artists. Douville and  Appiah have been working on the exhibition since the end of October.

The artworks are placed around the first floor and along the stairs to the second floor of where Casa Bianca used to be. They aren’t placed linearly, as one might have thought. Instead, Douville chose to position them in a way that enables the audience to get glimpses of various images at once. This represents the way people interact on the Internet, as there are various images circulating and one has to try to give attention to everything being shown.

“We want people to come in and interact and relate with artworks that depict this generation,” said Douville.

The paintings seek to bring virtual realities to life. Many references are portrayed in these artworks, such as pop culture, videos that went viral, and digital platforms that shaped today’s generation. Fashion, art history, and video games are also concepts included in the works.

“The older generation may get confused, as there are inside stories in these paintings,” said Douville. “I had to explain a concept that the owner of the place didn’t understand from one of the paintings.”

Precisely, there is a lot of irony, comedy, and realness shown in this exhibition. In the Internet era, we are bombarded with new content on a daily basis. The exhibition seeks to portray people’s daily consumption through virtual realities.

“They are nurtured by hyper-consumed and recycled images of universalized popular culture

and new understandings of materiality stemming from virtual space,” wrote Appiah, on the exhibition’s presentation. “These artists capture the algorithmic condition of our time whereby reflections of visual reality are shaped by computerized overload.”

Some paintings may be recognizable for some. For example: Un ti mot pour Kevin (2020) by Erzulie, which is Douville’s artist name, portrays a small canvas of a man holding a beer in a jacuzzi. This is a reference to a YouTube video that was posted in 2008 of a group of friends wishing happy birthday to a man named Kevin. The video was marked in Quebec popular culture forever. Her work emphasizes creating ironic images from entertainment culture.

Chloé Gagnon’s Did We Dream Too Fast (2020) is in reference to avant-garde Russian painter Mikhaïl Larionov’s Jewish Venus (1912). Gagnon’s painting depicts a naked woman laying on a bed in a collage form. Gagnon inserts the concept of collage in her work as a form of identity reconstruction, taking images of pop culture in her work.

Kevin Rameau’s Soundcloud|internet explorer.exe (2020) is the depiction of an artist’s page on SoundCloud, his alter-ego Homie-Kuan. The canvas illustrates a critical commentary on society’s often-biased view of the Black musician.

The concept of consumption can be seen in Antoine Larocque’s Carnaval (2020) canvas, where the public can recognize the word ‘Super’ from Super C’s logo. There are also printing performance tests and scribbles on the canvas that seems to depict the mess behind overconsumption.

There is a lot to see and appreciate in this energetic exhibition.

The exhibition is on display until Dec. 12 at 4351 Esplanade Avenue. Reservations can be made online.

 

Photos courtesy of Sabrina Jolicoeur.

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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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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.

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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.

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Arts

Fine Arts Stories: sharing work and ideas

An online forum to bringing Fine Arts students together

Fine Arts Stories is a space where Fine Arts students can openly share their in-progress work and projects. The initiative was created by installation artist and Fine Arts coordinator Tricia Middleton with the help of Gabriel Castelo, a Computer Science and Electroacoustics student.

The idea of creating a space to share thoughts and ideas was born during summer.

“I realized that something semi-centralized that could encompass all forms of making and doing, thought and conversation – perhaps in the way architecture might function as the support for our peer-to-peer relationships within the institution – would probably be needed,” said Middleton.

While working with Fine Arts’ student-run organizations, Middleton generally attempts to bring all students together through organizations focusing on relationship building within the faculty.

With the pandemic being out of anyone’s control, it seemed like a great opportunity to create a space to foster relationships.

“I wanted to see if I could facilitate a semi-centralized, hybridized outlet that could help people connect in new ways that takes into account [that] many of these people have not yet met one another and will not have the social space of campus to do so this year,” she said.

So far, the initiative has been well received. Fine Arts Stories creates organic engagement through a website, where students can share what they are working on, leaving platforms such as Facebook and other social networks secondary.

“I think people are ready to try something more gentle and fluid in a non-brand dominated format, and the wider internet is still a place to find connection and intrigue,” said Middleton.

There are unlimited spaces for submissions. Submissions are non-juried and are being accepted on a rolling basis. The goal is to facilitate engagement between students. Students send their materials to Castelo, who is also helping shape the project, and uploads the works to the website.

Once physical distancing is no longer an issue, Middleton is looking forward to continuing the initiative. For the moment, Middleton is flexible and open to any good ideas to further develop the project.

“Art and thought is the mediator we usually use to conduct such relationships in our faculty, and this online forum is intended to facilitate this if possible,” said Middleton.

Students can submit their work to Fine Arts Stories here.

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Arts

Last and First Men: a warning to humankind

Not your usual sci-fi movie

“Listen patiently.” Tilda Swinton’s voice reverberates against an orchestral score while the camera pans out on a sculptural installation. Then, the screen goes black.

Directed by Jóhann Jóhannsson and originally released in 2017 prior to his passing, Last and First Men, presented by the Festival du nouveau cinéma, is not your average sci-fi movie.

Based on Olaf Stapledon’s 1930 science-fiction novel Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future, the film tells a message from billions of years into the future. The message is an alert to humanity, warning them of their inevitable extinction.

