Finissage!
Saturday 14 April, 18h-
The Awesomest Foundation: revealing of the "winning proposal"
+ Boncha Immigrantz feat. Bass in Public Places
+ Prints for sale + Photo shoot
@ Skol (372 Ste-Catherine W., suite 314)

Our stance is not so much "what is to be done?" but "something is already being done." And we not so much want to show it (off) but to actually come to value it better, to become more confident collectively. We believe that the fundamental predicament of our times is fear. It makes us defensive, it insidiously brings about isolation. In 1969, it was right after the initiation of the first Black Panther's Free Breakfast for School Children Program that J. Edgar Hoover (FBI director) stated that the Panthers posed "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." This exemplifies the power of alternative infrastructures and brings us back to today's (global) criminalisation of dissent. As we know, valuing is not an individual act, it is a collective one. We see this project as a kind of "work interruption": to interrupt the current flow of things, of business-as-usual (not for an anonymous "system" but for ourselves, as artists, activists, academics); to perhaps go back to some of our footnotes (left behind because we were too busy going forward); to take the time to think and to nourish each other, to be present, in order to live differently. By making stuff together, we can get to know each other better, to value our ideas better, to build affinity.

March 26, 2012, Montreal -- This week, Quebec students escalate their tactics, building on almost one month of a general strike, and last Thursday's massive demonstration against the Charest government tuition hikes.

The ongoing strike and Thursday's historic demonstration are a starting point, not an end, as many student organizers have pointed out. The upcoming week of disruptive actions is especially important.

We are writing to support the Coalition Large de l'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (CLASSE) who have called for a week of economic disruption to pressure the Charest government to cancel the tuition hikes. We agree that it's not just through symbolic protests and actions -- which are important to build solidarity and support -- that the Charest government will capitulate. Rather, they will respond to the sustained and tangible disruption of the Quebec economy.

As part of PI2, on Saturday March 31 and Sunday April 1, from noon to 5pm, at Skol, Artivistic member Julie Châteauvert proposes a performance entitled Think We Must/Con-Vocation (description below in French only).

Think We Must/Con-Vocation

En 1938, dans son essai épistolaire Trois Guinées, Virginia Woolf lance: THINK WE MUST! Interdites de tous lieux de pouvoir, réfléchissons néanmoins, soeurs, avant de joindre la procession des hommes cultivés!

As part of PI2, on Thursday March 29, 6pm, at Skol, our friend Stefan Christoff proposes "Art, activism & movements for social change in Montreal", a presentation on the critical role that art and culture play in movements for social change, focusing on Montreal over the past decade.

More than 200,000 people took it to the street today, March 22, to protest the tuition hikes imposed by the Charest government. Parents, grand parents, teachers, artists, activists and workers walked in solidarity with more than 300,000 students currently on strike in Québec in a historical march that paralized Montréal's downtown area, with no beginning nor end in sight. Pics by Kevin here and Thien here.

The struggle continues!

In collaboration with Skol, during Promiscuous Infrastructures (Phase 2)...

Centres d'artistes et lieux de diffusion artistique en solidarité avec la lutte étudiante

Les étudiantes et les étudiants qui, depuis plus d'un mois, entrent massivement en grève (près de 200 000 en date du 15 mars 2012) ne le font pas que pour refuser une hausse de leurs frais de scolarité.

Inspired by Loesje collective (loesje.org), Kevin Yuen Kit Lo (lokidesign.net) will lead a collaborative writing and design workshop with the goal of producing a poster series addressing the concerns of the participants and their communities. Saturday March 17, 12-6pm, at Skol, as part of PI2!

In response to our open call for Promiscuous Infrastructures (Phase 2), our friends Heather Davis and Cecilia Chen are proposing a call for designs ending March 5, 2012, and a workshop taking place Saturday, March 10, 2012, from noon to 5pm, at Skol. We relay below their call.

How do we negotiate the promiscuity of infrastructures in Montréal?

To enable a more ludic negotiation of the infrastructures that intersect with, produce and support our daily lives, we are assembling a deck of playing cards with which to re-shuffle our understandings.

We invite you to design one (or more) of the playing cards in this deck:

The four suits are:

• past events
• future potentials
• transformations
• materiality

As part of Promiscuous Infrastructures (Phase 2), our friends Alessandra Renzi and Roberta Buiani (Toronto) are proposing a workshop taking place Saturday April 7, 2012, from noon to 5pm, at Skol. 

The Sandbox Project is a series of experimental production labs developed in different cities and bringing together artists, activists and techies to reflect creatively on the diversity of artivist practices. The Montreal Sandbox is a two-part playful live collaboration consisting of a preliminary “Lab” (4 hours) followed by a public “multimedia intervention” (1 hour) that rethinks the composition of online and offline platforms for collaboration.

If you are (or have been) part of a group, small organization, collective, collaborative, etc., based in Montreal, please consider participating in this modest group self-mapping project. It is part of Artivistic's larger project called Promiscuous Infrastructures, of which a public phase will take place in March/April 2012.

Your contribution will help us visualize what's up with groups and small org's in Montreal in terms of needs, offerings and desires, and to be able to situate y/ourselves within that, as well as be more supportive of each other.