Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery

Ésery Mondésir (front) and members of the Concordia community sit in the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery to demonstrate against recent student arrests and the firing of Pip Day. Photo Alice Martin

India Das-Brown,
Local Journalism Initiative

Artists and members of Concordia’s community protested the university’s recent actions at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery

On the evening of Nov. 21, Concordia University’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery hosted a conversation between artists Miryam Charles and Ésery Mondésir in the J.W. McConnell Building. 

A few minutes into the event, it became clear that the artists would not be talking about their work, but rather holding a silent protest against the university.

“We are not here to talk about our work. There are things that are really, really more important,” Mondésir said, addressing the crowd of roughly 55 people in the small gallery space. “Not too long ago they transformed this place right here into a detention center. I have pictures of students who are arrested in handcuffs looking at my work, [that] is talking about liberation.”

On Oct. 31, two Concordia students were arrested at a “Cops Off Campus” demonstration and detained by SPVM officers inside the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. This was one of multiple incidents criticized by Mondésir and Charles in their protest.

Charles, a Haitian-Canadian filmmaker from Montreal, learned of the arrests only a couple of hours before the silent protest when Mondésir showed her the pictures.

“I’m sad and frustrated about the fact that it happened,” Charles said. “I think that there is other ways to engage in dialogue with protesters, and arresting them is not the solution.”

On Nov. 18, The Link received confirmation that Concordia terminated Pip Day’s employment as director of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Beginning her mandate in June of this year, the ex-director retained her position for less than six months. 

According to Mondésir, the community has reason to believe Day was fired because of her support for Palestine.

“The director is not here. We should ask the university, ‘Why isn’t Pip here?’” asked Mondésir, addressing the crowd. 

When asked about the motivations behind Day’s firing, Concordia spokesperson Vannina Maestracci told The Link, “We don’t discuss employee matters. Concordia always respects its employees’ freedom of expression, as is quite evident from the diversity of views and stances regularly expressed by members of the community.”

On Oct. 11, the ex-director of the gallery had planned to host a screening of the documentary Resistance, Why? at Concordia’s J.A. DeSève Cinema. On the evening of Oct. 10, the university’s Campus Safety and Prevention Services sent Day a “postponement notice” for the screening, due to “additional information regarding the event in question which necessitates further review.”

The screening was organized as a pay-what-you-can fundraising event, followed by a discussion moderated by members of Regards palestiniens, a Montreal-based collective that organizes Palestinian film screenings.

“Why did they not have the screening that was scheduled to happen here?” asked Mondésir, before inviting the crowd to join him and Charles in silent protest at the gallery.

According to Regards palestiniens, the event had been pre-approved almost a week before Oct. 11.

“That’s one reason we consider this censorship,” said a member of the collective, granted anonymity due to fear of occupational repercussions. “Another reason we consider this censorship is because the university considered that it’s a problem with the event being a one-sided fundraiser.”

Regards palestiniens questioned why the university had allegedly had an issue with one-sided fundraising for Palestine, while the university’s website lists a donation link to the Ukrainian army.

As an act of protest, the collective projected the film onto the wall of Concordia’s Henry F. Hall Building at the corner of Mackay St. and De Maisonneuve Blvd. W. There, they were surrounded by nine cop cars, including a cop van, and more cops than people, according to the collective.

“All fundraising efforts are, by nature, ‘one-sided.’ It would be unconscionable to attempt to make this effort ‘two-sided’ by supporting the continuation of this genocide,” wrote the collective on the morning of Oct. 11, in an email that was forwarded to three members of Concordia’s administration. “To do so would be to engage in dangerous complicity, in contempt of the ICJ’s (International Court of Justice) ruling—an issue that, unfortunately, both the Canadian government and Concordia University have failed to confront with the seriousness it requires.”

The silent protest at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery welcomed people to break the silence with poems or songs in the spirit of protest. 

Alexis O’Hara, a Canadian transdisciplinary performer and friend of Day, shared a poem Day had sent her, titled “Revolutionary Letter #25,” by Beat poet Diane di Prima.

“These institutions are revealed to be far more Zionist than we thought,” O’Hara told The Link. “The sooner we can all wake up and join the resistance, the better off we’ll be.”

Miguel Soriano, a recent master’s graduate in media studies and communication at Concordia, came to the gallery in expectation of attending a talk between Mondésir and Charles. However, he was far from disappointed with the surprise protest.

“In history, student radicalism is what leads to change,” Soriano said. “It’s really nice to see artists and people come in to talk at the university or [those who are] not directly affiliated also take a stand. And I think that shows so much; it shows their solidarity with people who are actually actively protesting or getting arrested.”

Mondésir said the silent protest was held in solidarity with the student strikes for Palestine, which had taken place earlier that day.

“It would be very hypocritical of me to come here and have my little talk and talk about whatever and not take a stance,” said Mondésir, who is also an assistant professor at the Ontario College of Art & Design University in Toronto. For him, the arrests made in the gallery space on Oct. 31 are sacrilegious.

“It should be the space where I know that I can express myself and have the freedom to do so, and not having to think about what will happen if somebody doesn’t like what I say,” Mondésir said. “So by them doing this here, I think it was outrageous. It was sacrilege. It was a desecration of this place.”

According to Mondésir, the university’s termination of Day’s employment was an attempt to silence protest, which he and Charles responded to with silent protest.

“I just cannot sit with that,” Mondésir said. “If you look at the work that I do, it would be very hypocritical of me.”