Handmade and high tech

Shape-bending, gender-shifting duo Anadama have spent the last two years reinterpreting fairy tales, famous moments and forgotten objects through elaborate photo shoots. Fibre artist Dana Dal Bo and painterly partner Alexandre-Nicolas Soubiran have found themselves playing Hansel and Gretel, getting married Van Eyck style and locked in an isometric embrace with a crossbow (after a performance piece by Maria Abramovich).

The pair takes the collaborative process even further in a MixSession at the SAT tonight, April 13, when their arresting visuals and hand-crafted artifacts set the scene for a changing live environment, morphed through audio and video manipulations from Mitchell Akiyama, Reaver and Station, among others.

“The evening is sort of taking the rock show model of a ‘one night only’ event,” Dal Bo muses. “It takes ‘art’ away from the cold white walls and brings it somewhere quite different.”

Anadama starts at 7 p.m., 1195 St-Laurent, free. —Sarah Musgrave

Last kisses

Now’s the time in academe when the classes end and the exam stress comes down like holy bejeezus—except for the fine arts students, who get to show off what they’ve been working on all winter in year-end exhibitions. And there are plenty such shows, but one that looks particularly promising is the graduating class from Concordia’s photography department’s Like a Kiss on the Wall, bringing together works from 24 artists at Ârt Mur (5826 St-Hubert).

“It’s a mix of landscape, conceptual, portraiture—lots of things, of course,” explains sort-of organizer and participating photog Jim Verberg. “But there’s a connection in how far everybody’s developed and just how much bigger the work has gotten over the years. Also Geneviève Cadieux and Marissa Portolese are art-star profs and they’ve definitely pushed us all in neat ways.” Kiss runs from April 15–30, vernissage Thursday, April 20, from 6–9 p.m. —Matthew Woodley

Syllable circus

You can’t turn around without tripping over a literary event in this town. So curators Endre Farkas and Carolyn Marie Souaid have conjured up the Circus of Words to take poetry one step beyond. “This year we’re expanding the definition of poetry into language itself, and how various artists integrate language into their art,” Farkas explains. The line-up includes Quebecois rockiste-poet maudit Lucien Francoeur, the dada-sound poetry stylings of Groupe de poésie moderne, actor Bobo Vian’s interpretation of Hungarian poet Josef Attila’s work, singer Fabiola Toupin’s poetic intepretations, Manijeh Ali’s dance piece accompanied by Persian rubai verse, and choreographer Lin Snelling with musician/visual artist Michael Reinhart. Tonight, April 13, 8 p.m., at la Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent), $15. —Vincent Tinguely

Out of the woods

An empty waiting line that leads to a dog, who stands, split-in-half with a tree growing between its front and back halves of its body. A wounded deer lies on its back, while someone administers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A merry-go-round horse comes alive and bucks its passenger off the carrousel. People hang from coat racks or balance on stilts, while bumper cars and other amusement park rides move in and out of the walls. Welcome to the fabulous and absurd world of Guillaume Lachapelle. The strange scenarios described above are just some of his many imagination-stimulating works, carved out of wood, now on view at Circa (372 Ste-Catherine O, #444). Lachapelle’s maquettes are appropriately paired with well-known Ontario artist Kim Adams. You can check out his hybrid toy trucks, such as the combination truck/chairlift, in Circa’s small gallery. Exhibitions run until April 22, info: 393-8248. —Christine Redfern

Is it Art?

INFERIOR DESIGN: Now that everybody’s finally learned that feng shui is pronounced “fung SHWAY,” it makes you wonder if Josh Amatore Hughes’s anti-order home-decorating guide, Punk Shui: Home Design for Anarchists (Three Rivers Press, $15.95), should be pronounced “punk shwee”—just for rebellion’s sake. In any case, the novelty book is full of ideas for how to remodel your pad by messing it up—nailing chairs to the wall, showering without a curtain, hanging things from the bathroom ceiling with floss, painting the walls booger green and throwing in a dead plant here and there for ambiance. But just like the design sages of the orient, Amatore’s decorative philosophy has a grander vision. “Destroying furniture, reconfiguring rooms, and totally renovating a home in an untraditional way can transform life and the principles on which society depends,” he writes. “That, my friends, is what punk shui is about.”

ArtsHole

QUEER FAB: By popular demand, la Centrale’s (4296 St-Laurent) PAPERWALL: analYZING IMAGES exhibition has been extended until April 30. The show features the work of over 20 queer artists from across North America, mostly in poster form, and with a definite punk/DIY aesthetic. • THIS WAY TO KAHNAWAKE: Take a trip to Kahnawake and check out the Turtle Island Theatre Company’s recently remodelled facilities, the Kateri Performaing Arts Centre, at their open house on Friday, April 21, 2–5 p.m. That same night, from 7:30–9:30 p.m., the centre hosts the vernissage of contemporary native artist Marian Snow. The Kateri is the grey brick building to the left of the church on the old Malone Highway, one kilometre off the Kahnawake/St-Isidore offramp just past the Mercier bridge. The less adventurous may call (450) 632-5300.

ARTISTAT: Number of winning designs, chosen this week from among dozens of entries, that will be silkscreened to t-shirts, in the fourth annual Onetop competition, this year revolving around the theme of coupledom (www.galeriesas.com for more details): 20

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