2024 has been a busy year of exciting events for ARCMTL and our programming partners. We’ve had events close to home in Montreal with the Afromuseum, POP Reads, Blue Metropolis Festival, and The Emile Berliner Musée des Ondes; and we’ve travelled nationally and internationally to participate in the Vancouver Art Book Fair, and the MissRead Berlin, Germany Art Book Fair. ARCMTL’s two largest fairs Volume MTL and Expozine were a great success this year, and broke attendance records from previous years!

Taking a moment to look back on 2024, ARCMTL would like to thank all of the organizations, artists, and members of the public who have participated or supported our events this year. Happy holidays and a Happy New Year from the team here at ARCMTL!

 

January 18, 25, and February 15 – Nights of Montreal Project presentations and discussions with legendary Afro-descendant figures in Montreal’s cultural history

Concert promoter and organizer Ricky D, rappers Le Cerveau and Know Kandu, and singer and performer Skipper Dean discussed their careers and experiences in Montreal through the 60s to present day. Photos and stories were shared about many iconic Montreal venues and figures.

April 10 – Launch of Volume 2 of 4 x 4 poetry-zine published by ARCMTL

This edition was published in partnership with Revue Saturne and Carte Blanche. The authors featured in this volume are Greg Santos, Juliette Lapointe-Roy, Mathilde Loranger, and Khashayar Mohammadi.

April 27 – Presentation and launch of Poem-Poster project for the Blue Metropolis Festival

Authors Jason Selway, Deanna Radford, SB Goncarova and Sherwin Tjia had their poems published as poetry-art posters, designed and printed by Creations Abricot. The authors offered a public reading of their work outside Hotel 10 on Sherbrooke Street.

May 11 – Event for Montreal History Festival

In honour of the Montreal History Festival ARCMTL collaborated with the CIDIHCA and Afromuseum to present archival documents on the history of Afrodescendant Montreal culture and nightlife at the Afromuseum.

June 2 – Launch of Poetry-Posters for the Poetry Festival of Montreal 2024

A new series of poetry-posters were launched as part of the Montreal Poetry Festival, featuring work by Nana Quinn, Sayaka Araniva-Yanez, Ang Fang and Jonas Fortier.

 

July 26-27 – Vancouver Art Book Fair – Delegation from ARCMTL

A small delegation from ARCMTL attended the Vancouver Art Book Fair, with ARCMTL Director Louis Rastelli Moderating a panel discussion on distribution, collaboration, and funding for artist books.

 

August 22 – Launch of Volume 3 of 4 x 4 poetry zine published by ARCMTL

The authors featured in this volume are Olive Andrews, Jake Byrne, George Bataille, Xavier Nesvecsko.

 

September 25 – 7th Edition of POP Reads

ARCMTL collaborated with Pop Reads to present an evening of readings by poets Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Véronique Cyr, Yannick Renaud, Mégane Desrosiers, and Roxane Desjardins.

 

September 26 – Launch of the New Penelope digital exhibit hosted on Digital Museums Canada

For several years ARCMTL has been working on producing an online exhibition on an iconic but short-lived concert venue in Montreal in the 1960s called The New Penelope. After countless interviews, digitized archive items, and hours of research, the completed project is now available to the public at this link!

 

October 2-6 – Volume 7 MTL

Volume 7 MTL included a wealth of programming events and activities leading up to the fair. For a full program of activities, please consult the Volume MTL website.

October 2^nd activites began with an open house at ARCMTL, and Caroline Sury on Instagram Live. This was followed by a presentation and publication launch at ARPRIM with Paul Kawczak and Steve Giasson, and a feature in the weekly radio program Zine Tonique by Hélène Bughin.

October 3^rd was a series of events hosted at Concordia University’s Fourth Space, including a discussion with Michael Parke-Taylor and Saelan Twerdy on the work of Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald; a conversation with art editors of Concordia Press: “Who do we publish for, the how, when and the why?”; and a discussion with FARR Concordia, NoRountine Books, and ARCMTL on Artist books and social causes.

