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.

PROMISCUOUS INFRASTRUCTURES (PHASE 2)
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

As part of its project entitled Promiscuous Infrastructures, the Artivistic collective invites submissions for the second phase of the project, which will take place from March 9 to April 14, 2012, at Skol, an artist-run centre in Montréal.

What Artivistic is up to

Artivistic is currently in the research-creation phase of a publication tentatively entitled Promiscuous Infrastructures: experiments in art + information + activism. Rooted in the work of Artivistic's friends, allies, and past participants, the publication sets its sights on "autonomous infrastructures" by looking at radical education & the production of knowledge, intergenerational support systems, as well as sustainable financing.

For Phase 2, we will set up a temporary printing workshop at Skol. This intervention is meant to collectively visualize our concern, obsession perhaps, with what lies behind art, activism and knowledge production: (1) the ways in which we relate to each other, (2) organise to work together, and (3) the conditions in which things are being done. In other words, we are asking:

As part of its research residency at Skol, entitled Promiscuous Infrastructures, the Artivistic collective invites multidisciplinary collectives, emerging organisations and artist-run-centres to a day of workshops and exchanges on alternative financing on August 6, 2011.

knowledgeshare #1 :
The Promiscuous Infrastructures of Protest Camps
Wednesday June 29 @ 6pm
Skol (372 Ste Catherine W., suite 314)
all welcome -- bring food/snacks/drinks to share

From Tahrir Square to Trafalgar Square, from the Puerto del Sol to the streets of Oaxaca, protest camps are a highly visible and increasingly common feature of social movements' activism across the world. Protest camps are spaces where people come together to imagine alternative worlds and articulate contentious politics, often in confrontation with the state.

As part of our research residency at Skol this summer, Artivistic will broadcast the live streaming (from Paris) of the Monetary Utopia Seminar, organized by Upgrade! Paris & MCDates as part of festival Mal au Pixel 6.

Join us at Skol (372, Ste-Catherine W., suite 314) this Friday June 17 at 1pm for this public broadcast followed by a question period via chat.