If you’re looking for an action-packed sci-fi movie, this is not it.

The experience resembled that of watching a nature documentary (Swinton might just be David Attenborough’s female counterpart). Her narration, which is similar to a dramatic audiobook reading, spans the length of the film and can be heard over the liturgical-style instrumental music composed by Jóhannsson himself.

The film offers an abstract anecdote of a post-apocalyptic world; there is no acting, there are no characters. Throughout the film, the camera pans over grayscale futuristic architectural details and archaeological sites. The stark architectural elements, which are socialist-era monuments and can be recognized as Spomeniks from the former Yugoslavia, contrast Swinton’s smooth voice. Her narration is at once compelling and deadpan.

Like watching a documentary or walking through an exhibition gallery, Last and First Men requires full and undivided attention. Jóhannsson’s film captures what it means for a film to be considered art.

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Arts

Bidgala: breaking the rules of the art market

Building a community for artists and entrepreneurs

“Community, empowerment and innovation,” I say to myself three times for luck after I end my interview with Sam Tenenbaum and William Lande. I repeat it as a mantra because after our talk I, as an artist, feel excited and hopeful for the future of the art world that they have helped create. Its name is Bidgala.

You may be wondering, what is Bidgala? Co-founder Tenenbaum explains it as “An online community and marketplace that empowers artists to take charge of their careers and their artwork.” What better way to describe the project than that?

Now, you may wonder where my new mantra appeared. “Community, empowerment and innovation,” the founders replied when asked what three words describe Bidgala. All of this came from the idea of bringing innovation to an (already) powerful community of artists missing a better platform to rise.

This story starts with entrepreneurs and ends with entrepreneurs supporting other entrepreneurs. Long-time friends Tenenbaum and Lande not only grew up together and with the same entrepreneurial vein in them, but also weren’t interested in 9-to-5 office jobs, like many artists feel.

They went from making profit reselling shoes, school supplies and anything they could find, as teenagers, to being students at John Molson School of Business, as young adults. They are currently finishing their undergraduate degrees, while simultaneously founding the very first business of its kind that doesn’t need another platform to stand on its own. It will certainly break all the rules of what we know of the art industry.

What do I mean by that? If artists use many platforms to sell their art already and that the “rules” are constantly changing, what new does Bidgala bring to the table, you may ask? I may respond simply by saying there was never a place where an emerging artist could be representing themselves, creating connections and a clientele, exchanging with other artists, building their brand, fulfilling their own criteria and no one else’s, and making money all in the same website. Now there is.

The project, born from this friendship, started at the beginning of 2020 as they “saw all of these artists doing what they love to do but [not] generating any income with it,” said Lande. They realized that most of their artist friends were struggling to enter the art market and sell their work because the industry is very limiting and lacks the opinions of the artist themselves. Tenenbaum and Lande decided to change that by asking them about it.

They have conducted interviews and focus groups, and research on the different social media platforms that artists currently use to promote their work in order to identify the specific needs of artists. They assert that they will continue to do so to constantly improve the experience where the focal point is the artist’s agency.

Before Bidgala, artists wanting to sell artworks outside of their immediate circle often needed an intermediary that would link the buyer to them, like galleries do. This has been changing for a few decades as a result of artists’ centers, collectives and community-based exhibitions, as well as the arrival of social media and online marketplaces like Etsy, Instagram and Facebook. Tenenbaum and Lande thought of Bidgala as an original and independent platform that creates direct communications between the artist and the buyer with all the features of a social network. Those who create can now sell their artwork from the comfort of their homes while interacting with the community.

Bidgala will officially launch for sales at the end of October but is already available for artists to create their profiles. Artists have complete control of their uploaded artworks as they decide the prices, the descriptions and the handling of the pieces, as well as the general image of their brand. The site is designed to be easy to use for both sellers and buyers, and will include features of commenting, liking, sharing, bidding, and even live chatting with agents and curators about the artworks.

The commission of 30 per cent in each sale presents a competitive and fair option, not only to artists who are often imposed a 50 per cent commission in many galleries, but also to the creators and members behind the platform.

Bidgala aims to be a safe, accessible space that welcomes every individual that wishes to interact within the community, without any restrictions or criteria. There will be a section of the website where the users can exchange, interact and learn from each other about art and all its branches, as well as special features for different communities like LGTBQ+ people, Indigenous folks, and more.

Bidgala has also been selected to be part of District 3, a program that supports and empowers initiatives that create social impact because they consider it important to contribute to causes like Black Lives Matter through events, donations and fair opportunities in the industry, as a way of giving to the community they want to help build. Pre-quarantine, the launching of the website was planned to be an event with the goal of raising funds for different groups involved in the Black Lives Matter movement. Even though the physical event was cancelled, Bidgala still plans to donate part of its commission towards this cause.

“Artists need a community now more than ever, especially with COVID,” said Lande. “Artists are one of the most powerful communities in the world and when something resonates with them, they share it,” he told me, explaining why the community aspect of Bidgala is crucial in this new system. “We wanted to give artists the tools and support that they need to follow their dreams.”

When you say “Bidgala,” that is what the future of art sounds like. Now repeat with me: community, empowerment and innovation.

Bidgala is set to launch at the end of October. Visit thebidgala.com for more information.

 

Graphic by Lily Cowper.

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