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Remembering Miss Jane

Her name was Jane Houde. She was half French-Canadian and half-Irish. She was born in Quebec City and raised in a convent there. My parents found her through a newspaper ad. She came to live with us and to take […]

Fear of Disease, and the Dis-ease of Fear

Parallels can be drawn between the ways in which medical screening (with mammography, for instance) can lead to over-reaction and over-treatment, and the ways in which socio-political screening for criminals or alleged “terrorists” (with social profiling and predictive policing) does […]

Siddharth – 5th South Asian Film Festival of Montreal

Siddharth, 2013, Richie Mehta’s second feature film, opened the 5th South Asian Film Festival of Montreal on September 11, 2015. This festival is an annual feature of the Kabir Centre for Arts & Culture, a Montreal-based charitable organization whose mission […]

Prenatal profiling: not on my daughter’s life!

“At your age, you should consider screening,” the obstetrician said. She gave me an earnest look from behind her desk. Six months later you were placed on my chest: raven black hair, covered in blood and softly screaming. My reward […]

The Art of Doubly Speaking

For five years between 2007 and 2012, Susan Dubrofsky and I ran Poetry Plus. These events were held six times a year at the Arts Café at the corner of Esplanade and Fairmount in trendy Mile End. Each event featured […]

Medicine, Healthcare and the Raj. The Unacknowledged Legacy

Medicine, Healthcare and the Raj. The Unacknowledged Legacy. By Daya Ram Varma. Three Essays Collective, 2015, Gurgaon, India. Dr. Daya Ram Varma (1929-2015) graduated with honours from the prestigious King George Medical University in Lucknow, India. He obtained his […]

EKPHRASIS ART: Ekphrastic or Ecstatic?

When I wrote a poem inspired by the 1876 painting by Edgar Degas Dans le Café also known as L’Absinthe, I wasn’t aware that I was practicing a genre that originated in ancient Greece. Ekphrasis, from the Greek “ek” […]

The Best Thing that has happened on the Internet….

“The penetration of society by the Internet and the penetration of the Internet by society is the best thing that has ever happened to global human civilization.”   Julian Assange Aside from the across-the-board and simplistic generalization made by […]

Art and Inspiration: Approaching the divine

Ideas are cheap. It is the physical actualization of a thought or a feeling that can be torturous, laborious and demanding but when ultimately achieved, and achieved successfully, that result, can be wondrous and mystical. As Mark Twain so […]

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Where my heart leads me

We regularly see, read or hear works of art only when they are completed or when they are considered finished by their creator. The following statements are from various visual artists who have previously been showcased on Montreal Serai […]

In Context: Writing and Diversity

What will you be making when you make it?  I was just in Mexico City. On my “must see” list were Diego Rivera’s murals – as many as I could see in three days’ time. In hindsight, I know that […]

Seeing Anthropologies of Art at FRIEZE NY Art show 2015

“I view art as a system of action, intended to change the world rather than encode symbolic propositions about it.” Alfred Gell, Art and Agency In a 2014 lecture titled “Contemporary art: considered philosophically and poetologically”  the eminent French philosopher […]

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The Inspirational Voyage of Mosaïque

The musical group Mosaïque was attracted and inspired by the diversity of folk music of Bengal and that led them to undertake a trip for 4 weeks in Bengal in January 2015 in order to acquaint themselves with a different […]

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Meeting Tanya

A note from Rana Bose, Co-Editor Montreal Serai ​I ​first met Tanya Bindra, an alumna of McGill University, during a cultural festival in the Philippines in 2011. She was there with her ​backpack full of lenses and camera gear photographing rappers […]

The Concert Pianist & Bernini’s David

The Concert Pianist Through her half-open window, she lets out a series of sweet notes, the melodious raindrops, repeats and repeats till a lively mountain stream comes to life in the opening of the concerto she has chosen to […]

Nanak Jahaz —101 years on—

‘Jahaz’ is the Punjabi word for a ship. On the 23rd of May, 1914, Nanak’s Ship, also known as Komagata Maru made it all the way to Canada. In Japanese (a friend told me) Koma Gata stands […]

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Exploration and Transformation: Artworks by Adele Shtern

Adele Shtern embraces her calling as a multi-disciplinary artist using traditional and digital media. She takes pleasure in discovering visually interesting sights in diverse loci. Her creative process involves opening herself to the revelation of seeing the familiar in new ways. […]

Interwar Jazz in Paris: A dialogue with Prof. Norman Cornett

This summer 2015, from June 23-June 26, the Simon Fraser University English Department’s France Field School will be in full swing with special guest speaker Professor Norman Cornett, from Montreal, introducing the students to Paris’ international jazz culture. Professor Cornett […]

People-watching

I keep trying to write a story about a woman I saw once in the metro. It was crowded, probably sometime around rush hour. All I can remember about that day was that it was raining and cold; I […]

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Ceramic Sculpture

For seven years from 2005 to 2012, I was enrolled in ceramic sculpture courses at the Visual Arts Centre, Westmount, and at the Town of Mount Royal culture centre. I was uniquely interested in hand building pieces, not […]

Giving a Meaning to Business

Editor’s Note: This issue of Montreal Serai — “Old Age and Youth in a Changing World” — has featured two pieces of writing by young people, Savannah Stewart’s story “Alzheimer’s” and Meghri Doumanian’s essay “War is a Wrong Kind […]

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Editorial

We (the editorial board) struggled with the theme for some time – Old Age and Youth in a Changing World. We tried to find the balance between keeping the theme open and general enough to allow for interpretation and limited […]

Embrace Life with Joy

SéKAI SéKAI is a Canadian artist for 30 years based in Montreal. His creative development began in Nova Scotia and PEI. A mixed racial background inspired him to explore the world through painting, dancing, theatre and literature. For over […]

The Construction of Aging

Given the number of years that have elapsed since my birth, I could be considered an “expert” on aging, at least an experiential expert. Therefore,  it should have been  simple enough to come up with a few hundred words on […]

Crooked paths to freedom

I was twenty-three and living in London for the first time.  I should’ve been fulfilling my father’s dreams for me, which had me doing a qualifying teacher training year in some grimy Midlands town.  Instead I was working for […]