News

Submissions for papers and session proposals are open for a conference, “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Cultural Industries: Role of Cultural Organizations”, co-organized by Project Someone Director Vivek Venkatesh and professors at University du Québec en Outaouais (deadline February 25^th 2022).

The proposed conference aims to be an exchange between researchers and workers in the cultural industries, where one can share the results of their research on EDI in the cultural industries and the other their experiences in the field. This juxtaposition of real-life experiences and research results aims to develop new knowledge rooted in the practice of workers in these industries. We invite anyone interested in EDI in the cultural industries to submit a paper or session proposal (whether you are a researcher, student, artist, or cultural worker). We look forward to receiving papers and proposals on a variety of topics related to EDI and the cultural industries, including the role of cultural organizations. We aim to present research results and testimonials from the experiences (initiatives, issues, etc.) of cultural workers and artists.

The conference will take place from June 15-16^th 2022.

Submit your proposal here.

Find out more about the conference here.

Five years ago, on January 29th, 2017, a terrorist attack was perpetrated on the Islamic Cultural Center of Quebec City. Six people died as a result, and many others were severely wounded. A new documentary by Catherine Leblanc paints a vivid and current portrait of what has changed in Quebec City and in Quebec since this Islamophobic terrorist act was perpetrated. In the documentary, Leblanc interviews UNESCO co-Chairs in Prevention of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism  David Morin and Ghayda Hassan. Please note, this documentary, “Attentat à la mosquée, un devoir de mémoire”, is only available in French.

The documentary melds the voices of citizens and experts to discuss issues related to islamophobia and radicalisation. David Morin and Ghayda Hassan are UNESCO co-Chairs in Prevention of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism. In the documentary, Ghayda Hassan, who is a professor at UQAM in the psychology department, explains: “The extent to which the Canadian government failed to see how serious the threat of the far-right was surprising, when on the ground, we felt it coming, we knew that it was becoming more than hate speech.”

David Morin, who specializes in radicalisation and violent extremism at Université de Sherbrooke, states in the documentary that: “If you commit a jihadist attack, it’s a terrorist attack, it’s organized, responsibility is claimed. Whereas if it’s someone from here, who is white, then it’s someone who is suffering from mental health issues.”

Watch the documentary.

Director Vivek Venkatesh and co-founder Robert McGray will be speaking at the “Civil Society Responses” panel as part of the Hating on Social Media Symposium organized by the Centre on Hate, Bias, and Extremism at Ontario Tech University. Panelists will be discussing new and emerging community initiatives to counter the spread of online hate.

The Hating on Social Media Symposium is a multi-day, live and asynchronous online event designed to explore online hate, with presentations from speakers representing wide geographic areas and varied disciplines.

When: February 8th, 2022 from 12:00-2:30pm EST.

Where: Online via Zoom

Register for the panel here.

Read more about the event.

Project Someone’s Innovative Social Pedagogy project (ISP) was recently featured by Concordia University in an article written by Amy Sharaf. This project mobilizes evidence-based principles in social pedagogy to promote critical digital literacy and empower marginalized communities.

As the article discusses, the ISP project aims to tackle “systemic forms of discrimination that diverse Black, Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) and people of colour face.” To do so, the ways in which these communities sustainably build resilience in an increasingly polarized society is documented in locations in Quebec (Montreal and Chicoutimi) and in Alberta (Edmonton).

Over the next three years, the team will work with approximately 2000 Canadians online and in-person “with the goal of using social pedagogy principles to promote digital literacy and gender equality, as well as empower community leaders and magnify their narratives of resilience.”

As ISP collaborator Paul Gareau states in the article: “the best response to understand and resist structural racism and institutional prejudice is by affirming the self-determination and value of each community. ISP allows for this to happen by making space for stories from storied places.”

Read the article

Watch an interview with Vivek Venkatesh on CBC (20:45-25:50).

Listen to an interview with Vivek Venkatesh on CBC Listens

Find out more about the project

The Project Someone team warmly welcomes Dr. Jessie Beier, who will be joining us as a Horizon postdoctoral fellow, and Dr. Léa Clermont-Dion, who will be joining us as a research associate at the postdoctoral level. Jessie and Léa will both be working with Dr. Owen Chapman and Dr. Vivek Venkatesh on the Landscape of Hope project. Below, please find more information about Jessie and Léa and the work they plan to do during their time with Project Someone.

Jessie Beier is a teacher, artist, writer, and conjurer of strange pedagogies for unthought futures. She recently completed a PhD at the University of Alberta in the Department of Secondary Education with a SSHRC-funded project titled Pedagogy at the End of the World: Weird Pedagogies for Unthought Educational Futures. As a Horizon postdoctoral fellow, Jessie will be co-leading activities related to the Landscape of Hope research-creation project, including working with co-conspirators and partners to develop and deliver programming. She will also be jamming with participants and artists on the team to create new artistic outputs and performances, and sharing what emerges in these experiments through publications, workshops and other public events.

