nous

Nous croyons dans les gens. Nous croyons que les mots et les couleurs peuvent inspirer de nouvelles manières de repenser le monde, ainsi qu’à élever la conscience populaire vis-à-vis l’injustice.

La formule est simple. Nous envoyons des pièces d’art aux écrivains qui, eux, nous renvoient une histoire inspirée par ce qu’ils ont vu.

Cette histoire est ensuite combinée à la pièce d’art dans le but de promouvoir des histoires qui mènent à penser autrement la société- divorcées des stéréotypes dominants- ou, même, des histoires qui s’attaquent directement à l’oppression vécue.

Nous sommes convaincus que les gens, une fois conscientisés, chercheront à réduire leur participation à la violence.

Nous aimons l’art et nous voulons que vous vous impliquiez.

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Ken

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Ken and Mavis lived at number 9 Flosstooth Avenue. Ken loved Mavis like a dog loves its favourite bone—he would chew on her every now and then to remind himself what true gristle could taste like, but then he would bury her, and all that she meant, and would wait for weeks or months until he dug her up to gnaw at her all over again. That way it was special, and that way Ken knew he would never get bored of his favourite bone. Mavis didn’t like being gnawed at every few months; she told him just before she asked him to leave that she expected constant gnawing. He hadn’t realised that, and offered to never bury her again, but by then it was far too late.

The summer before the end, the neighbours on the side with the dead rose bush that looked like a mutant spider moved out. A few weeks later a dual-cab UTE was parked in the driveway when Ken got home from work, and after some careful investigating from the kitchen window through Mavis’s homemade gauze curtains, Ken gathered that their new neighbour had moved in, and that he was a tall, broad-chested man, with the necessary bulges to wear only a singlet as he loped from his UTE to the door with boxes and bags. Ken saw that the man with the necessary bulges had two lean and hefty dogs. Ken was terrified of dogs, ever since he had been chased by a pack of gnashing greyhounds up and over the slide in the playground one afternoon when his father had forgotten to pick him up from school. He felt trapped in the house, and told Mavis about it when she came home weary from the salon, but she didn’t seem to be listening, and just stood and watched out the window until the sun went down and there was nothing to see anymore.

A couple of months later on a Friday Ken decided to leave work early. He arrived home to see that Mavis was already there, and though he called out for her in every room in the house but he couldn’t find her. Mavis didn’t like to walk anywhere; if her car was there, she had to be too. Ken poured the tap for the kettle and as he poured he looked through the gauze straight into the man with the bulges’ living room. There he saw Mavis, completely naked and dancing around the room with the man with the necessary bulges.

Ken hadn’t wanted to leave, even after watching Mavis and the man with the bulges in a variety of positions all over the living room that made him begin to sweat under his arms and in between his elbow creases. When she came home that night, crumpled and smelling of dog food, he had offered to stay in the spare bedroom. That she simply agreed, and didn’t seem to need to ask him why, told Ken that he would never unearth his favourite bone again.

word by Laura Mcphee-Browne

colour by Ilya Shipkin

From the author: “When I first saw this illustration by Ilya Shkipin, I saw the man and the dogs he was feeding as dangerous, as hostile. As I came back to look at the illustration again and again, I began to feel that there was a special relationship between the man and the dogs; that they knew each other well, and perhaps looked after each other.

My story, ‘Ken’ is about a man who does not feel comfortable in his own skin like the man in this illustration surely does. It is about the threat that confidence and mystery can be to a flailing relationship.”

Trending now: The conclusion

Indie184_TakeMeAway

Yellow. She had recognized him from the news, and so she went on, despite his boring answers about colour, this brother of the accused murderer, wondering if he had thrown out his forks.   

Do you come here often?

Here?

To galleries, do you go often, I mean?

No.

Where are you from?

Why?

I’m sorry if I’m-

Vegas.

She considered taking the next step, asking the question she wanted to ask, about the cutlery, if his sister had ever made any sudden movements during their dinners together, of which there must have been hundreds, thousands of meals that you share with a sibling during the course of your life.

Thousands, probably.

What?

What?

You just said, “thousands,”

Oh, no, you misheard me.

She had again messed up her words, she thought, wanting to ask if she’d ever stabbed him with a fork, or at least used the prongs to fling a pea, but she was insecure about her ability to convince people of things, or draw people closer to her, through the things that she said. She wasn’t as bad as she thought she was, as is always the case with too many mirrors in a house, but she considered that, well, maybe nobody is perfect, aside from Obama, and Sir. John A, but, the point was that everyone made mistakes, it made you human, right, but why did I think I needed to be perfect to start out with?

The news.

What?

What?

“The news.” You just said the news.

No, I said, blue. I like how she used blue, for the necklace.

You aren’t too good at this whole keeping discrete thing, you know.

What?

You heard about my sister.

Did she ever fling a pea at you?

You know, taking news about someone as representative of who they are is the same as believing a stranger who writes the story of your family from your front lawn.*

colour by Indie184

words by L. L. 

