sept 30 – oct 5 2025

Montréal, Québec, Canada

All activities are free and open to the public

Art Book Fair:

4 – 5 oct 2025 11h – 18h

Casa d’Italia, 505 Jean-Talon O.

PROGRAM

Solidarities – Diasporas, Haiti – Palestine

Visa for Life: The Manuscripts of Luc Caron

Festive souvenirs – Josée B.: remix by Josée B.

Symposium: Fourth Space Concordia

Symposium : The Book as a Place of Collage

Virtual Workshop: Photo production with Emblemata and BookArt

Vowel Jams premiere performance by Kathy Kennedy

ARTEXTE / ARCMTL Doubles Sale @ Volume 8 MTL

PARACHUTE 1975 > 2025, AVANTI !

Livre d’Or – Dean Baldwin, Jonah Campbell, eunice belidor, Alegria Gobeil

Volume 8 MTL Programme

For its eighth edition, Volume MTL, Montreal’s international art publishing festival and art book fair, highlights experimental forms, queer and diasporic narratives, and explores the book as a creative, political, and collective act.

Drawing inspiration from Montreal’s history of unconventional art spaces—apartment galleries, industrial sites, and DIY installations—the program embodies a spirit of experimentation, resilience, and community. The artist’s book, whether monographs, catalogues, or conceptual publications, becomes a living object, suited to performance, interactive installation, and visual poetry.

From September 30th to October 5th, Volume 8 MTL presents talks, workshops, readings, and in situ projects that transform the book into a multisensory, real-time experience. The public is invited to gather, actively participate, and explore the book as a space for connection, experimentation, and collective creation.

This edition highlights the artist’s book as a catalyst for social engagement and innovative practices within Montreal’s contemporary art landscape.

sept 30

Solidarities – Diasporas, Haiti – Palestine

14h–16h

Centre CIDIHCA, 430, rue Sainte-Hélène, Bureau 401 Montréal, QC H2Y 2K7

Solidarities – Diasporas – Support for art and expression in diaspora communities in Montreal during a time of crisis in Haiti and Palestine.

In Old Montreal, the team behind Maktaba Bookshop has worked to empower MENA-region artists, publishers, designers and musicians since they opened in 2022. They host events, support local community initiatives and make otherwise hard-to-find important publications and works available here. Their neighbours the CIDIHCA have likewise promoted as well as helped archive and document the arts, culture and writers of Haiti through many chapters of the country’s difficult recent history. Discussion moderated by Louis Rastelli with Sundus Abdul Hadi of Maktaba / We Are The Medium and Frantz Voltaire, co-founder / director of CIDIHCA, followed by an open discussion and questions. In English and French.

Embryo Heart by Scorli

18h–21h

Studio Le Ciel, 5333 Casgrain, 10e étage

A performative evening inspired by the multidisciplinary artist’s book Sophrology. The work includes sculptures, performances, installations, soundscapes, video documentation, and printed editions. The performance offers a mise en abyme of the book through a living scenography made of materials, sounds, and narratives.

oct 1

Visa for life : The manuscripts of Luc Caron

Ross Higgins & Antoine Vogler

12h–14h

Archives gaies du québec, 1000, rue Atateken, #201-A

Visitors are invited to spend an afternoon exploring the archival fonds of Luc Caron. Luc Caron (1947–1995) was a poet, actor, visual artist, and activist. He was involved with the Brigade Rose, the organization behind Montreal’s first Gay Pride parade in 1979, as well as with the ADGQ (Association for the Rights of Gays in Quebec). The documents preserved in his fonds provide a rich testimony to the life of a gay man in Quebec during the 1980s and 1990s. His artist’s books will also be featured.

Spaces are limit, follow this link to reserve your seat.

Photo credit: Fonds John Banks.

Festive souvenirs – Josée B.

