The Bureau of Noncompetitive Research and the Innovative Social Pedagogy project (ISP) at Project Someone, Concordia University Present:
Pedagogy and Time: Walk Your Talk

June 17, 2022
FOFA Gallery (Concordia University)
1515 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, EV 1-715, Montréal, QC H3G 2W1
4pm

Continuing on from Slowness and the Institution, an online discussion series that Stacey Cann and I began (under our moniker, The Bureau of Noncompetitive Research), the next iteration of The Bureau’s offerings is in the form of a collaborative workshop series with a small group of co-researchers called Pedagogy and Time. The first “official” event is a walking discussion, during which we will spend time thinking and talking together about pedagogical practices as well as the implication of slow practices within teaching and learning. We will use the following question as a starting point for discussion: How do we get buy-in from students for slowing down given the culture of “productivity” in the academy and the pressures to keep up?

Please RSVP so that we can let you know any details. If the weather is bad we will postpone until June 18th.

The Bureau of Noncompetitive Research along with the Art Education dept. and the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance at Concordia University Present:
Slowness and the Institution: Doing Research Differently

The Bureau of Noncompetitive Research (Victoria Stanton and Stacey Cann) are hosting a conversation series, inviting scholars whose practices engage with facets of slow scholarship to discuss their research in the context of the academy, and how it might be applied to artistic processes within, and outside, the institution. Speaking with one person at a time, about one significant element in their work, the format of the series favours a slow, and expansive approach, offering a generous space of collective reflection—between our guest, the hosts, and the audience.
 
To receive the Zoom link please register on Eventbrite
 
 
••• September 29th, 7-8:30 pm
The Bureau of Noncompetitive Research (Victoria Stanton and Stacey Cann, Montreal, QC) discuss the series and the context from which it arises.
 
••• October 20th, 3-4:30 pm
Robert Luzar (Bath, UK)
Luzar’s artistic projects rethink the aesthetic qualities of a liberal-economic ideology that is experienced through labour, creative economy, race and identity, political demonstrations, and truth.
 
••• Nov 3rd, 7-8:30 pm
Alanna Thain (Montreal, QC)
Thain’s research addresses questions of time, embodiment, and media across contemporary cinema, dance, and performance.
 
••• Nov 24th, 3-4:30 pm
k.g. Guttman (Montreal, QC)
Guttman is a researcher and artist whose work considers territoriality discourse, choreographic practice, and site-situated installation.


****PLEASE NOTE****
Discussions are happening on Eastern Standard Time.

Ticket availability is capped at 125 participants (per discussion) and registration for each discussion will be closed one hour prior to start time (EST).
————
 
With the support of the CSLP

On July 30, 1961 Ray Johnson presented the first in his series of non-performance events he called “Nothings,” what he considered “an attitude as opposed to a Happening” – the Happening of course being the more well-known antecedent of life-meets-art performance events initiated by Allan Kaprow and other Fluxus artists, leading to performance art as we understand it today.

Exactly 60 years later, this spring and summer, in various public sites and “non-places” across Laval I will be proposing six instances of Doing Nothing – non-actions as part of the series **res(is)ting / repos comme résistance** being hosted by Verticale – centre d’artistes in Laval (see Aug. 5th entry below).

Doing Nothing (as many of you know) is my ongoing proposal to resist. To resist the toxic culture of over-productivity. To keep pushing back against ubiquitous hyper-acceleration and find ways to create more sustainability for just everyday being. To approach living in a more restful way. To rest. Period.

I invite you to join me. Bring a book to read, a notebook to write in, a scarf to knit. Or bring nothing. We can sit and contemplate this past year: collectively mourn what (or who) we’ve lost, celebrate what we’ve (hopefully) gained, mull over what we’re still trying to transform, understand, learn. To breathe. Stopping long enough to appreciate the world that keeps turning all around us. And ultimately just hang out.

As per Covid protocols, space is limited to 8 people per gathering. If you’d like to attend hit me up in the contact page and I’ll give you more info.

