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articule is an artist-run centre dedicated to social engagement, experimentation and interdisciplinarity.
articule was founded in 1979 by a group of artists to create a place for multidisciplinary artistic presentations focused on research and experimentation. The centre’s founding members shared common values such as bilingualism, collaboration, and management of the gallery through its members’ participation, which remain central to the centre’s operations to this day. The first exhibition “Pile ou Face, mur-mur”, took place in a rented space on de la Montagne Street. articule was incorporated as a non-profit organization the 14th of July 1980.
Since the gallery’s beginnings in 1979, articule’s programming considers equally the work of internationally praised artists as well as that of emerging artists, offering many a first opportunity to exhibit their work in a professional environment.
Following the desire to take art outside of the gallery space, several exhibitions and events take place in locations such as apartment buildings, hospitals, theatres, or parks.
Since its foundings, articule contributed significantly to the development of performance art in Montreal. With thematic conferences, publications such as the newsletter Discussion (1981 to 1989), and workshops, articule became a centre for dialogue and knowledge sharing.

In 2012 the gallery held for the first time the conference Montreal Monochrome?, addressing the mis- and under-representation and systemic oppression of marginalized groups in Montreal’s contemporary art milieu. The several days lasting annual event soon became the gallery’s programming centrepiece.

articule moved several times since its beginnings in de la Montagne Street.
From 1983 to 1991, the gallery shared a building with several other arts-related organizations and galleries at 4060 St-Laurent. In 1991, the centre moved to 15, Mont-Royal West. From 1996 to 2006, it was located at 4001, Berri Street. Thereafter, it relocated to Fairmont Street in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood in 2006.
articule is presently located at 6282, St-Hubert Street, Montreal.
articule was a member of the Société du 5 avril, and is currently a member of the RCAAQ [Regroupement des centres d’artistes autogérés du Québec].

Al Baculis was a Canadian clarinetist and composer. He was born in Lachine, Montreal on November 21, 1930, as Joseph George Alphonse Allan Baculis. He was the son of Lithuanian immigrants. From 1948 to 1951, he studied clarinet at McGill University, and from 1952 to 1956 he studied composition. Baculis married Margo MacKinnon in 1963. They lived in Montreal and had two children, Heather and Alan Jr.

During the 1950s, Al Baculis played with the Canadian All Stars, but also with various bands led by Buck Lacombe. In 1958, he started to do studio work for the CBC. Around the same time, Al Baculis played and composed for several NFB films. From around 1965 to 1972, he led the Al Baculis Singers, a studio group working mainly for radio and television. Also in the 1960s, he led the Al Baculis Octet. Al Baculis wrote arrangements for the Ted Elfstrom Octet and played saxophone in the Johnny Holmes Orchestra. In the mid-1960s, Baculis performed with Vic Vogel's band for Canadian soldiers in Europe and the Middle East. Al Baculis composed and arranged the theme for the closing ceremonies of the 1976 Montréal Olympics. From 1977 to 1986, Al Baculis taught arranging and composition at Vanier College, Montreal, and at McGill University, Montreal, from 1978 to 1983.

Al Baculis died on January 22, 2007 in Seminole, Florida, where he had lived since his retirement in 1993.

Ann Charney is a Montreal-based novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Ann Charney was born on April 3, 1940 in Brody/ Lwow, Poland (today Lviv, Ukraine) as the daughter of Dora Wengler Korsower and Michael Korsower.

Until the liberation of Poland by the Russians in 1945, Ann Charney’s family was forced to hide because they were Jewish. In 1950, Ann Charney and her parents immigrated to Canada. Since that time, she has lived almost continuously in Montreal, Quebec. In 1960, she married architect Melvin Charney. Together they have a daughter, Dara. In 1965, Charney received a master's degree in French literature from McGill University. She also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

Ann Charney contributed to a number of Canadian and American periodicals as a columnist and writer of short stories. She published in Maclean’s magazine, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, the Canadian Forum, and Queen’s Quarterly, among others. She also wrote book reviews. Charney's first novel, Dobryd, was published in 1973.

Ann Charney has received grants from Canada Council and the Conseil des arts et des lettres de Québec. She has received various awards, including National Magazine Awards, the Chatelaine Fiction Prize, and the Canadian Authors’ Association Prize, honouring both her fiction and non-fiction work. In April 2006, the French government decorated Ann Charney as an officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Ann Charney is member of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois and the Writer’s Union of Canada. She was involved with Blue Metropolis since its foundation. She is a member of the Blue Metropolis Foundation Honorary Board.