18h–21h
Librairie Mes Pants de Queer, 2025, rue Parthenais, suite 241

A Generation X photographer, Josée B. roams the night with camera in hand, capturing the pulse of life after midnight. Bodies warm up, prepare, and rest, yet never surrender to sleep. These are the nights of Black & Blue, of the White Balls of another era, of vanished bars we refuse to forget—the Kiev, the K.O.X.—and of a young Mado Lamothe. A snapshot of a 1990s generation at the dawn of the 2000s.

Mes Pants de Queer presents Festive Memories: Remix, a retrospective exhibition of the photographic work of Josée B., a witness to Montreal’s lesbian scene of the 1990s. Featuring a D.J. set by the artist. A limited-edition publication accompanies the exhibit and is available in their independent queer bookstore.

oct 2

Symposium: Fourth Space Concordia

Fourth Space, 1400 de Maisonneuve O. corner Mackay

The Volume 8 Symposium at Concordia 4th Space invites participants to engage in an in-depth reflection on three major themes in contemporary art publishing: migration, censorship, and creative ecologies. This one-day event brings together artists, publishers, and thinkers to explore current issues and innovative practices in the field.

The Threat of Publishing

13h – 14h

Featuring founder Chen Yun, participating via zoom from Shanghai, China in discussion with Louis Rastelli (Volume MTL/ ARCMTL).

The Threat of Publishing: presentation and discussion of the 51 Personae project, an art publishing network that presents and distributes independent publications from China at fairs around the world in reaction to Chinese restrictions on publishing and book fairs. Independent publishing is always challenging the establishment of mainstream ideologies, but this freedom is increasingly under threat in an increasing number of contexts around the world. How to survive increasingly harsh circumstances has to become part of the creativity of art publishing itself. It is not only the content, but the methodology and strategy to keep safe and keep going that is becoming art.

Ecologies of Becoming

14h – 15h

Presentation of Sougwen Chung’s monograph, with Harley Smart (publisher, Anteism) and the artist (via webcast).

Ecologies of Becoming explores the entwined realms of art, technology, and the deep connections formed through human-machine collaboration. Authored by the visionary artist and researcher Sougwen Chung, this monograph fuses an extensive body of work that probes the fluidity between humans and technology.

Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-Canadian artist and researcher, widely considered a pioneer in human-machine collaboration – exploring the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine as an approach to understanding the dynamics of humans and systems.

Reading the Migration Library

15h – 17h

Undercurrents & Folds, An Artist Book Exchange Event

Join Lois Klassen, Deanne Achong and other artists involved in the project, Undercurrents & Folds, in a hosted artist book exchange. Bring a zine or artist book to exchange, or just come to meet the artists and hear them talk about the project, its alternative distribution methods, and its role in circulating creative production on the topics of migration and diaspora.

Undercurrents & Folds is the third and final series in the long-running collaborative artist book project, Reading the Migration Library that was initiated by Lois Klassen in 2016. The project features a lively web archive and exchanges gallery designed by Deanne Achong.

Undercurrents & Folds artists are Lois Klassen (co-host), Deanne Achong (co-host), Leah Decter, Peter Morin, Sarah Shamash, Candie Tanaka, Tania Willard, and Clare Yow.

Reinventing The Salon

Apartment-galleries in Montreal from 1980s to The Present

A Roundtable Discussion with Vincent Bonin, Ingrid Bachmann, Pierre Dorion, Marie Ségolène C Brault & Geneviève Marcil

18h – 20h

Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1920, Baile, Montréal, QC H3H 1R4

Satellite Exhibit :
Reinventing The Salon: An Exhibition of Works, Texts, and Images from the Archives of Apartment Galleries in Montreal, 1980 to the Present

Vernissage: Thursday Oct 2, 20h–22h
from October 2 to October 5, 2025, 12–4pm (Friday to Sunday)
de Maisonneuve (Westmount) Address disclosed upon appointment.

