Programming

Reprise of a project programmed for DARE-DARE’s Off-biennale of 2009.

Walk with l’atelier SYN- Wednesday November 17 th 12:30PM
Departure point at CAMP (lunch offered on site)
CAMP is located in the atrium of the McConnell library, directly in front of the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University
1400 de Maisonneuve O. Montréal (Québec) H3G 1M8

This urban walking tour builds itself around the concept of /de-programming/: an idea initially tied to the progressive breakdown and «vampirization» of Montréal’s downtown area where Concordia’s central campus is located. This collapse became most notable with the closing of the Montreal Forum in 1996 and continued with the subsequent period of stagnation in real estate. Bypassing a more traditional interpretation of how we engage with architecture, this tour asks how de-programming can be explored through the means of individual and collective actions that introduce differentiation and exception. Should we consider issues such as a lack of stability, high student mobility, critical population density and culturally-induced adaptations of the high rise to potentially act as ingredients for stimulating this reflection? The walk will highlight some spatial/marginalized realities and their interactions with the visions of influence and gain currently being laid out for the neighborhood.

Adaptive Actions, initiated by Jean-François Prost, was founded in London in 2007. Through collective and individual interventions and actions, AA calls for participation and explores, with the involvement of various stakeholders and the public, the transformation of the workplace and of private and public spaces. Join us for workshops, discussions and presentations.

Collaborators - Camp Adaptive Actions at Concordia University: Marie-Pier Boucher, Aude Moreau, Gema Melgar and Jean-François Prost

Jean-François Prost is an artist-architect interested in new urban research territories - neglected and over-controlled places that call into question urban matter through new, alternative practices. An act of constructive resistance, a state of mind, a device for stating or exchanging ideas... Prost reactivates and promotes social commitment, and defends the presence of art everywhere, at any time. His individual and collaborative work (with Atelier SYN-, AA...) has been presented at various events in Canada and abroad: the third Montreal Biennial, Liverpool Biennial 06, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and most recently at Madrid Abierto 2010. The 'Adaptive Actions' platform initiated by Prost in London in 2007 will be the subject of a series of intervention-exhibitions (2010-11) in Montreal and Miami. Board member from 2000-2009 of DARE-DARE, a multidisciplinary art center now located in a mobile office, he is working on the project and forthcoming publication Dis/location devoted to emerging practices.