Andrew (Andy) Dutkewych was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1944. He lives in Canada.
In 1966, he graduated from Philadelphia College of Art. He received a Post Graduate Diploma from Slade School of Art (London, England) in 1968. Since then, he is working as visual artist, mainly focusing on sculpture.
Andy Dutkewych was founding member of Véhicule Art.
He teaches Sculpture at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec.

Alphonso (Alfie) Theodore Roberts was born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on September 18, 1937. He attended St. George’s Anglican School and St. Vincent Boy’s Grammar School. Roberts was awarded a scholarship to study at Queen’s Royal College in Trinidad and Tobago where he was selected to play cricket internationally for the West Indies cricket team. He later stopped playing cricket as his interests in politics and education grew over sports. He worked as a civil servant in St. Lucia between the years 1958 and 1962 and moved to Canada at the age of 23 to study at Sir George Williams University in Montreal (Quebec), where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Sciences. He later obtained a graduate diploma in Public Administration from Carleton University.

Roberts was involved in several community organizations in Montreal. Significantly, he was a founding member of the St. Vincent and Grenadines Association of Montreal. He also helped establish the International Caribbean Service Bureau and was a member of the Emancipation 150 Committee, which organized the Emancipation 150 Conference. After working for 20 years at the administration department of SIDBEC, a steelworks company in Montreal, Roberts decided to return to his studies and registered at Dawson College as a full-time mature student in the Political Science program.

Roberts was a political activist. Along with contemporaries like Franklyn Harvey and Rosie Douglas, Roberts organized conferences and events that supported several major political movements in the Caribbean. These events also brought renowned Caribbean thinkers and writers - including C.L.R. James and George Lamming - to Montreal.

During the independence of St. Vincent 1979, Roberts submitted a proposal to the government highlighting the importance of adding the smaller islands to the country’s name. His proposal was accepted by the government, renaming the country St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Alfie Roberts was Married to Patricia Cambridge with whom he had a daughter and two sons. He died in Montreal on July 24, 1996.

The Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC) is a Montreal-based organization established in 1992 that provides professional support to English-Speaking public organizations, families, and individuals within the city’s Black communities. The BCRC is a member of the Black Community Forum that aims to develop, plan, and support effective partnerships within the Black Community. Dr. Clarence Bayne holds the position of president of the BCRC, and Jamar Scott the position of Vice-president and chair of Finance Committee. The BCRC is located in 6767 chemin de la Côte des Neiges, and offers information and referral services, support to schools, workshops, and a documentation center. The Black Community Resource Centre has partnered with several organizations such as the Quebec Community Groups Network, the English Montreal School Board, Volunteer Bureau of Montreal, Centraide du Grand Montreal, and the Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, among others, to facilitate workshops, training and programs on health, social services, education, anti-racism, self-esteem, community building, conflict resolution, socio-culture and community development for the integration and empowerment of Montreal minority groups including Black Youth. Dedicated to empowering the Black-Anglo community of Montreal, the centre has developed the Book Project, a historical account of the evolution of the English-speaking black community and Black in Quebec, an in-depth research study into the English-Speaking Black Community in Quebec that aims to provide Black Community Organizations with accurate information, data and sources on their communities.

Bellelle Guerin was a Canadian writer and the founder and first president of the Catholic Women's League of Canada. Bellelle Guerin was born as Mary Ellen Guerin on September 24, 1849 in Montreal. She was the eldest child of six and only daughter of civil engineer Thomas Guerin and Mary Maguire, both of Irish descent. Guerin spent several years of her education at the Mont Sainte-Marie Convent in Montreal. During this time, she became renowned as a writer and poet. It was then that she adopted the name Bellelle Guerin.

Guerin never married, but raised her brother’s two children, Thomas and Mary Carroll, after the death of their mother in 1888. Her brother, James John Edmund Guerin (July 4, 1856 – November 10, 1932), was a physician and politician. When he was elected mayor of Montreal in 1910, Bellelle served as mayoress. During the following two years, she accompanied him to civic functions and participated in such events as the International Eucharistic Congress, held in Montreal in 1910, and the visit of Earl Grey in Montreal.

In 1917, Guerin became president of the Catholic Women’s Club, formerly the Ladies of Loyola Club. In November 1917, the Montreal branch of the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) was founded, with herself as first president. Under Guerin’s initiative, the Catholic Women’s League of Canada was created in June 1920 to unify the various branches of the CWL, and once again, she was elected first president.

In 1922, Guerin was honored with the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice cross from the Roman Catholic Church. In 1923, she was made honorary president for life of the Catholic Women’s League of Canada. Meanwhile, the national membership of the CWL had grown to 50,000.