Join us on Thursday, October 2 from 6-8pm at the Canadian Center of Architecture for a bilingual evening of discussion on the history of domestic spaces as exhibition venues in Montreal, presented in collaboration with Community Service Magazine. Vincent Bonin, Ingrid Bachmann, Pierre Dorion, Geneviève Marcil and Marie Ségolène C. Brault will reflect on the traces and archives of artistic interventions that took place in Montreal apartments over the past four decades.

The conversation will be followed by an exhibition opening in a nearby home, showcasing works originally exhibited in apartment galleries throughout the years. This archival exhibition brings together artworks, ephemera, video, and photographs from projects such as 100 Bell Towers, Calaboose, L’Escalier, Galerie Apart, and more. It features a selection of works by local and international artists, drawn from private collections and personal archives.

The exhibition will be on view by appointment from Thursday, October 2 through Sunday, October 5. Please register via this link.

This project would not have been possible without the generosity of Mr. Edmund Nash. We also thank Desrochers D apiary for their sponsorship.

oct 3

Symposium: The Book as a Place of Collage

12h – 16h30

Casa d’Italia, 505 Jean-Talon O.

The symposium, The Book as a Place of Collage, invites artists, gallerists, writers, poets, publishers, academic researchers to join a conversation around the role publishing plays in collage artist’s practice. Ric Kasini Kadour (Kolaj Magazine – Kolaj Institute) will present an overview of the various types of books collage artists make. He compares the book against the exhibition as a means of diffusion and offers a taxonomy of various books and publishing activities. He concludes with a discussion of the role of the book in art practice, for art professionals, for viewer or collector. Presentations will be organized as a series of panels with ample time for questions and discussion. In the final session, we identify strategies for supporting the book as a means of distribution and articulate strategies and recommendations to artists, galleries, art centres, museums, libraries, and booksellers.

Organized by Kolaj Institute, supporting artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, and disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement; and Kolaj Magazine.

Virtual Workshop: Photo book production with Emblemata and BookArt

BLV Publications (William Sabourin & Maéva Gauthier-Chartrand)
13h–15h

via webstream – Anteism

This live webstreamed presentation will explore the process of producing a photo book mock-up with William Sabourin & Maeva Gauthier-Chartrand (Emblemata), in partnership with BookArt.

The workshop will focus on the different steps involved in creating the final mock-up of a photo book, a small edition based on photographs taken in Scotland by Antoine Giroux and William Sabourin. The process of creating a sequence and assembling a book will be explained, followed by hands-on demonstrations by bookmaker – publisher Harley Smart. The book project combines a variety of material explorations with, among other things, risograph and indigo printing, cover embossing, and DIY-style binding.

Participants will also get a glimpse of Emblemata’s previous books, learning about considerations specific to each project in terms of sequence, binding, and cover choices.

Vowel Jams premiere performance by Kathy Kennedy

19h – 21h

Casa d’Italia, 505 Jean-Talon O.

With special musical guests Squid Pro Quo.

A vocal journey beyond the spoken, sung, and heard.

Blurring the lines between voice and environment, Vowel Jams is the latest solo release from Kathy Kennedy—a bold, playful exploration of orality in all its fractured, fluid, and feral forms.

Live vocals meet looping effects, field recordings, and fragmented text in a shimmering collage of sound. Each track invites the listener into a space where language unravels and the voice transforms—at once intimate and expansive, ancient and futuristic. This is not just an album, but an invitation: to listen differently, to speak differently, to feel the mouth of sound open wide.

KATHY KENNEDY is a sound artist with formal training in visual art as well as classical singing. Her art practice generally involves the voice and issues of interface with technology, often using telephony or radio transmission. Her work engages with public space and physical space through voice, often creating environments for others to sing in. This is her first solo vocal album. It will be available as a hybrid book – album during the performance.

