Week 28: June 30th
Jeux d'été by Ensemble, Nouveau Poem at Dye Jardin Papillon, Faux-Folklore, and more.
Welcome to Community Service, a biweekly newsletter featuring a curated selection of art and design events in Montreal. Taking this moment to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody who submitted events this week, every other week, or who has otherwise supported the newsletter in any way. Community Service is not possible without each of you. Anyway, this edition covers events happening during the beginning of July.
Finissage/Book Launch: demi-mesure
July 3rd (5-9pm) - Espace Transmission
After being presented at Plein Sud Centre d'Exposition in Longueuil, demi-mesure continues in Montreal with a satellite presentation at Espace Transmission.
This return to Montreal brings the artist duo (Clara Cousineau and Marion Paquette) back to the very place where they first met, during a 2020 creative residency that marked the beginning of their collaboration. Since then, the building housing Espace Transmission has been revitalized—just like the duo’s practice, which has now shifted toward new material explorations. This re-presentation thus becomes an opportunity to reunite artworks, artists, and their anchoring space in a renewed temporality, where both space and matter are transformed.
Artist Talk: In Conversation: Nadia Myre and Skawennati
July 3rd (6pm) - York Amphitheatre, Concordia University (Room EV1.615, 1515 Saint-Catherine St W)
The Indigenous Futures Research Centre, located at Concordia University, is thrilled to announce their upcoming event In Conversation: Nadia Myre and Skawennati, featuring two leading figures in contemporary Indigenous art. This event celebrates their landmark solo exhibitions currently on view at the National Gallery of Canada: Welcome to the Dreamhouse and Waves of Want. Moderated by artist and Studio Arts Professor, Hannah Claus, this conversation will bring the two artists in dialogue, offering insights into their respective creative journeys, conceptual frameworks, and shared commitments to community, memory, and futurity.
Vernissage: Dreamscapes
July 3rd (6-9pm) - Galerie ERGA
Where do you go in your dreams? What is the boundary between dream and nightmare? What does a living dream look like, feel like? How can we embody our dreams?
Dreamscapes presents a collection of art and poetry exploring the realm of dreams. Comprised of both an exhibition and a zine of poetry, this multidisciplinary project delves into the complexities of the dream world. The exhibition, curated by Delia Landers, features works by artists; Delia Landers, Riesbri, Chloe Majenta, Sadie Quinn, Alejandra Zamudio, (So)nia Ekiyor Katimi, Hailey Guzik, Jega Delisca, Sloane Sherman, Valentine Alma, Simone Sinclair.
Vernissage: Jeux d'été by Collectif Ensemble
July 4th (5pm) - Parquette
Events like Jeux d’éte by Collectif Ensemble are the reason that Community Service exists — and I mean that literally, since finding ways to uplift my extremely talented designer and artist friends is why I started this newsletter in the first place. Ensemble presents its second edition of the year with a major group exhibition at the new multipurpose venue Parquette, bringing together both emerging and established Quebec talents and bridging the gap between the art and design scenes of Montreal.
Finissage: Best by Date by Beau Gomez
July 4th (5:30-8:30pm) - SBC Gallery
As part of his residency at SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Beau Gomez developed Best Before, an image-based series that investigates modes of desire, disclosure and otherness. The artist worked with still images, personal archives, texts, and audiovisual fragments to deepen an intimate and political reflection on the lived realities of HIV, outside dominant medical narratives. Best Before is the continuation of a body of work initiated in recent years that seeks to move away from stigmatizing or sanitized portrayals of the illness, and instead infuse it with an aesthetic of tenderness, care, and living memory.
The evening will begin with a poetry reading by Lx Jerry, an HIV+ writer and poet based in Puebla, and a subsequent conversation between Lx Jerry and Gomez on creative lyricism and their collaboration on Filament Fortune.
Exhibition: When the Air Is Blue by Dre Wilkin
July 4th-5th - Foil Gallery
When the Air Is Blue marks Dre Wilkin’s first solo exhibition since 2018, presenting a new body of work that reflects a deepening exploration of perception, memory, and the emotional resonance of figuration.
The series began as a way to interrupt habits—a study in flipping light and shadow, unlearning what felt intuitive. Each painting is built in inversion, inviting the viewer to adjust their way of seeing. Much like the twilight hour that inspired its title, When the Air Is Blue inhabits a liminal space: between presence and memory, interiority and observation. Figures appear in suspended stillness, rendered with spectral softness and emotional restraint.
Publication Launch: Pastiche 3
July 5th (6-10pm) - Café Tenini
Pastiche is a bilingual print publication that publishes one story each edition — this edition's author is Zakir Jamal. Jamal is a writer and graduate student living in Montreal whose fiction is interested in unconventional narrative and playing with form. His piece in edition 3 of Pastiche is called Higher Things; a story in one long sentence of 3,500 words about four generations of family.
Tickets to the event are $10, which you can purchase through this link. The evening will feature readings, live jazz, and some snacks, and is BYOB.
Vernissage: Faux-Folklore
July 6th (2pm) - Stewart Hall Art Gallery
Inspired by cultural, fictional and memorial figures and objects, the four artists of Faux-Folklore (Rémi Belliveau, Jean-Michel Leclerc, Kim Kölle Valentine and Alberto Porro) explore their identities and the foundations of our stories through notions of reality and unreality, pastiche, simulacra, history and fiction.
The reshaped and revived world of folklore has imbued these artists’ videos, drawings and paintings to varying degrees. Whether through truth or fiction, folklore becomes a vector for memory, transporting select knowledge across time to anchor it in the present. Faux-Folklore brings out parallel worlds, reinvented myths, and opportunities to recognize fragments that could too easily be forgotten.
Reading: Nouveau Poem 6
July 11 (8pm) - Dye Jardin Papillon
I have never been disappointed by Nouveau Poem and this edition proves no different. Make your way to Dye Jardin Papillon to hear new works by Amanda Bylone, Viola Chen, Lucy Early, Nora Fulton, EJ Kneifel, Maya Stewart Pathak, and Maya Martinez (who I once saw writhing on the a dirty Lower East Side sidewalk with a fist in her mouth for the love of performance). With such a stacked list of readers and a selection of books from Pome’s Books, this is sure to be an evening to remember.
Vernissage: Being Forward
July 12th (2-6pm) - Family (200 Laurier Ouest, unit 350)
Curated by Maya Stewart Pathak, Being Forward is a group exhibition of drawings on cloth and paper napkins that have been collected from artists in various situations and forms of spontaneity. The drawings will be presented across three rooms at Family. The show includes a new work by Rirkrit Tiravanija and highlights ephemeral aspects of artistic work such as the creative impulse, social capital, and the relationships in the art market.
If you have an art or design-related event you would like to include in future editions of the newsletter, you can fill out this form or send us an email at communityservmag@gmail.com
Submissions for events happening between July 14th and 27th are due no later than July 25th. Please note that we are now charging $25 for late submissions.
See you around.