Bellelle Guerin died at age 79 on January 28, 1929, in Montreal.

Kevin McKenna was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1952. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in New York in 1974.
Bob McKenna is an artist and filmmaker working in visual and media arts.
Together, the McKenna brothers participated in the exhibition Corridart dans la rue Sherbrooke, that was sponsored by the Arts and Culture Committee of the 1976 international Olympic Games held in Montreal. They created the large-scale photomontage Rues-miroirs, encompassing a panoramic view of five or six blocks of Sherbrooke Street and St-Laurent Street, where it was installed. The exhibition, and with it McKenna’s installation, was dismantled by the City of Montreal before the Olympic Games opened.

Bob McKenna is a Quebec artist and filmmaker working in visual and media arts.
Together with his brother Kevin, Bob McKenna participated in the exhibition "Corridart dans la rue Sherbrooke" that was sponsored by the Arts and Culture Committee of the 1976 international Olympic Games held in Montreal. The exhibition was dismantled by the City of Montreal before the Olympic Games opened. Several of the artists involved in the exhibition initiated legal proceedings against the city, these later known as the Corridart affair. Twenty-five years later, in 2001, Bob McKenna produced a documentary about the Corridart affair, entitled "About the Corridart Affair".

Brian McKenna was born in Montreal on August 8, 1945, as the eldest of five children of Leo McKenna, descendant of an Irish family that immigrated to Canada around 1850, and Agathe Macdonell, whose ancestors came to Ontario around 1786. Brian McKenna worked as journalist, author, filmmaker, producer, and contributor to numerous local and national radio and television shows. He passed away on May 5, 2023, at age 77.

Brian McKenna grew up in downtown Montreal, where he went to a French elementary school of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, until his family moved to the Montreal suburb of Valois, and later to Beaconsfield. While a student at St. Thomas High School in Pointe-Claire, McKenna worked as sports editor of the high school paper, the St. Thomas News. After his high school graduation in 1963, McKenna enrolled in the Honours English program at Loyola College. There he joined both the debating society and the college weekly paper, the Loyola News, first as a reporter, then desk editor and subsequently news editor. McKenna took over as editor-in-chief in autumn 1966. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1967. He was hired as a summer reporter at the Montreal Star to cover the Expo 67 World’s Fair. In autumn 1967 he returned to studies and to work as editor of the Loyola News. In 1968, Brian McKenna graduated in communication arts and became a full-time reporter at the Montreal Star. From 1969 to 1971 he was parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa. McKenna resigned from the Montreal Star in 1973, to become story editor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Montreal local TV news and current affairs show The City at 6. At that time, he also became the Quebec correspondent for the CBC’s national radio current affairs show As It Happens. In 1975 McKenna joined the current affairs program The Fifth Estate as founding producer. He remained there until 1988. In addition, since 1972, he independently produced several films. In the fall of 1980 McKenna Purcell Productions Inc. was formed and subsequently McKenna’s services were contracted through the company. In 1989, the production company Wartime Productions was incorporated by Brian McKenna and Susan Purcell. The same year, McKenna was named the Max Bell Fellowship visiting professor at the University of Regina School of Journalism, where he taught documentary filmmaking. Brian McKenna also worked on various projects with his brother Terence McKenna.

Brian McKenna wrote articles for Saturday Night, Weekend Magazine, the Literary Review of Canada, Cité libre, and The Last Post and did book reviews for the Montreal Gazette and the Toronto Star. He co-authored a biography of Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau. He contributed to the profiles of Montreal mayors Camilien Houde and Jean Drapeau to The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Throughout his career, Brian McKenna received numerous honours, awards, and prizes. In 1968, he was named Grand Old Man of Loyola News, and honoured as Man of the Year at the annual student awards ceremony. In 1973 he won his first ACTRA award for television writing and directing The City at 6 film documentary Settling Accounts. He also won the Anik Award for reporting, two Gemini awards for And Then You Die, and five Gemini Awards for The Valour and the Horror, a Canadian military history film series. He received further ACTRA awards, including one for His Worship Jean Drapeau, three ribbons from the American Film Festival, two Golden Sheaf awards from the Yorkton Film Festival, a medal at the New York Film Festival, and a “Chris” plaque at the Columbus Film Festival. For The Killing Ground, which he co-wrote with his brother Terence McKenna, he received a Wilderness Award and an Anik award.

The Black Studies Centre is a not-for-profit community organization and registered charity in Montreal, Quebec. The Black Studies Centre was founded by Dr. Clarence Bayne, Adrien Espinet and Leighton Hutson in January 1973.