In her own words, Jessie says: “I am looking forward to continuing my current research during my time at Concordia, which seeks to conjure what I call a ‘weird pedagogy,’ by bringing together my background in research-creation, radical pedagogy and speculative philosophy in order to examine the potentials, but also challenges, of creating ‘landscapes of hope’ — both in the flesh and online — amidst today’s increasingly unliveable convergence of crises.”

Léa Clermont-Dion is a new postdoctoral research associate at Landscape of Hope. She holds a PhD in political science from Université Laval and is a Vanier scholar. Her research focuses on online power dynamics and social networks as a tool for empowerment, cyberviolence and feminist studies. In addition to her academic research, Léa is an active documentary filmmaker who anchors her creation in a sociological field approach. Her next feature-length documentary, Backlash: Online Misogyny in the Digital Age, codirected with Guylaine Maroist, will be shown in theaters and on Radio-Canada and the Documentary Channel in 2022.

Léa says: “My project, Je t’écoute, is a podcast that aims to give youth from marginalized communities a voice through Project Someone’s Landscape of Hope project. Je t’écoute seeks to share technical knowledge of digital tools to empower youth. In addition to this creative project, I will also conduct research on the use of social media by youth as a process of reappropriation.”

Project Someone director Vivek Venkatesh was recently a guest on Charles-Olivier Roy’s new podcast, Lac-à-L’Épaule, funded by the FQRSC. The Lac-à-L’Épaule podcast was created to promote discussion between guests and present audacious propositions on ways to improve Quebec socially. Along with Roy and fellow guest, urban planner and proponent of collaborative and civic innovation Jimmy Paquet Cormier, Venkatesh discusses the mission of Project Someone and various projects under its umbrella. Venkatesh, Cormier and Roy also engage in a lively and thought-provoking discussion about the value of social innovation, the importance of pluralism, and drawing from utopias and dystopias to build a positive future.

You can give the episode a listen on Spotify, Anchor, and Apple podcasts.Please note, the podcast is only available in French.

The Landscape of Hope team is hosting an upcoming webinar on evaluating community arts-based projects. The webinar will be offered bilingually––first in English on November 22nd (6pm) and then in French on November 24th (5 pm).

This past September, Landscape of Hope team members Emma June Huebner and Ashley S. Montgomery put together a guidebook to evaluating art-driven and resilience-based initiatives like their own, based on criteria developed by the Anti-Racism Action Program (ARAP).

While the evaluation guidebook is intended to support Landscape of Hope researchers and partners in measuring the success and effectiveness of their work, it will serve as a practical tool to any organization or researcher undertaking similar work at the intersection of social justice, education and the arts.

To register for the webinar, please email the Project Someone team.

Project Someone director Vivek Venkatesh and Emma June Huebner are set to present at an upcoming webinar titled La technologie au service de l’artiste (“Technology at the Service of the Artist”), presented as part of the Diffractions panel series hosted by the PRISME lab of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. PRISME is the museum’s digital mediation and innovation laboratory, which seeks to develop, explore and integrate digital tools in an art educational context. The talk takes place on November 12th, 2021 from 12 to 1:30 pm.

Venkatesh and Huebner, an MA candidate in art education, artist, and secondary teacher of digital arts, will discuss Project Someone’s digital initiatives like Landscape of Hope. They will be in the company of digital artists Jean-Ambroise Vesac and Lise Deville.

Register for the webinar (FR). 

CSLP director Vivek Venkatesh recently participated in a roundtable discussion at Concordia’s 4th Space on the “blurry lines” of conducting socially-engaged research. Organized by Geneviève Grégoire-Labrecque as part of her week-long residency as a 2021/22 Public Scholar, Venkatesh joined the latter, alongside Jennifer Danquah and Kathleen Manion, to unpack the “roles, privileges, boundaries, benefits, dilemmas and challenges of being an ‘engaged’ scholar”––that is, a scholar that aims to advance social justice through their work.

Project Someone director Vivek Venkatesh was recently interviewed by Le Devoir about systemic racism. Venkatesh dives into the concept in an Oct. 19 video titled Le Racisme Systémique sous la loupe de Vivek Venkatesh. 

Venkatesh defines the concept in question as “an ensemble of factors propagated by our public institutions which exacerbate social inequalities and manifest in the ways individuals from minority communities are treated.” 

While this seems straightforward enough, Venkatesh highlights how such a concept can be engaged with from a variety of epistemological positions. It’s much easier, he says, to point to the results of an individual racist act than to showcase the insidious effects of systemic racism empirically, which could leave devout empiricists confused or even suspicious about the “invisible nature” of systemic racism.

The key, according to Venkatesh, is to be aware of such diverging ways of engaging with a concept and to challenge oneself to approach it in different ways.

Watch the interview below.