October 4^th began with an open house and tour of the McGill University Book Arts Lab which houses a collection of vintage printing presses in working order. Following that, UQAM-École de Design hosted an author talk by Alexandre Dimos (Founder, Éditions B42), and Matthias Kreutzer (Professor of Typography, École de Design, UQAM) on the importance of graphic design in publishing.

During the fair on October 5^th a series of talks and discussions took place highlighting various authors and their recent work. Featured discussions highlighted authors Kevin Yuen Kit Lo, Le Lin, Michael Nardone and Mark Nowak. The first day of Volume was celebrated with an afterparty at the Cheval Blanc where artists Tanuki and Caroline Sury performed together.

The final day of the fair on October 6^th featured discussions and presentations by Frantz Voltaire (founder of the CIDIHCA), Claire Lamarre-Niemi (founder of Bootlegger Magazine), NoRoutine Books, and Michel Campeau.

The Volume 7 MTL fair itself took place October 5-6^th at Casa D’Italia, and presented over fifty artists, writers and editors of art books and magazines from across Canada and beyond. Volume MTL remains the only bilingual fair in America, and the only one of the international network of art book fairs to be held in Quebec!

 

October 11-13 MissRead Berlin Art Book Fair – Delegation from ARCMTL

A sizeable delegation of artists, authors, and representatives of art organizations travelled to Berlin to represent Quebec in the MissRead Art Book Fair in Berlin, the largest art book fair in the world. ARCMTL Director Louis Rastelli moderated a panel discussion titled “Montreal Quebec Artists and Publishers Volume MTL showcase” featuring Jessica Bebenek, Orane Thibaud, Jenny Lin, Eloisa Aquino, Sarah-Jeanne Landry, and Sebastien Pesot.

October 26 – Basement Tapes Day

ARCMTL’s annual event Basement Tapes Day was once again hosted at the Musée des ondes Emile Berliner. Visitors were invited to bring obsolete audio formats to be played using the extensive collection of vintage audio players held by the Museum.

 

November 19 – 24: Expozine 2024

Expozine 2024 programming began on the 19^th with an open house at the ARCMTL archives, and a discussion on comics and parody with long-time editor and chief of CROC magazine Pierre Huet.

On the 20^th ARCMTL collaborated with the Afromuseum to host a guided tour of the exhibition “Les histoires brodées” by ground-breaking Congolese artist Lucie Kamuswekera. Later that evening ARCMTL launched the latest volume of the 4×4 poetry-zine project published with support from Les Herbes Rouges and Vehicule Press.

Montreal artist Kezna Dalz hosted a zine-making workshop on the 21^st as part of ARCMTL’s new zine workshop series “Our Places, Our Stories.” More workshops in this series will be held in 2025, so stay tuned for more information if you would like to participate in the future! And later that evening graphic novelists Chris Oliveros and Marc Tessier joined ARCMTL to discuss the graphic novel as a medium to address history.

On November 22^nd Featured Expozine artist Arantza Pena Popo from Los Angeles led an exciting zine-making workshop titled “make a zine with your ex.” That evening was the annual Expozine Gala, hosted by Zéa Beaulieu-April and Sherwin Tjia, at which the Expozine awards for 2023 were announced.

Expozine 2024 fair was held on the 23-24^th at the Église St-Arsène on rue Bélanger, and was a great success! Hundreds of zine-makers, artists, authors, and self-publishers exhibited to crowds of visitors. Thank you to everyone who made it such a success!  The afterparty at Brasserie Beaubien was in collaboration with the Festival De la Poésie de Montréal. A fun evening of poetry readings and live music with Les Outardes de Dijon, Chloé Jara-Buto, Marcella Huerta, Timothée William-Lapointe and Blare Coughlin participating.

November 30 – Home Movie Day 2024

ARCMTL’s final event of the year was the annual Home Movie Day was hosted at Vices et Versa on Saint-Laurent this year. Visitors were invited to bring in their family films on 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, VHS and other more recent formats for screening.

From the team here at ARCMTL, thank you for a wonderful year, and we’ll see you all in 2025 for more exciting events and activities!

-Louis, Chloe, Rosemary, Frank, and Orane