The Centre has its origins in the Research Institute of the National Black Coalition of Canada which was founded by Dr. Clarence Bayne and operated from 1971 to 1974. At the time of its foundation, the mission of the Black Studies Centre was to protect the interests of Black people in Quebec, to help improve their economic status, and to create and foster organizational structures improving their position in society. In addition, the Centre works to improve communications within the Montreal Black community by promoting Black culture through its many cultural programs and by building up research centres promoting and facilitating the study of Black history. The Black Studies Centre continues to organize workshops, conferences, exhibitions, and other events, and partners with other community organizations and educational institutions in order to offer varied programming geared towards Black youth and other community organizations. Over the years, the Black Studies Centre has partnered with and housed other community organizations, including the Black Theater Workshop, the Black Community Council of Quebec, Women on the Rise, and the Quebec Board of Black Educators. It continues to work in collaboration with the Institute for Community Entrepreneurship and Development (ICED) and the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University.

The Black Studies Centre is governed by a board of directors. It is member of the Black Community Council of Quebec and has a seat on the Board of Directors at the Black Community Resource Centre. During the course of its operations, the Black Studies Centre has gathered extensive documentation on the histories, contributions, and experiences of Black communities in Montreal, Quebec, and Canada. It conducts “extensive research on the social, political and economic status of Black populations in Montreal and Canada; and [has] presented several briefs on the issues to all levels of Government and to the general public and commissions.” The Black Studies Centre receives funding from the Government of Canada and Government of Quebec.

Between 1972 and 2014 the Black Studies Centre was located at 1968 De Maisonneuve boulevard in Montreal. The building, which was belonging to the Black Studies Centre, was sold in 2014 and proceeds from the sale were used to set up the SC Charitable Activity Funding Program. Money from the trust is used to finance the new home at 3333 Cavendish boulevard, Montreal, where the centre is currently located.

The Conseil québécois de l’estampe (CQE) was established in 1978 under the name of Conseil de la gravure du Québec. It contributes to the visibility of emerging printmaking artists by organizing exhibitions and facilitating networking among artists and partner organizations through meetings and events. The CQE aims to improve the conditions of artists and raise awareness of their practices through publications like Code d’éthique de l’estame originale first published in 1983. In 1988, the CQE created the Prix Albert-Dumouchel to award new printmaking artists and in 2002, it created the Mois de l’estampe, later renamed as Mois de l’art imprimé. The name of the organization was changed from Conseil de la gravure du Quebec to Conseil québécois de l’estampe in 1983. In 2005, the CQE became Arprim (Regroupement pour la promotion de l’art imprimé) as a response to the new needs in the printmaking art scene.

David Clark, a musician, was born in England around 1947 to a musician father.

Clark moved to Montreal in 1968. He received a Bachelor of Music (Performance) from McGill University in 1972. As a student, he played with the McGill Jazz Workshop. Adept in both classical music and jazz, Clark worked as a saxophonist, clarinetist, orchestral arranger and conductor, performing with various well-known orchestras, including the Canada Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Andrew Homzy Jazz Orchestra, and others. Clark was a member of Walter Boudreau’s Quatuor de saxophones de Montréal / Montreal Saxophone Quartet for 15 years, until the 1990s. During the 1990s, Clark spent several summers working as the musical director and bandleader on the cruise ship Amerikanis. Clark also worked as a music teacher at both Vanier College and Concordia University. He taught at Concordia University until 2009 and at Vanier College until 2014. In the 1980s and 1990s, David Clark was a member of the Fossils Club of Montreal, which was founded in 1926 by a group of Westmount High School graduates. Its annual musical productions allowed the club to raise money to allow for underprivileged children in Montreal to attend summer camp. During the 1980s and 1990s, Clark created arrangements and served as conductor for several of the Fossils’ productions. The club existed until around 1996. Clark also played with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at Carnegie Hall in New York City, a performance that he considers to be the apex of his career.

David Clark died on September 4, 2015, at the age of 68.

Daniel Feist was born in Montreal on January 27, 1954 as the son of German immigrants Ursula and David Feist. His father was a visual artsit. Daniel Feist was married to Susan (Susie) Kessler. They had two children, Emily and Max. Daniel Feist died in Montreal on February 11, 2005.

Feist received a BA degree in Communications Studies and German and a minor in music from Concordia University, where he later studied music composition.

He worked as a freelance broadcast and print journalist, electroacoustic musician, band manager, and record producer, and he taught at Dawson College (1980-1984) and in the Department of Music and the Department of Communications Studies at Concordia University (1990-1999). From 1997 to 1999, Feist offered the World-Beat Music History Course in the Department of Music. As part of the class work he brought world music artists who were residents of Montreal to Concordia’s Oscar Peterson Concert Hall to perform and be interviewed.

