Begin, seated in a circle around a table.1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - Many of the words in this text are drawn from those of speakers at several events, all part of La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse\u2019s 50th anniversary symposium, How to Protect a Radical Idea?<\/em>: \u201cGossip and the Whisper Network: A Panel Discussion featuring Sanaa Humayun, Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet, and Julia Rose Sutherland\u201d (La Centrale, May 17, 2025); \u201cRadicalities and Transformations: A Performative Workshop Facilitated by Holly Timpener and Sylvie Tourangeau\u201d (La Centrale, May 21, 2025); \u201cEmpathy Practices: A Panel Discussion Featuring eunice b\u00e9lidor, Annie Wong, Raven Spiratos, and Avalon Mott\u201d (La Centrale, May 24, 2025); \u201cART HOTLINE: A Public Conversation Featuring Hugo Dufour and Kriss Li\u201d (La Centrale, May 25, 2025); \u201cThe Power of Saying No and Resting: A Keynote Address by Victoria Stanton\u201d (La Centrale, May 31, 2025). In the notes, I cite individual sources.<\/span> Begin, crouched in varied positions on the ground. Begin by introducing yourselves using only gestures. Begin with a twinge in your left hip and sore feet. Begin with empathy, begin with skepticism, begin with curiosity. Begin with a question in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask the room: Where do our radical moments exist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask the room: Can art change society?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask the room: Who will understand this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Place plant cuttings from family and friends in glass vials filled with water. Watch as they emit roots and tendrils. Consider your own curiosity and desire to possess. Assign words to each plant. Assign words like ABUNDANCE, SOFTNESS, TENDRESSE, DISORDER, DEUIL, COMPROMISE, LENTEUR. Wait to see if the plants respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shake your hands around. Bow your heads. Fidget. Sigh as a camera clicks. Knock and knock on a low wooden stage. Balance on a platform, making flailing motions. Form a triangle and a pool of dark hair. Exhale hard. Gossip with your aunties around the kitchen table, drinking Red Rose tea.2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - Julia Rose Sutherland.<\/span> Create a space of radical hospitality.3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - eunice b\u00e9lidor.<\/span> Build a whisper network of BIPOC artists4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Sanaa Humayun.<\/span>\u2014for warnings, for care, for financial transparency, for trust. Notice how quickly trust is built when you don\u2019t have to constantly defend and explain yourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leave room for spontaneous translation. Leave room for incomplete translation. Accept the gaps and misunderstandings of multilingual space. Shake your head, say, Impossible de dire cela en <\/em>anglais.<\/em>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - Sylvie Tourangeau.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gossip with trusted circles as a safety measure. Consider this gossip a collectivization of community care. Consider this gossip a method of finding witnesses for one\u2019s bad experiences. Consider this gossip a way to seek revenge or grant mercy in a settler-colonial state.6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 6 <\/a> - Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet.<\/span> Let yourselves feel invincible as you gossip together. Hold a plant cutting while you discuss making art with your immigrant parents. Ask: Will my mother understand this?7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 7 <\/a> - Annie Wong.<\/span> Ask: Will my sisters understand this? Ask: How can I understand things the way they understand things?8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - eunice b\u00e9lidor.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n In a room, anchored by the movements of others, practise elastic empathy.9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 9 <\/a> - Annie Wong.<\/span> Give, with a pointed toe. Receive, with a chest to the ceiling. Give, using your body as a live antenna. Receive, with loosened limbs. Say YES, and notice how it lives in your body. Say NO, and notice the same. Say NO, in order to pave the way for a better yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Move away from intellectualizing grief. Crunch a dried bouquet in your fists. Add a Quiet Room to the show you curated.10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 10 <\/a> - Raven Spiratos.<\/span> Fill the Quiet Room with soft textiles, cedar, tobacco. Invite people to rest here. Invite them to feel grief here. Ask: How to invite those closest to us to grow with us?11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 11 <\/a> - Raven Spiratos.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Form a new entity\u2014not the self, not the other, mais une troisi\u00e8me <\/em>chose<\/em>.12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 12 <\/a> - Sylvie Tourangeau.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Redefine gossip as currency, as a useful tool, as a historical record, as family knowledge. Become loud. Become known as \u201cdifficult to work with.