Nothing continues!… And takes on a whole new dimension (and perspective) during this unprecedented global situation. I am delighted (even if destabilized) to introduce Cycle 4 of the Doing Nothing project. From August 2020 to April 2021, res(is)ting / repos comme résistance is being hosted by Verticale centre d’artiste in Laval as part of their current cycle of programming, Turmoil, Agitation and Systems / Troubles, émoi et systèmes.

**

“The structure upon which we’ve built our work expectations has been hurting us for a long time. When you combine our culture of chronic overwork with the distraction inherent to technology and social media, at a time when people are forced to stay at home, you have a recipe for amplified anxiety and shame. This puts people on a fast-track to burnout.”
– Rahaf Harfoush

The SYSTEM wants us to keep moving, keep doing, keep producing, keep consuming.
The TURMOIL comes from pressures one faces in a perceived need to have to conform.
The AGITATION arises as a result of believing we do not have a right to pause.

The SYSTEM supports a ubiquitous structure that we feel trapped into following.
The TURMOIL it creates within us becomes more apparent when we feel a need to stop.
The AGITATION experienced is both internal and external; we’re all in the same boat.

How do we build an antidote?

I want to propose a space of co-creation in which we come together specifically to rest. To carve out moments for action – or non-action – that is effortless and allows the mind to unwind.

It’s a group that assembles – whether collectively with safe distancing IRL, individually in our imaginations, or simultaneously on a screen – and chooses to spend the afternoon reading; walking; knitting; daydreaming; baking a cake. We unite in a daylong Digital Sabbath, shutting all devices, and dealing with the withdrawal symptoms. We unite to reflect upon/raise intention about/hold space for what comes next: mentally constructing a time after the pandemic. We unite to quietly mourn our Old World. Calmly grapple with the present. Rejoice in capacity for breath. Momentarily resist doing.

It’s a workshop, it’s a performance, it’s a public infiltration, it’s a conversation. It’s a curated experience. It’s a group nap. It’s all of these at once. It’s none of these at all. It looks like Nothing but a lot like LIFE. Like life but framed by ART. Subtle resistance.

“What this pandemic shows is that we can stop everything in a moment’s notice. I hope that rather than panic and try to rush back to normalcy, people will reflect on what it is we should leave behind, rather than resume.”
– Andrew Smart

– Read more on my blog –

– Read more on VCA’s website –

Cooking in Reverse, photo by David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo

Montréal~Habana Exchange Presents:
Rencontres en art actual // Encuentros de arte contemporáneo

October 31 – December 8, 2019
Avecez Art Space, Vedado, Habana, Cuba
Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Habana Vieja, Cuba
Free admission
– more information –

The Montreal~Habana Exchange is a project that creates dialogue among contemporary artists in a Canadian and Cuban context. The first series of events and exhibitions took place in Montreal in the spring of 2019 while the second unfolds in Havana from October-December, 2019.

In addition to presenting a series of performative dinners (see announcement below) I will also be showing performance documentation in two of the exhibition spaces during the Cuban component of the exchange project.

In Avecez Art Space, curator Solveig Font presents A QUIEN PUEDA INTERESAR, a three-person exhibition with myself, Maria Ezcurra and Helena Martin Franco. This is the second iteration of her exhibition by the same title that previously featured Havana-based artists Jenny Brito, Camila R. Lobón, Alina Águila, Celia+Yunior, and  Julio Llopiz-Casal.

At the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales in Old Havana a larger group show features wall-works, sound installation and a video program that includes Montreal artists: Adam Basanta, Carl Trahan, Caroline Monnet, Cathy Sisler, Danny Perrault, Diane Obomsawin, Estela Lopez Solis, Frédéric Lavoie, Gwenaël Bélanger, Helena Martin Franco, Jenny Lin, Karen Trask, Kim Kielhofner, Kimura Byol, Manon Lebrecque, Maria Ezcurra, Michel de Brouin, Moridja Kitenge Banza, Nadia Myre, Nathalie Bujold, Nathalie Lemoine, Nik Forrest, Rachel Echenberg, Renée Lavaillante, Skawennati, Sylvie Laliberté, Yudi Sewraj (and yours truly).