Feist was one of the first broadcasters to embrace world music (world beat, i.e., the popular music of the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America and other parts of the world). He traveled widely, especially in Africa, where he also lived for several years, and interviewed many performers. He was considered an expert in the music of Africa and the Caribbean.

Since the early 1990s, Feist hosted the world-beat program “Rhythms International” on Sunday nights on the Montreal radio station CJFM Mix-96FM. Rhythms International was the only program of its kind on commercial radio in Canada. For several years, Feist also provided a version of Rhythms International for Air Canada’s and Delta Airlines’ in-flight programming, and he wrote and hosted the world-beat series “A Whole New World”on CBC-FM radio from 1993 to 1995.

As an electroacoustic composer, Feist was a member of the Concordia University Electroacoustics group, which had been founded in 1982 as the Concordia Electroacoustics Composers Group. The group’s members composed electroacoustic music and gave concerts. In 1990 his composition “Auxferd Nightburr’d November 2 A.M.” was voted jury winner at the first ACREQ (Association pour la création et la recherche électroacoustiques du Québec) Electroclips competition.

Feist was a long-time contributor to Montreal’s The Gazette as a world-beat music critic and he wrote for programs of events such as the Montreal festival Nuits d’Afrique. In 2001 he covered the United Nations Conference Against Racism in Durban for the Southam News Agency. In 2002 he covered the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Being diagnosed with cancer in 2004, Daniel Feist wrote together with Stan Shatenstein a series of articles for The Gazette chronicling his treatment. Theses articles were published as a book by CanWest in 2006, entitled "Cancer: My Story".

Dorothy Evelyn Harper was born on April 3, 1921 in Victoria, British Columbia. She moved to Ottawa, Ontario, when she was a teenager, and later lived and worked in Montreal, Quebec. In September 1947, Harper married Allan Gordon (Gord) Craig while he was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. They had two children, in 1953 and 1955 respectively.

In the 1960s, Harper started her own business, Dorothy E. Craig Imports, which imported women's clothing and shoes, among other items, from Hong Kong.

Harper passed away in December 2003.

David Neil Lee is a Canadian writer and musician, born around 1950 in British Columbia. He is the author of several books.

Lee studied English at UBC, before he moved to Toronto, where he performed as a jazz musician. In the mid-seventies, he started writing articles for Coda and other music magazines. He was co-editor of Coda with Bill Smith from 1976 to 1983. From 1983 to 1990, he was part owner of the Canadian publishing house Nightwood Editions, together with his partner Maureen Cochrane, whom he married around 1985. Lee and and Cochrane lived in Toronto, before moving to London, Ontario in 1988 for a few years. They later returned to British Columbia. They have two sons, Malcom and Simon.

In 1985, Lee started working on a biography of the Canadian jazz pianist Paul Bley, entitled “Stopping time : Paul Bley and the transformation of jazz.” The biography was published in 1998 by Vehicule Press.

In 2004, Lee obtained a MA in Music Criticism from McMaster University. In 2017, he received his PhD in English from the University of Guelph. He is member of the Writers’ Union of Canada.

As musician, David Lee plays with the Lee Palmer Bennett Trio.

David Lee is now living in Hamilton, Ontario.

Frances Belfrage McDonald was born on June 17, 1920. She was married to Peter McDonald with whom she had a daughter named Molly McDonald. Belfrage wrote several radio plays for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Some of her works include Blues for Charlie, Neon Sign in Green and Red, and The Exile. She also wrote for the British Columbia Department of Education’s Youth in Search of a Future series dealing with vocational guidance.

Frances Belfrage McDonald died on March 13, 2011.

Franklyn Harvey, né à St. Andrews, Grenade, le 14 février 1943, était un activiste, philosophe politique, universitaire, auteur et ingénieur. Il a fréquenté l'Université de Londres, où il a obtenu un baccalauréat ès sciences en génie en 1964. Plus tard, Harvey a déménagé à Montréal, Québec, où il a étudié à l'Université McGill. Il y a obtenu une maîtrise en sciences de l’environnement en 1968. Pendant ses études à Montréal, Harvey faisait partie du cercle d'étude C.L.R. James et du Caribbean Conference Committee. Il a assisté à l'influent Congrès des écrivains noirs à Montréal en 1968. Après avoir terminé ses études, Franklyn Harvey a déménagé à Trinidad, où il était un membre fondateur du mouvement New Beginning. De plus, il faisait partie de la direction grenadienne du Movement for the Assemblies of People (MAP) et du Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education and Liberation (JEWEL), qui jumelaient en 1973 sous le nom de New Jewel Movement, un parti d'avant-garde marxiste-léniniste à Grenade. Fait significatif, Harvey était le principal auteur du Manifeste du mouvement New Jewel. Harvey est retourné au Canada en 1974 et s'est établi à Toronto. Il est devenu l'éditeur de Caribbean Dialogue et de Caribbean Connection. Il était membre du Groupe de travail latino-américain, une organisation de recherche et de solidarité établie à Toronto, et directeur de Paticiplan, un réseau de consultants indépendants et de praticiens du changement au Canada et dans les Caraïbes,qui a travaillé avec des ONG du monde entier. Franklyn Harvey est décédé à Ottawa le 16 mai 2016.