see the first scene here

The Death of Chivalry

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I remember the earth. I remember when oceans were blue, and you could buy a woman dinner without having to split the bill. I remember before water ran black, when you could roam the streets at night, gazing at stars. I remember the end of the world. You’ve been told it collapsed with the nuclear reactor, those companies, that kitten, but I remember that it died with chivalry. I remember objectively, and I understood the fall completely: What was the point of living if it wasn’t to protect something? The earth had protected us with oxygen, gravity, and water for thousands of years, just as we had protected our women, keeping them safe like delicate flowers. We understood that women were strong, and deserved our respect, these tough, delicate flow- hold on that’s contradictory let me try again: In a time of text messages and technology, we had strayed so far from what was natural: The wind and water the earth had given us; lessons our ancestors had shared with us, those morals that told us what was true, untainted, passed down by our fathers to us from a time when things made sense: A man did what a man did, came home to dinner, kept real problems to himself and the bartender, or shot himself in the face: Things were working: Women acted like women, and everything worked perfectly, in the past: “Dating” a woman meant what it really should: To protect and provide for them, these strong, delicate flowers, being delicate but really strong and intellige- Sorry okay confusing I know last try: Things made sense. People today: walking into newspaper stands because of texting, finding ‘love’ in the club: They’ve lost touch with purity, as our oceans did. I’m not sure how much to blame each person- the system is a big thing that trains everyone to act, sure- but we were the only generation who acted free of the system, with independent ideas. Everything was better when lines didn’t overlap, and you didn’t need to understand how it worked: Your wife looked up to you, and you didn’t ask why. You could knock some sense into a kid, because they needed discipline. You were there to protect your woman from the evils of the world, because they needed protection. Sometimes, for example, you bought her dinner. Ask me if she ever paid for dinner. The answer is no: Men were strong, rational protectors, and so we didn’t need someone to pay for us. The world was together, controlled and pure. You really got to know someone in dinner dates, where you paid, and brought the prepared version of yourself, saying things you had seen on TV or that people had told you, your father, mother, teachers, friends, things that you didn’t understand but it didn’t matter. You avoided awkward conversations on who you were, and how you felt, because the point of talking to people was to make them feel comfortable. You saved those times for when you were really intoxicated. And now- look at what we’ve done. I remember the earth. I remember a time before we tried to convince people that women were our equals- I mean how do you protect someone who is your equal- how do you show power, and buy them dinner? I remember a time before the death of chivalry, when we lived on planet motherfucking earth.* 

words by Liam Lachance

This is satirical. 

colour by Diego Panuela

Leaves & Branches

4fd725e02e93dda6a65e345b539a1c2dFlywheel, clutch disk, crankshaft. Breaking it down to understand why it worked the way that it did. No, not how. Fan belt, rocker arm, alternator. You will itemize the parts, yes, all of them, for the project, with a brief description of their function, yes, every one, and how they affect the engine when it is running- it’s the logical place for us to start the class. Wise words from Telford, AUTO 1102A. Breaking down a family photograph to figure how odd shapes fit. Black palms smudged a hand-drawn draft of the 2010 Camry 2.4 litre, fingerprints smearing a tin hood, near a dent from the past winter. Bent, imperfect. Her mother out for the weekend, the garage cold, a window might have been left open, or the furnace had stopped working, but she wasn’t sure, and who was to blame her.

Her friend left when the heavy work was finished. Alone, with cylinder separated, she considered how their tastes were so different, seeing that their brains were formed under similar variables, having grown up in the same neighbourhood- over two fences- with similar families- alcohol holidays, massive debt- leaned on the same desks- MPS, NGDHS, The Gonq- and dated the same guys- straight white drunks. Twice, they dated brothers.

She liked Buzzfeed, her friend: Reddit. Maybe that was it. Her friend liked Vine, her: Youtube. Her: Gmail, Dropbox, Wikipedia. Friend: Yahoo, iCloud, Google. Mac? PC. Samsung? iPhone. Identical wiring soaking up different images and words to influence different tastes. She dropped the box wrench. She played out the thesis, considering how it explained her friends’ preference for pubs (from watching Arcade Fire and Chvrches videos) while she preferred the club (Drizzy VEVO).

Separating fan belt from crankshaft pulley, she compiled a list of things she had learned from the internet in 2013:  

1. Haters own keyboards 

2. Miley Cyrus invented grinding

3. People are happy on Facebook

4. All Americans own pistols

5. All gay people are white

6. All black people can dance

7. All hipsters rock beards

8. “Québecois” means “Franco-Québecois”  

9. “Anglo-Québecois” means “quiet”

10. Traveling makes you intelligent

11. Lizard people are a legitimate concern

12. Over 6,000 Québecois-white-tailed-deer were hit last year

 

She put aside the blueprint and tore out a new page

 

Things Learned Independent of The Gonq Buzzfeed Wikipedia Facebook Youtube Friends & Parents

 

 

words by Liam Lachance

colour by Naran Jalidad 

e-mail me baby

legit

They wouldn’t have found each other on a PlentyofFish search. 

          IsabelleXoxx: looking for fun
          Franco-Québecois
          22
          Likes: movies that start with credits, lobster
          Interesting Story: virginity lost on picnic table
          Interests: recommending healthy food via Facebook, diving, watching people in cafés

          MarcusForLife: LIFE IS A ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTION    😉
          Anglo-Albertan
          28
          Likes: bloopers at the end of a solid flic, lizards
          Interesting Story: lost v-card in Diddy’s limo #SWAG (!)
          Interests: kegstands, Micky Ds, BURNINGMAN ’08-’11

No, without a mutual dentist, they wouldn’t have met, let alone shared some seriously awkward first date dialogue: To Isabelle’s story on training her husky to defecate without a raised leg, our sly Marcus responded with yeah? Only touched one, really, at dinner.

        Oh?

        Oh, ha, no: It was on vacation.

        Oh.

As though being on vacation cancelled the fact that you had eaten a dog. Committed murder- but it was on vacation! In any case it wasn’t the stuff of those Hollywood movies between attractive white kids, but maybe that was the point: The desire to know how you could live like that, eat dog, kept them talking. Part personality-colonialism, sure- how cute, you’re so abnormal– but it worked, and they snapped together like puzzle pieces that need different shapes to fit. Pieces that wouldn’t have snapped online because they would have  ticked boxes to search for themselves. For dog-eaters. People-watchers.*

artwork by Jaci Banton