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Pierre

For the next six days, we stayed at home, obeying the curfew that gripped the city as the Israeli army stood at its doorstep.

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Sharing Memory

It is an extraordinary fact that for more than three decades, France never officially acknowledged the Algerian War.

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When the Borders Closed

Lost in the Idomeni refugee camp, a young Syrian girl stands in the mud holding a bag of bread for her family

Art of Roberto Godoy (aka El PoPy)

Born in Guatemala in Central America in 1950, Roberto Godoy has been living in Montréal since 1984. An architect and anthropologist by profession, he has explored painting and printmaking since he was in his teens. Roberto […]

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Dheepan

Dheepan is a Tamil-language film directed by French director Jacques Audiard, featuring Jesuthasan Anthonythasan as Dheepan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan as his wife Yalini, and Claudine Vinasithamby as their daughter Illayaal. However, things are not what they seem. Dheepan is in fact […]

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Forced Nomads

Following the rhythm of the seasons suggests an ebb and flow: a life in harmony.

Throat-singing (katajjaq) workshop opens hearts

Generous Inuit throat singer, Nina Segalowitz, offers Montrealers an unforgettable experience: the joy of playing – using only their breath, voice and heart – and turning a roomful of strangers into a strange living creature that sounds like a… saw! […]

Farida – a book review

Farida by Naïm Kattan, translated by Norman Cornett and Antonio D’Alfonso, Guernica Editions, 252 pp. Canadian novelist, essayist and critic, Naïm Kattan, has penned more than 50 works including 30 published books, and is one of the best-known francophone writers […]

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Refugees Welcome, Refugees Go Back

For six days, Imraan and his fellow passengers talked about games and films, keeping themselves distracted from thoughts of their families and the war they had left behind.

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Island in the Sun – Migrant Experiences in Cyprus

The desires for freedom, safety and self-determination move people across the globe, away from familiar landscapes and across geographic borders. Lack of these basic necessities has led many to Cyprus. The second largest island in the eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus […]

Whose side are you on?

Spoiler alert: If you are a devoted believer that putting Canadian “boots on the ground” in Syria will actually solve anything, you might want to skip this contribution. Let’s see if we can dissect the situation: ISIS commits […]

Braver Than Anyone

The eyes of the taxi driver regard me in the mirror. “Why are you going out in this storm?” I mention a poetry reading and his thick eyebrows rise. He turns off the radio, inhales deeply and begins to […]

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Forced Nomads

Rampant globalization, senseless war, anthropogenic climate change, unbridled technological innovation and even (why not?) old-fashioned greed are the ingredients that lead to massive destabilization of human populations.

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FIFA 2016

Hu has a lithe and beautiful body which he struts throughout the film in a fluid graceful calligraphy

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Snow: On the Peculiar Politics of Whiteness in Carol

Editorial note: This is a slightly modified and edited version of an essay that appeared in the author’s personal blog.  Directed by Todd Haynes in a Cincinnati, Ohio made over to look like New York and its suburbs […]

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Good as Gone: My Life with Irving Layton

In her recently published memoir Good as Gone, about her marriage with internationally renowned Canadian poet, the late Irving Layton, Anna Pottier boldly asserts that “modern Canadian poetry was born in Irving’s living-room” in his “tiny house” on Kildare Road […]

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The Heart has its Reasons

En route to Europe and Asia, I find graffiti everywhere on streets and train stations in Copenhagen. Many words on the graffiti look for peace in an unstable world. Others look for a world without borders or simply a place […]

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The CBC Reborn: Programming to Disrupt the Senses

Like so many artist-creators who felt somewhat suffocated under our country’s last political regime, for me it was like a breath of fresh air when our new government was formed. Cuts to the CBC and the arts gave […]

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Les Cornets: Installations by Andréanne Bouchard

Le projet des cornets s’est amorcé en 2013 alors que l’artiste avait fixé sur sa bicyclette un petit atelier de sérigraphie. En déambulant dans les rues, cette installation avait pour but de sortir l’atelier des murs et de […]

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Emperor’s New Clothes

He drove me in a TATA cab through the streets of Old and New Delhi. The air un-breathable. I heard his bone voice breaking down telling why he didn’t vote for “the man who wears a […]