\u201d Become responsive to the access needs of your publics. Become creative when the gallery does not provide an access budget. Become aware that institutions are accountable to funders, not people.13<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 13 <\/a> - Julia Rose Sutherland.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Initiate a prescribed burn via gossip.14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 14 <\/a> - Julia Rose Sutherland.<\/span> Reveal how much they paid you. Reveal how much you asked for. Reveal how much was asked of you. Reveal how much power you have. Reveal how little power you have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Find out the hard way that you are not in fact invincible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decide that since you are not invincible, you must erect boundaries. Attend a lecture in which the speaker guides you through the process of refusal.15<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 15 <\/a> - Victoria Stanton.<\/span> Pause as the washing machine upstairs begins to chug and churn. Try to block out its insistent rhythm. Fail to catch what is being said at the front of the room. Groan and strain forward. Cup your ears in order to hear what is being said. Sit through the sonic disruption. Accept that you have no power to stop it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trouvez du confort dans <\/em>l\u2019inconfort<\/em>.16<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 16 <\/a> - Sylvie Tourangeau.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Join a problematic institution that will not hesitate to make you responsible for its previous errors. Realize that this is especially likely if you are BIPOC, a woman, queer, trans, or otherwise considered to be lucky to even be there. Maintain an awareness that the rule is \u201cFirst in, first out.\u201d17<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 17 <\/a> - Raven Spiratos.<\/span> Make alternate plans. Accept an assignment. Divide one million dollars among one thousand artists; among ten artists; among one hundred artists; among only established artists; among as many artists as you like; via a lottery system.18<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 18 <\/a> - Hugo Dufour and Kriss Li.<\/span> Argue about this. Divide one million dollars again. And again. Argue until the time runs out, and the money with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sew quilts with secret missives against your institutional enemies.19<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 19 <\/a> - Sanaa Humayun and Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet.<\/span> Hang your quilts in the houses of these enemies. Recall that gossip is legitimate, useful, and noteworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feel the spontaneous movement inside you. Notice when\u2014notice what\u2014notice who. Observe when elastic empathy fails. Refuse to be deceived by institutional language. Refuse to stifle curiosity. Refuse to hold power by retreating into opacity. Break into a fast walk, diagonally splicing the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Know when to share gossip and when to shut up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turn your heads collectively as an endless stream of cyclists rides by outside. Inform each other that this is the Great Bike Ride of Return for Palestine, on the seventy-seventh anniversary of the Nakba. Clap for the cyclists, thinking of your own bikes locked up nearby. Nod to each other in a way that signals FREE PALESTINE. Swivel back into the room to discuss other topics, both related and unrelated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take a plant cutting home and place it in soil. Take two. Plant them next to each other. See how they grow. Consider the nature of your companionship planting\u2014is it a relation of unidirectional support, or of mutual support?20<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 20 <\/a> - Salima Punjani, from the exhibition text for Companion Plants: An Art Installation by Salima Punjani<\/em>.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Decide to offer a cutting in return. Grasp it lightly in your fist as you ride the bus back downtown. Realize, upon closer inspection, that the cutting is infested with bugs. Frown. Allow yourself a moment of lament. Exit the bus and let the cutting drop into the soil of a park as you walk through it. Feel ashamed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accept that a YES must sometimes become a NO. Trouvez votre NON <\/em>reposant<\/em>.21<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 21 <\/a> - Victoria Stanton.<\/span> Realize that this is difficult work. Allow that a NO might need to become a YES, due to disturbances of the nervous system, financial constraints, scarcity fears, or interpersonal manipulation. Ask yourself: Are you being swayed or played?22<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 22 <\/a> - Victoria Stanton.