The artist collective General Idea was formed in Toronto in 1969 by three Canadian artists known as Jorge Zontal, Feliz Partz, and AA Bronson, pseudonyms they adopted to better reflect their identities within the group. What began as an artistic collaboration between friends, lasted for 25 years until the death of two members in 1994.

Jorge Zontal, originally named Slobodan Zaia-Levy, was born in a concentration camp in Parma, Italy, on January 28, 1944. After the end of the Second World War, Zontal and his mother reunited with his father, who was sent from Italy to Auschwitz. The family immigrated to Venezuela when Zontal was eight years old. In the 1960s, Zontal went to study architecture at Dalhousie University in Halifax, graduating in 1968. He also studied video at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, where he met Bronson, who was then teaching a workshop. A visit to Toronto made him move there permanently.

Felix Partz, born Ronald Gabe, was born on April 23, 1944, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Partz studied Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba in the mid-1960s. He traveled to Toronto in the summer of 1969 to visit his friend at Rochdale College, when he decided to remain in the city.

AA Bronson, born Michael Tims, was born on June 16, 1946, in Vancouver. In 1964, he enrolled in architecture studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Three years later, Bronson abandoned his studies to participate in building an alternative community that also produced the newspaper The Loving Couch Press, where he became a contributing editor. In 1969, Bronson settled at Rochdale College in Toronto.

The same year, the three artists met at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. Shortly after that, Bronson, Zontal, and Partz founded the artist collective General Idea.

During the group’s artistic career, they produced a wide variety of media-based artworks and installations commenting on popular culture, mass media, consumption, social inequalities, the AIDS crisis, and queer identity, among other topics. In 1971, General Idea created the fictional narrative Miss General Idea Pageant, satirizing glamour and commenting on beauty, fame, and the commercial process of the art world. In 1984, the group created The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion, a bigger-scale event based on the Miss General Idea narrative from 1971, which included a series of architectural proposals for the installation of a pavilion. In 1972, they published the first issue of FILE Megazine, a publication that aimed to promote other artists’ works as well as General Idea’s major projects. The group released 26 issues, the last one was published in 1989. In 1986, General Idea produced a painting for an exhibition in support of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, featuring the word AIDS in the style of Robert Indiana’s 1966 work LOVE, which was highly popular and appeared in a wide variety of formats such as keychains, napkins, postage stamps, etc. General Idea’s intention in creating the AIDS painting in the same style as LOVE was for it to spread like a virus and raise awareness of the AIDS crisis. The AIDS painting was later produced on a variety of different media, including sculpture, posters, wallpapers, and rings, and was used as a logo for AIDS campaigns in several cities such as New York, Berlin, and Toronto, and AIDS awareness became a central subject of the group’s work.

General Idea’s innovative conceptual approach to art-making gave them widespread recognition, participating in 149 group exhibitions and 123 solo exhibitions around the world.

General Idea remained active until the deaths of Jorge Zontal and Felix Partz on February 3, and June 5, 1994, respectively, from AIDS-related causes.

Guy Thouin is a musician and artist born on April 10, 1940, in Montreal. He studied percussion with a private tutor from 1959 to 1960, and during the early 60s, started playing drums at bars in Montreal. He graduated from l’École d’Optique du Québec in 1964 and worked as an optician for a year before he began his studies in fine arts at l‘École des Beaux-arts de Montréal. From 1969 to 1970, Thouin studied classic percussion at McGill University under Pierre Béluse. From 1971 to 1976 he studied Indian music in Pondicherry and Calcutta, India, specializing in Tabla.

