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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After almost a year of work, I’m very proud to announce the launch of Life on Hold. Working with KNG FU in Montreal and the Al Jazeera team in Doha, we developed an immersive and intimate web documentary about the struggle of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The website is structured around a series of character portraits (with more to be added soon), featuring first-person stories, glimpses into their day to day lives and contextual content that highlights the human side of the often deafening numbers of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Visit the site here, or see more details in our portfolio.

After several months of reflection, strategy and design, I’m proud to launch LOKI as an independent design studio resolutely focused on graphic design and social change work. The (re)launch includes an overhaul of our visual identity, a new website to showcase our portfolio of work, and the clarification of our positioning and purpose.

Bringing together over a decade of work split between the commercial, cultural and community spheres, the formation of LOKI marks a renewed and unified commitment to the creation of images, objects, and experiences that empower, engage and oppose. Graphic design aligned with movements, organizations and individuals that contribute to positive social change.

The launch also marks LOKI’s establishment within a great new office space in the Mile End, shared with Studio Byebye Bambi, JLL Photography and Pauline Loctin. If you’re in the neighbourhood, please feel free to come by for a visit some time!

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In collaboration with Artivistic and Howl! Arts, we’ve just published Intimate / Distance, a new photo portfolio zine for Võ Thiên Viêt. Thiên has been a long standing friend and collaborator, and we’re very pleased to release this special project with him. The careful selection of photos reflects a desire to represent, within an albeit small sample, the breadth of Thiên’s work, beyond his celebrated documentation of the student strike of 2012.

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Remix Ferguson x Memefest. Info and more variations here.

In Gaza
An interactive memorial to the Gazans killed during Israeli Operation Protective Edge, July 2014. Created by Tarek Sherif and myself, with music by Stefan Christoff and Rebecca Foon. The dead have names… (most of them)

6 years ago, I designed a street poster in opposition to Israel’s “Operation Cast lead”, and in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. In 2010, I helped to launch Imaging Apartheid, the poster project for Palestine, which also included a silkscreen version of the poster, printed by Jesse Purcell of Just Seeds. Over time, the poster design and the project have expanded their reach, and I’m proud that my contributions have brought visibility to the cause of Palestinian liberation.

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“The word is the canary, and its feathers are falling out.”

After an extended hiatus, Four Minutes to Midnight returns with our thirteenth issue, a lovingly produced edition of typography and poetics, photography and collage, design polemics and radical politics, paper and ink. Thematically, the issue emerges out of our experience of the Québec Student Strike, but is not specifically “about” it, acting more as a reflection on 10 years of community organising, designing and publishing, making music, and strolling through gentrifying neighbourhoods in opposition to neoliberal capitalism.

The issue features visual art, writing and design from a diverse host of local and international contributors, including the Dutch design studio Experimental Jetset, performance artist and author Jacob Wren, Montreal photographer Vo Thien Viet, Toronto writer and editor Hillary Rexe, and the Montreal artist and collagist Madame Gilles.

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I’m very excited to announce the upcoming Howl! Arts Festival—les voix survolent la ville, a celebration of art and revolution. This first edition, taking place over 6 days at the end of April, brings together a host of local artists and events committed to the deepening of community engagement and grassroots activism, with a focus on the struggles of First Nations, Inuit and Metis.

The festival opens with a benefit concert for Missing Justice featuring Odaya, Sarah Pagé and AurorA, followed the next evening by Regards sur le 7eme feu. This 11 musician ensemble performance presents a conceptual work envisioned and composed by Xarah Dion and Stefan Christoff, exploring issues around the future of the North. Other events include a fundraising concert for those arrested under the unjust Montreal bylaw P6 during (and after) the Quebec student strike of 2012, a screening of Alanis’ Obomsawin’s documentary film Hi-Ho Mistahey!, and a panel discussion on the relationship between art and gentrification.

The festival closes with the launch of the 13th issue of Four Minutes to Midnight, which has been almost two years in the making. Much more on that very soon!

The visuals and poster for the festival were created by LOKi design, and printed by Chris at la Presse du chat perdu. The graphic approach was equally inspired by the explosive force of Vorticism, the imagery of a dense city seen from above, and a personal attempt to work with abstraction in a politically coherent way.

More details for the festival on the Howl! website, and on facebook here.