Descanse y disfrute, photo by David Summerhays

Montréal~Habana Encuentros de arte contemporáneo Presents:
Descanse y disfrute

November 7, 9, 14, 2019, 8:00pm–11:00pm
Various Locations
Vedado, Havana, Cuba
Free admission
– more information –

At the invitation of the Montréal~Habana exchange I will be presenting Descanse y disfrute, a relational performance that once again explores our relationship to food. Continuing in the same general direction as the previous renditions in which I cook a meal for a family or group of people in their own home (Cooking in Reverse, What the Interval Tastes Like), the particularity of bringing this piece to Havana rests upon the parameters of this specific context: namely being in a place where resources (food among them) are not always readily available.

How to graciously talk about food when I come from a context of ubiquitous abundance? Again, food is intimately connected to a sense of cultural memory, individual/collective experience, identity, and history and again I recognize the privileged space of intimate cultural exchange that such an encounter may invite into being. This time around there is an additional and concrete recognition of my privilege – that of a Canadian artist having the opportunity to be here, in this city, at this time. It raises many questions, which I hope to sensitively field and actively hold space for.

Anteism Books Presents:
4 POETS READ A.I.

Maverick philosopher and digital poet, David Jhave Johnston celebrates the release of his epic multi-volume publication, ReRites (and its interactive installation counterpart) with an evening of spontaneous performative readings. Taking instances of projected A.I. generated poetry, invited artists (and audience) perform/present/interpret rapid-fire lines appearing & disappearing on the screen in real time.

Thursday October 24, 2019, 5pm-7pm
Anteism Books
435 Beaubien West, #100
Free Admission
– more information –
– Facebook –

Studio 303 Presents:
Boundaries of the Everyday Body: a post-studio performative intensive
Les frontières du corps quotidien : pratiques performatives post-studio

A bilingual (EN+FR) workshop offered by Victoria Stanton through Studio 303 in Montreal.

September 9 – 13, 2019
9:30am – 12:30pm daily
Fee: $75
Open to artists of all disciplines
To register or for more info: contact Studio 303 at (514) 393-3771 or info@studio303.ca

Description (version française ci-dessous)
This workshop intensive will specifically locate our process in public settings, surrounded by elements of the “everyday.” An opportunity to deepen our explorations about how we consider, construct, and witness performance in public (non-art) contexts, participants will be invited to experiment with in-situ and in-socius performative practices as we move from one location to the next on a daily basis. How does place inform our behaviour? How do we move, walk, relate, receive – depending on where we are? How do weather, air, walls, others inform our performative choices? With an emphasis on post-studio methodologies, and infiltrating practices (i.e.: more invisible, liminal actions that subtly imprint themselves into the fabric of daily life), through embodied research we will also examine the im/practicalities (challenges, surprises, joys, unpredictability of dynamics) of making/showing work literally “outside the box.”

***

Description
Cet atelier intensif situera nos pratiques dans l’espace public, entouré d’éléments du quotidien. Il s’agit d’une opportunité pour explorer et approfondir comment nous considérons, construisons et témoignons de la performance dans un contexte public (non artistique). Les participant-es seront invité-es à expérimenter avec des pratiques performatives in-situ et in-socius au cours de déplacements à chaque jour. Comment est-ce qu’un lieu informe notre comportement? Comment est-ce qu’on bouge, marche, interagit, reçoit – dépendamment d’où nous sommes situé-es? Comment est-ce que la météo, l’air, les murs, et les autres informent nos choix performatifs? En mettant l’accent sur les méthodologies post-studio et les pratiques d’infiltration (actions invisibles et liminales qui affectent subtilement le tissu de la vie quotidienne), et à travers une recherche incarnée, nous allons également examiner les aspects pratiques (et non-pratiques) liés à la création et à la présentation en dehors du cadre traditionnel.

