Volet action art
1pm - 3pm
Verticale mounts an exhibition of Montreal artist Jamie Ross that features his collaborative work, bound with a queer ritual sensibility. The artist is interested in minority religious expression in Québécois and Canadian art history, particularly in the current climate of intolerance towards certain religious faiths.
In this first phase of the project, Ross and a ribald group of artists guide members of the public on a carnivalesque walking Beltane ritual in the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul village :
The body is the motor of revolution. Witches have gathered for generation upon generation at May Day to call on the wild wisdom of the world to recreate herself.
On the holy full moon of Beltane, join us to imagine a world where humans are not punished by confinement, as we say to the pagans in prison in Quebec: You are not alone!
MARIE LA VIERGE, punk river sorceress, performance artist and herbalist presents a new work while ALEX FELICITAS, Prairie witch holds space for group ritual action.
Collectives WYïŚYA and FASTWÜRMS crochet together the psychic space between river, prison and village street with a deftly deployed symbolic vocabulary.
LAURA ACOSTA’s ecstatically costumed characters animate the parade, interacting with the unhinged folk dances of FAYE MULLEN and JAMIE ROSS, masked by ZUZU KNEW.
As Montreal drag agit-prop superstar PEACHES LAPAGE chants in the Queen of the May, Vermont puppeteers HAYLEY LEWIS and ADAM COOK channel righteous liberatory spirit.
May Day is power. The season of Beltane is a time when the doors to the other world crack open – a holy time to celebrate and agitate for the world we want to live in.