Reading of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Saturday, March 25, 2017, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University
1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West (LB-165), Montreal
Organized by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery in collaboration with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and UQAM, with the participation of Marly Fontaine, an Innu student in visual arts at UQAM.
The idea behind this reading marathon is to re-energize an initiative launched in 2016 in collaboration with #ReadTheTRCReport and No Reading After the Internet as part of the Reading Exercises exhibition curated by Katrie Chagnon, which was presented at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery from November 18, 2015 to January 23, 2016 (ellengallery.concordia.ca/exposition/exercices-de-lecture/?lang=en). During the first marathon conducted at the Ellen Art Gallery in January 2016, a French version of the #ReadTheTRCReport YouTube project was begun and continued online with open invitations to participate⎯crowd-sourcing in action. The activities being organized around the Topographies of Mass Violence symposium provide an excellent opportunity to revive and try to complete this project.
The #ReadTheTRCReport project (initially in English) was inspired by the publication of an article by Chelsea Vowel in which she encouraged Canadians to read the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). See her article here: http://apihtawikosisan.com/2015/06/reaction-to-the-trc-not-all-opinions-are-equal-or-valid/
In response to her appeal, Zoe Todd, Erica Violet Lee and Joseph Murdoch-Flowers started a video reading project, inviting people from all across Canada and elsewhere to take a video of themselves reading a section of the Executive Summary of the TRC report out loud, and then post it online on YouTube. The goal was to pay tribute to the survivors of residential schools, and to make the report more accessible and bring it to life so that it wouldn’t get shelved like so many reports before it. The English version of the #ReadTheTRCReport project was completed in September 2015. The reading list is on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxPr_RIsvg9JJWoiRx2kl2v24r_pu7JbR
Many sections of the French report still need to be read to finish the #LireleRapportdelaCVR project. To get things rolling, you are all warmly invited to take part in the reading marathon that will be held on March 25 at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, in a friendly atmosphere of sharing, conversation and reflection. Several recording stations will be available to those who wish to read aloud, and there will be food. You will also be able to visit the Sovereign Acts II exhibition curated by Wanda Nanibush, which continues until April 1, 2017 (http://ellengallery.concordia.ca/programming/current/?lang=en).
You can also participate online until June 1, 2017 by following this procedure:
- Send an email to Katrie Chagnon at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (katrie.chagnon@concordia.ca), or to Véronique Leblanc (leb.veronique@gmail.com) or to Marly Fontaine (Innu_BliaBle@hotmail.com) to be assigned a section of the Report to read.
- Video yourself reading your section. When you’re done, upload your video directly to YouTube. Please title your clip as follows: “LIRE LE RAPPORT DE LA CVR (section title and the set of pages you are reading)” and add the hashtag #LireleRapportdelaCVR. Then send us an email or contact us to give us your link and we will add it to our reading list on YouTube. If you don’t have a YouTube account and would like to participate, send us your video using the free file-exchange program WeTransfer.
- If you tweet about your clip, use the hashtag #LireleRapportdelaCVR so people can find it on social media.
The #LireleRapportdelaCVR reading list is posted on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaHyXeXhAoN1_rza0I1Y18mtgh6QYhLMn
You can download a pdf file of the French version of the Report to be read aloud from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission website (select the pdf titled “Honorer la vérité, réconcilier pour l’avenir,” which is the Executive Summary): http://nctr.ca/fr/reports.php