– more info –

Cooking in Reverse, photo by David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo

La Place Publique & Fonderie Darling Present:
Au risque d’entraîner l’éveil // Possible Awakenings #6

Thursday August 8, 2019, 5:30pm–11:00pm
Fonderie Darling
745 Ottawa Street, Montréal
Free admission
– more information –
– plus d’infos –

[version française ci-bas]

In the Place Publique summer events at the Darling Foundry in Montreal, the sixth and final evening of the Possible Awakenings series is made through mutual aid and collective creation. In the context of a collaboration carried out before the event or in the case of a first encounter between the artist and the public, the projects are inspired by various performative traditions, including participative happenings, flash mobilizations, and transactional practices. Exchanges and meetings, whether long-term or accidental, materialize on Ottawa street and mark the end of this performance series focused on the participative experience where states of passivity and action follow one another, through an ambiguous sharing of roles between performer and observer.

For this occasion, I have invited massage therapists (and artists with massotherapy backgrounds or a deep interest in taking part) into a conversation about “care.” Asking the question “How do those who care for others care for themselves?” I propose a two-part session in which a collective brainstorming/dialogue may take place. The first part, an informal gathering over dinner (an offering from me to my guests) addresses this question collectively among the invited therapists. The second part, a performative panel discussion / action conceived of by the group, continues the dialogue by inviting Place Publique’s larger public into the conversation.

With the participation of: Annik Baillargeon, Christina Bosowec, Amber Dawn, Chad Dembski, Chantal Lemieux, Shanthi Minor, Christiane Patenaude, Renaud Phaneuf, and Josée Tremblay.

FULL LINE-UP & SCHEDULE OF ARTISTS:
> 5:30PM: Nicole Fournier – Performance écovention
> 6PM: Sylvaine Chassay & Dans la rue – Nous sommes ici
> 6:30PM: Tina Carlisi – Laugh Like the Sun, Dance Like the Wind
> 7PM: Victoria Stanton & massage therapists – Questions of Care
> 8PM: Ayò Akínwándé – Mumu LP Vol.2: The Orchestra

– See Facebook event –

*

Dans le cadre des événements estivals à La Fonderie Darling à Montréal, la sixième et dernière soirée d’Au risque d’entraîner l’éveil se place sous le signe de l’entraide et la création collective. Dans le contexte d’une collaboration réalisée en amont à l’événement ou celui d’une première rencontre entre l’artiste et le public, les projets s’inspirent de diverses traditions performatives, dont celles du happening participatif, de la mobilisation éclair et de la pratique transactionnelle. Les échanges et rencontres, effectués sur le long terme ou de manière fortuite, sont mis en espace sur la rue Ottawa et marquent la fin de cette série de performances axée sur l’expérience participative où se succèdent les états de passivité et d’action, à travers un partage des rôles parfois ambigu entre celui qui performe et celui qui observe.

Pour cette occasion, j’invite des massothérapeutes (et les artistes avec un historique de pratique en massothérapie ou qui ont un intérêt profond à participer) à discuter autour du sujet de « soin ». En posant la question « Comment celles et ceux qui s’occupent des autres s’occupent-ils d’eux-mêmes »? je propose une rencontre en deux parties au cours de laquelle un dialogue/brainstorming collectif pourrait prendre place. La première partie, une réunion informelle autour d’un souper, (que j’offre à mes invité.es) aborde cette question collectivement parmi les thérapeutes invité.es. La seconde partie, une table ronde performative conçu en groupe, poursuit le dialogue en invitant maintenant le public élargi de la Place Publique à participer à la conversation.

Avec la participation de : Annik Baillargeon, Christina Bosowec, Amber Dawn, Chad Dembski, Chantal Lemieux, Shanthi Minor, Christiane Patenaude, Renaud Phaneuf, et Josée Tremblay.

HORAIRE ET LISTE D’ARTISTES:
> 17 H 30 : Nicole Fournier – Performance écovention
> 18 H : Sylvaine Chassay & Dans la rue – Nous sommes ici
> 18 H 30 : Tina Carlisi – Laugh Like the Sun, Dance Like the Wind
> 19 H : Victoria Stanton & massothérapeutes – Questions of Care
> 20 H : Ayò Akínwándé – Mumu LP Vol.2: The Orchestra

– événement facebook –