<\/span> By whom? For what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slam up against the limits of empathy. Clutch at a wall with both hands. Hide your head beneath a chair. Remain silent. Glance out the window to glimpse two men walking by in animated conversation. Notice that one man\u2019s tote bag says NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Remain silent, except for when you emit a guttural growl. Acceptez une nouvelle proposition: Dire NON et faire le <\/em>deuil<\/em>.23<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 23 <\/a> - Victoria Stanton.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mourn what you are missing out on. Mourn the things you are unable to do. Mourn the things you were once able to do but no longer can. Mourn the you that used to do the things you were not in fact able to do. Mourn for your body and its pains. Mourn for other bodies and their pains. Mourn the lack of affordable housing, accessible healthcare, paid sick days, proper ventilation in homes and public spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In mourning, build up your capacity to refuse. As artists, stop considering yourselves to be special. Remember that you are workers. Remember that though you are workers, artists have a middle-class professional relationship with labour, unlike working-class people, who are more interchangeable as labourers but have the power to leverage demands collectively.24<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 24 <\/a> - Kriss Li, referencing Ben Davis\u2019s 9.5 Theses on Art and Class<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Form an artists\u2019 union, using gossip and a thirst for revenge. Withdraw your work as protest. Recall that this withdrawal does not have the same impact as demanding better living conditions for all. Form a feminist artist-run centre. Engage in the slow process of collective decision-making. Make mistakes. Reflect on and learn from those mistakes. Make other, different mistakes. Repeat this process. Remember that change is necessary for growth. Remember that growth does not have to mean wealth. Keep this centre running for fifty years. Dream of maintaining it for fifty more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rest. Rest and tell everyone you are resting.25<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 25 <\/a> - eunice b\u00e9lidor.<\/span> Respond to the question \u201cWhat\u2019s next for you?\u201d by saying, \u201cI am resting.\u201d Rest proudly and expansively. Rest by gardening, rest by reading, rest by napping. Watch how roots of the plant cuttings lengthen and curl, without anybody doing anything at all. Do nothing at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dream of a garden.26<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 26 <\/a> - Raven Spiratos.<\/span> Dream of more dinners.27<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 27 <\/a> - Annie Wong.<\/span> Dream of the end of competition. Dream of including kink practices in art-making and curation. Dream of the end of capitalism.28<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 28 <\/a> - eunice b\u00e9lidor.<\/span> Utter the last words of the day: UNIVERSAL! BASIC! INCOME!29<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 29 <\/a> - Victoria Stanton.<\/span> Then, keep talking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Centrale galerie Powerhouse,<\/strong> Montr\u00e9al![\"Annie](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/web_Bradley_Lespratiquedempathie_02-scaled.jpg\")
Photo: Rosemarie Laporte, courtesy of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Salima](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/web_Bradley_Salima-Punjani_CompanionPlants_02-scaled.jpg\")
Photo: Vjosana Shkurti, courtesy of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Holly](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/web_Bradley_Holly-Timpener-et-Sylvie-Tourangeau_10-scaled.jpg\")
Photo: Manoushka Larouche, courtesy of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Hugo](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/web_Bradley_HOTLINEDART_04-scaled.jpg\")
Photo: Rosemarie Laporte, courtesy of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Holly](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/web_Bradley_Holly-Timpener-et-Sylvie-Tourangeau_14-scaled.jpg\")
Photo: Manoushka Larouche, courtesy of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Salima](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/web_Bradley_Salima-Punjani_05-scaled.jpg\")
Photo: Vjosana Shkurti, courtesy of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/br>May 16\u201331, 2025<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":271929,"template":"","categories":[884,892],"numeros":[],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[7708],"artistes":[7717,7711,7725,7721,3800,7715,7723,7719,7713,5318,1143],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-271952","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-webzine","auteurs-h-felix-chau-bradley-en","artistes-annie-wong-en","artistes-eunice-belidor-en","artistes-holly-timpener-en","artistes-hugo-dufour-en","artistes-julia-rose-sutherland-en","artistes-kiona-callihoo-ligtvoet-en","artistes-kriss-li-en","artistes-raven-spiratos-en","artistes-sanaa-humayun-en","artistes-sylvie-tourangeau-en","artistes-victoria-stanton"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/271952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=271952"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=271952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}