ATSA, Winner of the very first Prix du Jury awarded by the Caisse Desjardins de la Culture

ATSA, When  Art Takes Action
Winner of the very first Prix du Jury  awarded by the Caisse Desjardins de la Culture
on the occasion of the 33^rd Grand Prix of the Conseil des Arts de Montréal!

“Besides giving fresh impetus to our future projects, this award shines a light on, and acknowledges the importance of, all practices that are deemed marginal, that are interdisciplinary and that give voice to citizens on issues of concern in the public space, a space we feel needs to be accessible and inclusive in order to ensure a diversity of artistic proposals,” says ATSA co-founder Annie Roy.

The prize comes with a $15,000 grant. The jury was truly impressed with ATSA—an organization that uses relational art as a means to defend major causes, such as homelessness, at the local, national and international level—and its highly regarded world tour of Le Temps d’une Soupe. The jury highlighted ATSA's efforts to foster dialogue and to use each person's life experiences to create art on a human scale that favours engagement by various community stakeholders.

“We are truly grateful and moved to inaugurate this Prix du Jury awarded by the Caisse de la Culture on the occasion of the 33^rd Grand Prix of the Conseil des Arts de Montréal! We would like to congratulate all the finalists—100Lux; Les Éditions du remue-ménage; Phi Muse; Productions Porte Parole et Champ gauche; SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art; and Wapikoni mobile—for their inspiring work, as well as the Orchestre Métropolitain for their Grand Prix!

“With renewed momentum to pursue our adventure, we would like to thank the Conseil des Arts de Montréal; the Caisse de la Culture; our patron Natalie Voland, president of Gestion immobilière Quo Vadis inc.; and Télé-Québec and the SODEC, our partner hosts. We would like to share this award with all those without whom none of this would be possible: our family, collaborators, grantors, board of directors, donors, sponsors, volunteers, and the entire ATSA team!”

A look back: ATSA was founded in 1997 by artists Annie Roy and Pierre Allard. The year 2017 marked their 20th year of socially engaged artistic interventions in the urban space, and was a particularly prolific one:

– The event Cuisine ta Ville brought together, on the Esplanade of the Place des Arts, people who arrived in Montreal as refugees, to tell their stories and speak about their integration into our society. A cookbook commemorating the event will be published in May 2018, and a second edition of the event is slated for 2019.

– While the controversy surrounding the Paradise Papers still raged on, Pas d’Radis Fiscaux's programming featured dozens of artists as well as activities for mobilization against the social inequity resulting from tax evasion. The event also hosted an international delegation on the arts and homelessness to discuss the importance of art for society's most vulnerable people.

– Finally, the installation Le Temps d’une Soupe undertook a successful multi-continent tour, generating dialogue on weighty issues that has to date involved 5,172 perfect strangers. These one-on-one conversations have been held in public squares in Montreal, Vancouver, Hull, Rennes, Graz, Ouagadougou, Bobo Dioulasso, Beirut, Marrakesh, Moncton, Birmingham, Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Glasgow, Port-au-Prince and Antananarivo, with more destinations to come. The encounters are being archived in the form of poetic portraits, whose great number and provenance from around the world will shape an impressive work of art once the tour winds down.

For more information and news about ATSA, When Art Takes Action, visit www.atsa.qc.ca.

To read the Conseil des arts' press release, click here: 
https://www.artsmontreal.org/fr/nouvelles/2018-03-29/laureat

THE NEW CHAPTER IS ON

HAVE A LOOK AT THE POETIC PORTRAITS FROM BEIRUT

THE LATEST POETIC PORTRAITS
- MARRAKECH as of April 13
- BEYROUTH
- La Maison du développement durable
- BURKINA FASO

Our next destination is MARRAKECH in collaboration with Awaln'Art.
Place des Ferblantiers April 12, 13 and 14, from 6pm to 10pm.

Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts' New Chapter program, ATSA has the privilege of offering Le Temps d'une Soupe in the Francophonie and in northern Canada! The aim of this relational work is to generate conversations between perfect strangers in a public space. In several festivals and arts venues outside the usual tour circuits, we have found exceptional partners for increasing such encounters, far from the algorithms used by social media.

Follow the tour on Facebook and have a look at the new poetic portraits coming up.

This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.