Great little documentary on Inkahoots, an inspiring design studio we very much look up to.

A small selection of photos that I shot from around the neighbourhood, that were used in the last issue of Four Minutes to Midnight.

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Last week I was invited to present my work and launch the latest issue of Four Minutes to Midnight at Jackpine in Ottawa, as part of their Shoufen series of talks. In order to contextualise my practice, I presented the following diagrams illustrating design’s relationships with capitalism that I had originally drafted to accompany Vincent Tao’s excellent research presentation Design-Labour-Utopia.

I should clarify that I don’t see these diagrams as necessarily accurate representations, they are oversimplifications, the terminology is vague, and design has been placed in a far more central position than it probably holds within our society, but I do see them as helpful tools for thinking about these issues. I’ve included some brief explanatory notes with the diagrams, that I’ll try to develop into a more thorough presentation in the future.

• Contemporary capital is understood as a purely abstract value, an accretion of time and energy. It’s pretty much useless, it just sits there and stagnates. It weighs down heavy on us.

• This abstract value is only made useable through design, transforming it into an exchangeable commodity, that also carries symbolic value. This is an alchemical and concretizing process, turning (pretty much) nothing into something. This includes our stories, our songs and images, the reification of the structures of our social relations.

• The feedback loop, with these commodities processed through our labour and consumption, generates (extracts) more value for capital, made abstract and intangible again, and added to the pile.

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On the corner where I used to live
With a reluctant addict, paying 200 dollars in rent
To the apartment where I first brought Cat

Stumbling and singing in chorus to lyrics
She didn’t know, but caught the tune perfectly
Up St. Laurent blvd.

French tourists are taking pictures
Of the great, white, Ubisoft logo
On this winter morning

Framing the upper third of the red brick colossus
Perfectly against
A once-endless Montreal sky.

Some classic Joy Division to mark the end of the longest (and coldest) February ever. It also marks a commitment for me to step out of “hibernation”, and work more actively towards my many goals, including much more regular writing on this site around graphic design, culture, poetics and politics. Stay tuned.

Cheap Wig at Brasserie Beaubien on NYE 2014

It might be a little late, but I’d like to wish a happy new year, and express heartfelt thanks, to all LOKI’s clients, collaborators and friends.

2014 was a big year, marking the shift to a studio framework, which has been exciting and challenging to say the least. We launched some great projects, including the latest issue of Four Minutes to Midnight, Thien’s Intimate Distance Zine and the Precari-Tee. 2014 also took us to Detroit for the Allied Media Conference, and to Melbourne, Australia to collaborate with Memefest. Both these events were truly transformative experiences for me, working at the intersection of design, art, critical theory, and on the ground communications activism. I’ve met so many amazing people, doing such great work. Here’s to much more of this in 2015.

The new year has already seen some heavy tragedy, with the attack on Charlie Hebdo grabbing news headlines worldwide. My reaction to this, and especially the (racist) recuperation of it, is complex, and this post isn’t the place to break it down right now. But it does highlight one important thing for me, as a signpost for my practice in the new year.

Graphic design plays such a significant role in the definition of a community’s identity, internally setting parameters for how people (self)identify, who is included/excluded, and how it is externally represented and positioned within society as a whole. This is a fiercely contested site. And this is where I, and the studio, need to be. Especially as a person of colour.

As seen above, I spent NYE in a small bar, rocking out to punk rock. Love and rage my friends, love and rage…

Bowl full of Memefest badges from the last few years.

It feels next to impossible to synthesize the experience that was this year’s Memefest at this point, however it seems important to provide at least a cursory overview of what happened in Melbourne a few weeks back, while it’s still fresh in my memory. It was an intense and deeply transformative experience for me, and I hope the following words and images might do it a bit of justice.

Artist Alana Hunt, Sam Burch from the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy, and Oliver Vodeb of Memefest opening the symposium, articulating the themes of Radical Intimacies and Decolonization.

The event kicked off at Swinburne University with 3 days of “extra-disciplinary” symposium presentations on design, media, art and activism. Over 30 presentations from local and international participants took place, with an incredible diversity of subject matter, between theory and practice, from the personal to the political.

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Two days ago, I arrived in Melbourne, Australia, after an insane 30-hours of travel, to the generous hospitality of Oliver Vodeb of Memefest and his lovely family. We’re now at Swinburne University setting up for the extradisciplinary symposium/workshop/direct action that starts tomorrow, tied to this year’s theme of Radical Intimacies. It’s quite hard to get a handle on the fact that I’m now halfway across the world, having conversations about radical design practice with Oliver again, conversations that we’re continuing from the last time we met up in the Netherlands almost 4 years ago. Plus ça change…

I’m very honoured to be here, presenting amongst an impressive international crew of communications experts, activists, and artists. I’m particularly excited to be working with Memefest and members of BASE (the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign embassy), and look forward to learning about the aboriginal context of resistance here. BASE was instrumental in organising against the G20 summit in Brisbane last week, and I’m hoping to be able to lend my skills to their struggle, and will certainly be bringing some powerful knowledge back home.

My presentation will address ideas around material culture and resistance, with a particular focus on the Quebec Student Strike of 2012. It feels good to be able to share knowledge drawn from our local movements and moments of social upheaval, and I hope it will be relevant here, and spark an interesting dialogue. I’m also happy that I had the opportunity to meet up with Decolonizing Street Art before leaving Montreal, and that I managed to bring some amnazing gifts from them to communities here.

Everyone I’ve met so far has been fantastic. It’s been great to reconnect with Tom Liacas, a culture jamming collaborator from way back in the day (circa. 2001). I’ll be here for another 8-days, and will try to keep the blog updated, or at the very least, I’ll be posting frequently on LOKI’s facebook page.

PS. Unlike the G20 leaders, I have yet to find any koalas. Those bastards always take everything first…

A series of behind the scenes images from the photoshoot for our latest project, The Precari-Tee. I’m happy to have worked with such a great team, including Maude Pascale doing make up, photographer Julie Langenegger Lachance, and Thien V who took these shots. And of course the amazing models, Jenni, Sophie, Faiz and Thien. Full project details soon!

Also, a shoutout to my co-workers at studio 305, who were working on an amazing, soon to be revealed project at the same time.

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