In 1967, Guy Thouin, along with Yves Charbonneau, Jean Préfontaine, and Maurice C. Richard, became one of the founding members of Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec, originally known as Quatuor du nouveau jazz libre du Québec. The band played in several Montreal bars, colleges and Universities around Quebec, until they disbanded in 1974. In 1969, Thouin also joined L’Infonie, an avant-garde group where he played with Walter Boudreau and Raôul Duguay until 1971 when Thouin decided to leave both bands to study music in India. After returning to Montreal from India, Thouin rejoined the Montreal jazz scene and collaborated with several artists and musicians, including the band Mirage, which was a Montreal Jazz Festival finalist in 1985. In 1989, he founded the Heart Ensemble, a quintet of guest musicians that performed Guy Thouin’s compositions for over 20 years at cultural centres and bars in Montreal, Ottawa, Joliette, and several other cities around the province of Quebec. Many of these performances were recorded and broadcasted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In 2012, along with Bryan Highbloom, Thouin founded the Nouveau Jazz Libre du Québec, playing several concerts, including one at the Suoni Pel II Popolo Festival.

Thouin composed Rien ô tout ou linéaire un, an immersive sound experience, while studying at McGill University. This sound environment was created for a work by visual artist Roland Poulin and was exhibited in 1971 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Since 2015, Guy Thouin continues to compose, play, and perform along with Félix-Antoine Hamel, in a new version of the Heart Ensemble called From the Basement, which invites musicians to play with them in their basement, and explore different avenues of the “free jazz” movement.

Administrative history: Hour, later renamed Hour Community, was an English-language newspaper published every Thursday in Montreal, Quebec, between February 1993 and April 2011. Founded by Pierre Paquet, Martin Siberok, Peter Wheeland, and Lubin Bisson, the first issue of Hour was published on February 4, 1993. Articles published in this weekly paper focused on music, film, art, and nightlife in Montreal. In addition to news coverage and feature pieces, Hour also included significant listings documenting current and upcoming events. At the time of it’s founding, Pierre Paquet was the President-Publisher, Martin Siberok was Editor-in-Chief, Peter Weiland was News Editor, Lubin Bisson was Director of Operations, Leslie McGregor was Arts & Entertainment Editor, Jean-Luc Bonin was Art Director, and proofreading with done by Peter Dunn. In April 2011, Hour changed its name to Hour Community and as a cost-cutting measure by the publisher and owner of the paper, the editorial staff was let go. At this time, Kevin Laforest was named the Editor-in-Chief. It was announced on May 2, 2012, that Hour Community would cease operations and its last issue would be published on May 3, 2012. At the time of its closure, Hour Community was owned by Communications Voir.

Huntly Bourne was born as son of Charles E.H. Bourne and Muriel Winnifred (Macdonald) Bourne, around 1916. He married Nancy (Anderson) Bourne in 1946. They lived in Lachine, Quebec with their three children : Stephen, Brian and Janice. Huntly Bourne died on February 10, 2011 in Lachine, Quebec.

Harriet Eisenkraft is a journalist and editor. She studied at the University of Toronto and at Ryerson University. She is married to Gary Klein, and they have two children, Elise and Daniel. She is involved in several non-profit organizations and charities, like Axis Music and Dancing with Parkinson. Eisenkraft was deeply involved in the administration and the building up of the Jewish congregation Shir Libeynu, Toronto, Ontario, since 2000, and had been a board member and served as Vice President of the congregation since 2007. From 2012 to 2014 Eisenkraft was president of the congregation.

Dr. Jean-Philippe Warren studied at Laval University, University of Montreal, and Concordia University. He is professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University. He lives in Montreal.
Jean-Philippe Warren published over 200 papers, articles, and books on a wide variety of subjects related to Quebec society, it's social changes and political movements. For his book "Honoré Beaugrand : La plume et l’épée" (Montreal, Boréal, 2015), he won the Governor General’s Award for French-language non-fiction.

Jaroslav Bohdan Rudnyckyj was born on November 28, 1910 in Peremyshl, Ukraine (now Poland). He was married to Maryna Rudnytska.
Rudnyckyj graduated in Slavic studies from Lviv University in 1937. He became research associate of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin (1938–40). Later he taught at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague and Munich, at Prague University (1941–45) and Heidelberg University (1947–48). After his immigration to Canada in 1949, Rudnyckyi became head of the department of Slavic studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, where he stayed until his retirement in 1977. From 1955 to 1970, he served as president of the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Rudnyckyj was member of the Canadian Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which operated from 1963 to 1971. Furthermore, he was president of various associations, as the Canadian Linguistic Association (1958–60), the Canadian Association of Slavists (1959), and more. He was founding editor of Slavistica (1948), Onomastica (1951), Ukrainica Canadiana (1953–73), Ukrainica Occidentalia (1956–66), and Slovo na storozhi (1964–89). His numerous articles on Ukrainian language, onomastics, folklore, and literature have appeared in various periodicals, and many of his works have been separately published. After his retirement in 1977, Rudnyckyj moved to Montreal, Quebec. In 1992, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Rudnyckyj died in Montreal on October 19, 1995.

