With financial support from the Status of Women Canada, the Inter-Arts Office of the Canada Council for the Arts, and other funding bodies, La Société Elizabeth Fry du Québec and  Engrenage Noir LEVIER is in the process of coordinating a pilot project – Agir par l’imaginaire –  to be carried out in a spirit of collaboration between non-incarcerated professional artists and women caught up in the criminal justice system who may or may not also have artistic experience.  Workshops in the following media were held over a two-year period in four Montreal-area institutions (Joliette Institution, Maison Tanguay, Philippe-Pinel Institute, and the Thérèse-Casgrain halfway house):  photography, video, self-portraiture, sound, spoken work, voice/song, dance and performance art. An exhibition of the work (that results from these workshops) was put together by Vanesa Mazza (art director) at the Eastern Bloc Gallery in May 2011, with a serie of round-table events (www.expoagir.com). The entire project was documented using video and still photography as part of our efforts to deconstruct the prejudices commonly held in our society about criminalized women and poverty.

Official Web Site: www.expoagir.com