atelier clé
Collective Pottery Patchwork II
— Montreal Monochrome XI — TRANSIENT
Workshop with Laura Leong and Kadidia Traore.
Saturday, September 5, 2026 at 1:30 PM.
Free and open to all.
Montreal Monochrome is an annual conference series for Indigenous, Black, and artists and cultural workers of color, organized by articule's Fabulous Committee. This 11th edition, which will take place from September 2-6, 2026, will expand to welcome guests from across Canada to explore our theme: TRANSIENT. Details about this edition of Montreal Monochrome and the full program.
For Montreal Monochrome’s 11th edition, Kadidia Traore and Laura Leong, on behalf of atelier clé, propose the creation of three additions to the collectively handbuilt ceramic tapestry installed on the back exterior of articule. During the 3 hour event, participants from articule’s community will be able to create one or more ceramic tiles to contribute to a single collectively built clay tapestry. The clay, recovered and recycled from various commercially available stonewares, will be fired unglazed to feature their various natural shades ranging from beiges, to reds and deep browns and assembled as per the layout established during the workshop. The finished mosaics will be installed in the weeks following Montreal Monochrome.
Categorization, at once the basis of understanding and the basis of division is necessarily and unnecessarily applied to people and their creations alike. This immersive workshop invites participants to re-consider imposed categories of race using clay as a metaphor. How do we reconcile the range of separated, different coloured clays and come together to each contribute a tile to the tapestry mural?
Through this personal and shared work, we also aim to create a space in which participants can actively engage in transformative placemaking. This permanent group installation, situated outside of articule, will commemorate the event where we asked how to rebuild and develop a collective memory, share ideas and create in unity.
Artists
atelier clé is a co-operatively operated non-profit ceramics studio shared between 13 active members, founded in 2025. Our goal is to create a fully equipped production and event space that lowers production costs while providing opportunities for ceramic arts education and supporting the professional development of our members, the majority of whom are ceramicists facing systemic barriers.
From 2014-2021, Laura Leong apprenticed and worked under the mentorship of Aline Beth Marshall at The Clayzone (Vancouver) and Richard Lawson of Studio 313 Céramique (Montréal) gaining insight into the many challenges and joys of operating a collective ceramics studio. In 2021, Laura founded atelier clé as a studio aiming to establish itself at the intersection of the social solidarity and visual arts sectors.
Since its registration as a non-profit in December 2025, the studio operates horizontally between administration, technicians and membership with the key executive body being its elected Board of Directors. Building off the experience of our members in ceramic education and their implication in social change, the studio will be rolling out new programming and resources starting September 2026. New programming includes, building and implementing new equipment, intermedia workshops, public ceramic creation events with partner organizations and showcases of emerging and underrepresented artists working in ceramics.
atelier clé invites artists working in ceramics to participate in its public programming and to engage as resident members or by volunteering and attending general assemblies.
MMXI Schedule
Wednesday, September 2, 2026
Opening Reception & Performance
— Starting at 5:30 PM: presented by BLK D’OR featuring Jahsun, Engone Endong, and Cabral Jacobs.
Thursday, September 3, 2026
Threading Frequencies: Longtable discussion
— At 1:30 PM: Featuring artist-run centre leaders: Abedar Kamgari (SAVAC), Sanaa Humayun (Hamilton Artists Inc.), and Alana Traficante (Gallery 44), co-facilitated by researchers Madeline Collins and Suzanne Morrissette (OCAD University).
Open Discussion
— At 3 PM: Open Discussion, continuing on with the themes from the long table discussion all participants are invited to contribute to an open discussion.
Performance
— At 6:30 PM. Amanda Préval — What Remains…
Performance
— At 7 PM: Dani Carter — SWIRL/SADDLE.
Friday, September 4, 2026
Keynote Address
— At 5:30 PM: Keynote Address featuring Daniela Andrade & Fern — p(B)ajubá e a proteção de pessoas trans e travestis. In French but live translation to English will be available.
Performance
— At 7 PM: Joliz Dela Peña — Trespassing the Timeline
Saturday, September 5, 2026
Collective pottery patchwork II
— At 1:30 PM: With atelier clé (facilitated by Laura Leong and Kadidia Traore).
Performance-Workshop
— At 6 PM: Sabina Gámez Ibarra — Desire Paths
Sunday, September 6, 2026
Terms and Conditions: a workshop and discussion
— At 1:30 PM: a workshop and discussion presented by Collective Collective and Parker Mah
Clay Re:Gathered
— At 1:30 PM: : Hand-on workshop with Babita Sharma
Three artists will present their installation works during Montréal Monochrome: Maya Amoah, Nathalie Batraville, and Anna J. McIntyre.
TRANSIENT
TRANSIENT refers to what circulates under pressure: diasporic bodies, minoritized languages, unstable archives, trans/queer and racialized practices that resist regimes of fixation, measurement, and categorization. Against colonial, institutional, and statistical logics that flatten difference into acronyms, metrics, or singular narratives, TRANSIENT foregrounds relational, embodied, and collective forms of knowledge. It creates a space where identity is understood as a process rather than a stable fact, where memory is activated through use and gesture, and where movement becomes a strategy for survival, care, and continual remaking.
TRANSIENT names a situated condition shaped by movement, constraint, and political timing. It is neither a temporary state nor mobility for its own sake, but a mode of existence formed in the in-between: between appearance and disappearance, inside and outside, visibility and erasure. Perhaps we all find ourselves there—in the liminal, fuzzy, and fluid—either momentarily or temporarily. What have we been doing in the interim.
Montreal Monochrome is an annual conference organized by articule's Fabulous Committee (anti-oppression). It addresses the misrepresentation and under-representation of Indigenous and racialized people in the current Montreal arts scene. The event aims to imagine and nurture new and existing connections, solidarities and friendships between Indigenous artists, thinkers, cultural workers and racialized allies. Artists, cultural workers, researchers, community organizers and others are invited to apply. The selected projects may take the form of workshops, round tables, debates, collective works, actions in the public space, interventions, performances, demonstrations, lightning gatherings, among others.
The Fabulous Committee is a space for Black, Indigenous and/or racialized articule members, as well as Black, Indigenous and/or racialized queer and/or trans members, to come together, to have a space to care for each other, to exchange ideas, to share their practice and to see art together. The activities of the Fabulous Committee change according to the needs and desires of the members.
This year’s edition of Montreal Monochrome is made possible, in part, by the Government of Canada, and by the support of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.
The Canadian Race Relations Foundation is committed to building a national framework for the fight against racism in Canadian society. The CRRF will do this through knowledge-sharing and community support in the pursuit of equity, fairness, social justice and systemic change.