Squid pro quo is the newly formed duo of Julie Delisle and Vergil Sharkya’. They are set on an exploration of sonic, visual and performative probabilities, drawn from their individual lines of experiences and alloyed into a combined force field forged from the sheer pleasure of creation, freedom of play, and pure love. Having performed and recorded together with various artists, this project is their coming out as their own binary system.

oct 4

Volume 8 MTL Art Book Fair

11h – 18h
Casa d’Italia, 505 Jean-Talon O.

On Saturday, October 4 and Sunday, October 5, the doors of Casa d’Italia, located directly across from Jean-Talon Metro Station, will bring together over sixty artists, writers, and publishers of art books and magazines from across Canada and beyond. Admission is free for the public—it’s a great opportunity to discover new finds.

This is the only bilingual fair in America and the only one in the international network of art book fairs held in Quebec!

See the list of exhibitors here.

Artexte and ARCMTL doubles sale!

Come shop, browse, and read, and who knows, you might find a treasure! Discover some wonderful exhibition catalogues, rare books, small publications, art magazines, and much more!

PARACHUTE 1975 > 2025, AVANTI !

Forum – discussion with Chantal Pontbriand

14h – 15h

Upon its founding in 1975, the contemporary art magazine PARACHUTE was part of a significant renewal, both in terms of writing about contemporary art and in terms of events in the field. International, multilingual, multi- and interdisciplinary, promoting performativity and immediately positioning itself in a new era, its programme and subsequent achievements marked an important moment for both the Canadian and international scenes. This openness to new forms of thought and ever-evolving practices has been a constant throughout PARACHUTE’s history. How can we respond to this dynamic today? Globalisation, AI, the fragmentation of images and forms, the importance of live performance, the environmental and economic crisis, wars—what can we do, what can we say, how can we say it? The discussion will take the form of an open forum with Chantal Pontbriand, founder of PARACHUTE, and publishers from all walks of life who are developing new forms of writing about art, present this year at the Volume MTL fair.

nos suppressions

15h – 16h

Céline Huyghebaert, Caroline Boileau

To mark the release of our deletions by Artexte, Céline Huyghebaert and Caroline Boileau are hosting an open discussion where collaboration, exchange, vulnerability and doubt take centre stage in the creative process.

Rooted in exchange, Suppressions is a textual and visual project through which Céline Huyghebaert sketches the story of her friendship with a fictional artist, a story nourished by voices, images and documents collected during residencies in documentation centres – at La Chambre blanche in 2016 and at Artexte in 2018 and 2019 – and a long correspondence with 51 Quebec artists. The publication forms the final chapter of this project, which was first presented in the form of a series of exhibitions: La Chambre blanche (Quebec City, 2016), Galerie Occurrence (Montreal, 2021), Caravansérail (Rimouski, 2024) and Artexte (Montreal, 2024).

Presentation of the publication Nos Suppressions by Céline Huyghebaert, closing a cycle of residencies and exhibitions (2024–2025). A collaborative project with the Artexte documentation centre, this work sketches a fragmentary portrait of [a.], a fictional artist constructed from archives, voices and documents gleaned during residencies.

Céline Huyghebaert has been awarded several major recognitions, including the Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art for her artistic practice (2019), the Governor General’s Literary Award for Le drap blanc (Le Quartanier, 2019).

oct 5

Livre d’Or

Dean Baldwin, Jonah Campbell, eunice belidor, Alegria Gobeil

18h – 22h

Espace Transmission, 5435 Av. des Érables, Montréal, QC H2H 2E8

In collaboration with Centre Clark and Espace Transmission, Livre d’Or is a hybrid evening of performative readings curated by Marie Ségolène C. Brault, exploring the theme of hospitality. Inspired by traditional guestbooks, the event will examine the relationships between guests and hosts, inviting participants to take part in a multisensory experience from which traces will remain—a celebration of food, wine, and hospitality.

Dean Baldwin, Jonah Campbell, eunice belidor, and Alegria Gobeil will share texts within a participatory installation. Cocktails, wine, and other surprises are on the menu!

A limited edition chapbook will accompany the evening.