Presented as part of the HTMlles Festival
With Natacha Clitandre, Lucas LaRochelle, Alex Megelas, Sepideh Shahamati, Amanda Gutierrez, Florencia Sosa Rey, Joanna Guillaume, Veronica Mockler, Tamara Vukov and Shane Watt
Friday, November 6, 5 – 7 pm
Online via Facebook

How is mapping a ground for imagining the future? The phrase “turning point” calls to mind a body in motion as well as a fixed location; it refers to a moment of crisis in order to shift away from it. Facilitated by Anne-Marie Trépanier and Hannah Azar Strauss, the roundtable will explore themes of futurity and solidarity, bringing together artists and researchers involved in community mapping projects including Queering The Map, the Parc-Ex Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Womxn Walk the Walk, Spectographies, Geomedia Lab, and Paper Places. How can alternative mapping practices like these reorient us spatially in more critical and generous ways? The roundtable will consider how these projects act as tools for resilient memory and self-determination in the face of political, social, and environmental crisis. Explore more at https://www.are.na/turning-points-htmlles-2020

This panel discussion will be FR-EN bilingual without translations; panelists will speak in their preferred language, and facilitation will be in both languages.

A mapping workshop will be proposed prior to this roundtable discussion. More information here : https://www.lacentrale.org/en/actions-educatives/program-of-activities/turning-points-a-mapping-workshop/

About the participants:

ANNE-MARIE TRÉPANIER
Anne-Marie Trépanier is an artist, editor, and cultural worker based in Tiohtiá:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal. Her practice includes writing, experimental publishing, and new media, with a focus on the representation, translation and conversion of experience as forms of knowledge. She is currently a master’s student in Communication Studies at Concordia University.

HANNAH AZAR STRAUSS
Hannah Azar Strauss is an artist and educator based in Tiohtiá:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal. Working mainly with drawing and text, her practice is centered on conversation and the cultivation of history through language and gesture. She works at Ada X and Artenso, and serves on the board at articule.

NATACHA CLITANDRE
Natacha Clitandre is an artist whose work centres on the ubiquitous nature of technology in everyday life. As a method of investigating links between artist and viewer, Natacha uses mobile devices with video and photo capacities, along with printed media, to explore and comment on the public sphere.

LUCAS LAROCHELLE
Lucas LaRochelle is a designer and researcher whose work is concerned with queer geographies, critical internet studies, and community-based archiving. They are the founder of Queering The Map, a community generated counter-mapping project that digitally archives queer experience in relation to physical space.

ALEX MEGELAS
Alex Megelas is a Programs Coordinator for the Office of Community Engagement at Concordia University and a PhD Student at McGill University, under the supervision of Profs. Bronwen Low and Henry Mintzberg. He is an affiliate facilitator of the Centre for Community Organizations (COCo) and teaches in the School of Conflict Studies at St Paul University.

SEPIDEH SHAHAMATI
Sepideh Shahamati is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment at Concordia University. Her research focuses on humanistic approaches in planning theory and practice. She is interested in people’s interaction with the built environment and the tangible and intangible dimensions of cultural heritage. In her current research, she explores ways of integrating intangible assets of cities into planning and policy-making through investigating mapping methods.

WOMXN WALK THE WALK
Womxn Walk the Walk is a collective of artists, community members and researchers who explore the intersectional experience of female identity in public space, through the acts of walking, gathering, storytelling and listening. Co-founded in the fall of 2019, the collective today consists of four core members: Amanda Gutierrez, Florencia Sosa Rey, Joanna Guillaume and Veronica Mockler.

THE PARC-EX ANTI-EVICTION MAPPING PROJECT
The Parc-Ex Anti-Eviction Mapping Project aims to raise awareness about the effects of gentrification in Parc-Extension and other neighborhoods in Montreal. They document the local histories and neighbourhood changes and use research, writing and creative practices to hold politicians, institutions and businesses like the University of Montreal and the emerging tech industries accountable for their impact on gentrification. They share a commitment to supporting the self-determination of Parc-Ex residents in their struggles for housing justice.

TAMARA VUKOV
Tamara Vukov is a researcher, writer and filmmaker active over the years in community-based organizing and media in Montréal. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal. She has been a resident of the neighbourhoods adjacent to the new Campus MIL for over 30 years, and has had direct experience with eviction-related issues.

SHANE WATT
Shane Watt is a visual artist who creates fictional cities encrypted with symbols and secrets in order to tell a story or make a statement. Each city is partially based on real places, often borrowing from existing geography. Together they fit into a larger master map of a fictional place called Loyala.