Pride

Ray Resvick from MESSY sprays bubbles over the crowd at Bain Mathieu during the MESSY x Wild Pride event. Photo Belén Catalán

Safa Hachi,
Local Journalism Initiative

A grassroots project turned the historic bathhouse into a liberated queer space

Strobe lights cut through smoke as bass rattled the tiled walls of Bain Mathieu, the historic Montreal public bathhouse turned venue. Sweat, glitter and bodies moved in sync to a lineup of DJs who carried the crowd late into the night. 

Montreal’s queer nightlife is about more than parties—it’s about community, resistance and carving out space on its own terms.

MESSY, a grassroots arts and entertainment collective formerly known as ElleLui, plans on doing exactly that. Their mix of live events and digital media has quickly become a hub for creativity and connection.

At the centre of it sit the three co-founders: Ray Resvick, Lucia Winter and Eloise Haliburton. The trio first came together in 2022, when Resvick and Haliburton joined Winter in organizing ElleLui events.

Their first project as a team was a Halloween party that year. After working together for about two years, they founded MESSY, intending to expand into media projects and build a revised mission that reflected their shared vision.

“That was our first thing all together,” Resvick explained. “And after that, we were like, ‘That went well, let’s do more together.’”

Their mission is simple: to bring lesbian, queer and trans art to the forefront.

“In practical terms, it means that the artists that we hire and that we collaborate with identify as being lesbian, queer or trans,” Resvick said. “When we book artists, we book artists from these communities […] that’s who we want to shine a spotlight on.”

That commitment stretches beyond parties. MESSY also produces digital media projects, including All About Queer Love, a video project that documented queer love stories and launched around Valentine’s Day this year.

It’s part of the collective’s push to expand into podcasts and ongoing media work.

Still, events remain at the heart of what they do. MESSY’s community-driven approach offers a vital alternative. 

“The purpose of the work we do is community-focused,” Resvick said. “In a lot of mainstream Pride celebrations and festivals, it’s really easy to lose the community-driven aspect of things. It’s a reminder that we have the capacity and the ability to do the things we need to do. We can serve ourselves.”

That vision is shared by Wild Pride, which collaborated with MESSY to present the event under their programming.

As Wild Pride  wrote in a statement on Instagram, the festival  “is powered mostly by volunteers—people from different paths, journeys, and struggles. Some of us never felt represented or safe in corporate Pride spaces […] Our community craves more spaces made by us, for us.”

This independence went on full display at the MESSY x Wild Pride event on Aug. 16. The lineup reflected the collective’s curatorial ethos: intentional, eclectic and rooted in queer joy. 

DJ Punani, MESSY’s very own Lucia Winter, as well as Spinelli and San Farafina, rounded out a star-studded show.

“We just wanted a night where people could shake ass,” Resvick said.

For attendees, the mix of sound, space and community care made the night stand out. 

“I get to shake ass and feel safe and feel seen,” attendee Lu Aidel said. “What more can you ask for?”

Gray Chambere, who attended his first MESSY event that night, described it as unlike anything he had experienced before.

“The music was so good, the fact that we were in an empty pool was so dope,” Chambere said.

Beyond music and spectacle, safety remained central.

Days before the event, MESSY posted guidelines on Instagram outlining harm reduction practices and reminding attendees to drink water, take breaks and look out for each other. 

They also affirmed their political commitments in the post: “This event is for queer and trans people whose Pride is inseparable from the liberation of all oppressed people—from Turtle Island to Sudan, Palestine to Haiti, Congo and beyond.”

At the event itself, community care organizations like AIDS Community Care Montreal remained present to distribute harm reduction supplies.

“We want to make sure it can be as safe as possible,” Resvick said.

Looking forward, the trio hopes to grow MESSY into a full-time venture, expanding both their event programming and their digital media projects. 

“We’ve done screen printing workshops, family-friendly day parties, dinners—it’s not just nightlife,” Resvick said. “We’d love to continue serving a broader array of attendees and do more digital media projects.”

For now, MESSY continues to carve out space in Montreal’s crowded arts scene, showcasing what queer-led, grassroots organizing can look like when it refuses to compromise. 

“Be the kind of community member you want to see,” Resvick advised newcomers. “Show up for people, take note of names and pronouns, support projects.”