Logos was an underground magazine covering arts, culture and politics that was published in Montreal between 1967 and 1972. Paul Kirby was the founding editor of Logos. The cover art of the early issues was by John Wagner. Other early contributors included Adriana Kelder, Robert Kelder, Alan Shapiro, and Chandra Prakash.

Leon Llewellyn was born on April 29, 1951, in Grenville, Saint Andrews, Grenada, to Eric Llewellyn and Vera Renaud Llewellyn. Llewellyn attended St. Andrews Anglican School in Grenville, Grenada (1956-1963), followed by Van Horn Elementary, in Montreal, Quebec. He later attended Northmount High School in Montreal (1965-1969). He is a graduate of Sir George Williams University in Montreal (1969-1975), where he received a BA in Fine Arts in 1974 and a Diploma in Art Education in 1975. Llewellyn is married to Danielle Fortas and they have two children, Jonathan and Julia Llewellyn.

Llewellyn is an artist and retired visual arts teacher, whose career was spent working for the English Montreal School Board, where he taught at Laurier MacDonald High School in Saint Leonard. Prior to his time working at Laurier MacDonald High School, he taught art and music at Aime Renaud High School in St. Leonard and worked as a teaching assistant at Miriam School in Montreal. Llewellyn was involved with many Black community organizations in Montreal, including the Black Studies Centre, Negro Community Centre (NCC), Cote-des Neiges Black Community Development Project, and the Quebec Board of Black Educators, among others. In addition to teaching art and developing art and photography programs for community organizations, including the Black Studies Centre, Llewellyn worked as a set designer for the Black Theater Workshop and a lighting technician at the Revue Theater. Llewellyn participated in many community organized exhibitions and provided artworks for community organizations, journals, and newspapers. He was present at many significant events in the Montreal Black community, including a presentation by Angela Davis in Montreal in 1974. In the 1960s and 1970s, he drew political and editorial cartoons for Uhuru and Focus Umoja. Llewellyn was the artist responsible for the sign above the doorway of the NCC, and the logo and banner on the top of Focus Umoja.

Mark Abley is a non-fiction writer, journalist, travel writer, and poet. He was born in Leamington, England, on May 13, 1955, and grew up in Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. He now lives in Montreal.
Abley studied literature at the University of Saskatchewan, obtaining a BA in 1975. He continued his studies as Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, where he completed a second BA with first-class honours in 1978 and a Master’s degree in 1983, both in literature.
After his studies, Mark Abley and his wife Ann moved to Montreal, where he began to work as a freelance writer. His first book, Beyond Forget : Rediscovering the Prairies, was published in 1986.
With the birth of his first child in 1987, Abley joined the Montreal Gazette, where he worked as a feature writer, book-review editor and literary columnist for the following sixteen years.
During his career at the Montreal Gazette, Abley won the National Newspaper Award for critical writing (1996) and was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for international reporting. In 1995, he received a “Dateline Hong Kong” fellowship sponsored by the Canadian Association of Journalists. In 1997, he received a Maclean-Hunter Fellowship in arts journalism from the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Mark Abley left The Gazette and returned to freelance writing in 2003 with the publication of Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Language. In 2005, Abley was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to write The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches From the Future of English, published in 2008, as the second of three books about language. Abley also wrote a memoir of his father, The Organist : Fugues, Fatherhood, and a Fragile Mind, and a book about Indigenous and colonial history, Conversations with a Dead Man : The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott. In his book Strange Bewildering Time: Istanbul to Kathmandu in the Last Year of the Hippie Trail, published in 2023, Abley is reflecting back on his travels through Asia as a young man, in spring 1978. Abley also wrote the text of a children’s picture book, Ghost Cat.
In 2022 Mark Abley received an honorary doctorate from the University of Saskatchewan for his contributions to the literary community.

Abley was a participating member of poets’ workshops during his time in Oxford and later in Montreal. He has published three books of poetry, Blue Sand, Blue Moon (1988), Glasburyon (1994), and The Silver Palace Restaurant (2005), as well as the chapbook Dissolving Bedrock (2001). He received the QSPELL awards for poetry in 1989 and 1995.

Mark Abley has taught writing and literature at various writers’ workshops, at the Banff Centre for the Arts, at the English Department of Concordia University, and he has guest lectured in Concordia’s Journalism program. Abley has also served on juries for the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des letters du Québec, and the Quebec Writers Federation, of which he is a member. He is also a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Canadian Association of Rhodes Scholars, and PEN Canada.