Artivism on the Ground: A Conversation with Organizers in Montreal panel

On May 1st, sword fern co-lead Victor represented the collective at the Artivism on the Ground: A Conversation with Organizers in Montreal panel, moderated by the wonderful Vanja Lugonjic. Panelists included Chloé Benko-Prieur, Alicia Aikens, and Madeline Hay.

The panel was part of the 5th Bi-Annual Symposium on the broad theme of Sustainabilities in Arts, hosted by the Artful Inquiry Research Group (AIRG), at McGill.

The discussion centred around how art invites emotional engagement and creates low-barrier entry points for climate-curious folks. Events become spaces of co-creation, where audiences become participants, and learning flows from person to person. The panel was an insightful conversation around the importance of art in climate work, the challenges with capacity building, and projects that grassroots organizations working on.

The panel also reflected on the precarity of grassroots organizing: how these powerful, recurring events are often sustained through unpaid labour and deep community care.