Unscrew the locks from the doors! (A Liberation Spell)
Verticale mounts an exhibition of Montreal artist Jamie Ross that features his collaborative work, bound with a queer ritual sensibility.
Parallel to his artistic practice, Ross, who is a witch, visits pagan prisoners in Corrections Services Canada institutions in Quebec, mainly at the Federal Training Centre (FTC) in the former village of St-Vincent-de-Paul in Laval, in the suburbs of Montreal. Pagan practices (like Wicca, Reclaiming and Ásatrú) have been officially recognized in Canada in the federal institutions such as Correctional Services of Canada (SCS) and the Armed Forces for a decade. However, the implementation of associated human rights policies has been irregular, notably in Quebec. As artist and chaplaincy volunteer, he is interested in how witches and other practitioners negotiate and resist legitimization through the State.
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 the 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 near the FTC.
For the second phase, Jamie Ross hosts a round table discussion with two scholars of religion and society, followed by a stroll through the landscape of Laval neighbourhood of St-Vincent-de-Paul, dominated by the institutions of church and incarceration that line the banks of the rivière des Prairies across from Montreal.
In the final phase, the artist and Verticale present a show of sculptural and video works, in collaboration with the Montreal-based artists-run centre Eastern Bloc.
