permaculture – The Concordian

PermaCulture: Diversifying the City’s Nightlife

PermaCulture founder discusses rave and nightlife in Montreal.

Montreal is a city that prides itself on its nightlife. Adrien Orlowski has been an organizer of the nightlife scene for the past ten years. He has watched the scene change and evolve and has worked to cultivate a more diverse environment in Montreal’s underground.

“For so long, the rave scene has been considered a juvenile activity, something that is not serious, that doesn’t bring anything to society,” he explained in an interview with The Concordian. Orlowski founded PermaCulture, a non-profit that organizes events and conferences geared towards fostering a more diverse and inclusive environment. Orlowski and his organization want rave to be taken more seriously—he sees it as an escape from the pressures of life.

“We live in a world today that is not easy at all. There’s war everywhere, there’s famine, there are so many issues,” he said. “I think rave can be a solution to that, people get on well. People are at peace, everyone is chill.”

Orlowski talked about how the scene had all these communities that would run their own events, but they were segmented. The afro, arab, and queer scenes all stuck to themselves, and PermaCulture was created to combine the communities under one roof. “I felt like it’s been the same for decades where we only had the same type of DJs, promoters, and people coming to our events. I think in the past years, we’ve started to see a change,” Orlowski said.

Orlowski and PermaCulture are deeply passionate about the nightlife in Montreal, but of course, there are hurdles to organizing a festival like theirs. Orlowski says the main factor is funding—before you can do anything, you need money. They look for grants mostly through the city and some sponsorships from the private sector for things like alcohol sales. However, the relationship can be adversarial at times, according to Orlowski.

Recently, the city cut funding to the nightlife advocacy group MTL 24/24, which has led to the organization having to lay off staff and cancel its annual Montreal Night Summit.

“This is a lack of consideration for all the work we have accomplished over the past three years,” said Mathieu Grondin, director of MTL 24/24, in an interview with Resident Advisor. Members of the nightlife scene view the funding cut as a way to silence the organization, which has historically been critical of the city and the Plante administration.

A Facebook post by rave organization Homegrown Harvest reads: “They’ve completely gutted the funding of MTL 24/24, an amazing night culture advocacy group that has been publicly critical of the city’s approach (coincidence??), and are attacking the funding of great institutions like the SAT—all while juicing up the police budget yet again.”

The Plante administration said that MTL 24/24 can refile its application. Luc Rabouin, executive committee chair for the city, added that Montreal doesn’t fund organizations, it funds events—MTL 24/24 simply didn’t meet the requirements.

The city proposed two large pieces of legislation on Dec. 19, 2023. The first is the creation of 24-hour zones, which would enable businesses within the zone to sell alcohol and stay open throughout the night, whereas previously alcohol sales would end at 3:00 a.m. The other piece is an investment package of $1 billion that is dedicated to revitalize downtown Montreal over the next 10 years.

All of this should make it easier for organizations like PermaCulture to host events, but there is still no news on an updated nightlife policy. Organizations like Homegrown Harvest ask why the Plante administration doesn’t simply make it easier to get 24-hour licenses, as many of the venues the nightlife relies on are outside of this crucial zone.

Cinema Politica film offers alternative to unsustainable, destructive agriculture model

Conventional agriculture is about extracting from the land to produce as much food as possible. It’s taking without giving back. The current model of industrial agriculture is unsustainable, inefficient, polluting and unnatural.

Finding a viable alternative that will feed the world’s population, while also decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, is one of the complicated and thorny issues of our times.

And yet, the solution might be embarrassingly simple: permanent agriculture, or permaculture.

Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective explores the principles of this new vision of agriculture by showing the viewer different farms that abide by the principles of permaculture.

Directed by Costa Boutsikaris and produced by Emmett Brennan, the film is both beautiful and poignant. The subject in and of itself is fascinating, but the cinematography and beautiful score, composed by Aled Roberts, carries the narrative. The film has an optimistic feel through its uplifting score—a nice change from the typical doom-and-gloom outlook on the future.

Permaculture is about designing a living, breathing ecosystem—one in which plants and animals coexist symbiotically with one another and the land. It is a step further than sustainability. Permaculture is about making things better through intelligent design and structural adjustments, while sustainability is simply about making sure the environment doesn’t worsen. It is the complete opposite of conventional industrialized agriculture, which is the attempt by humans to control nature.

In theory, spaces that adhere to the principles of permaculture would continue to function if the human element was removed. Fruit trees coexist with vegetables, perennials, flowers, insects and even grazing animals—all working together to form an ecosystem.

The film’s central argument is that no space is too large or too small to abide by the principles of permaculture. It is divided into different points of focus, and rounds out its argument by looking at how different scholars, artists, farmers and ordinary citizens have transformed their spaces to create ecosystems. It looks at suburbs, cities and farms, exploring how each space can be transformed through intelligent design.

There are 40 million acres of lawn in the United States that could be producing food, while also bringing people together through communal gardens. In cities such as New York, there has been a surge in rooftop green spaces. Not only is this a more efficient use of space, but it also diminishes the burden on sewage systems during intense rains. These are just some of the examples highlighted in the film.

Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective was one of the last films to screen at Cinema Politica this semester. The final screening, on Monday, April 18, will feature a selection of feminist short films from the 2016 Fantasia Film Festival. A total of nine shorts will be featured, focusing on intersectionality in feminism. Screenings take place in H-110. Admission is by donation.