A mad tea party!

The Mobile Home collective, founded in 1999 by Lucas Jolly, Steeve Dumais and Gaëtan Desombre, presents Orphique at Galerie Clark (5455 de Gaspé, #114). Their unconventional work is a combination of street theatre, surrealist cabaret, performance and installation art. The work is funny, hallucinogenic, poetic and most definitely kitschy.

Upon entering Clark we come across a series of photographs: staged, exaggerated scenes with the artists in drag or having a naked tea party with animal masks on. There is also a video and live performance, created during Mobile Home's residency at Clark, which involves many of the characters found in the photographs.

During the performance, the audience moves throughout the Fashion Plaza building, as characters and scenes from the video reappear as live theatre. The final mise-en-scène occurs in the loading docks, where audience members take turns donning Walkmans and head-mounted video screens to wander around the aforementioned tea party while viewing projections. I have no idea what it all means, but I like it. Runs until June 28, 288-4972 for info. » Christine Redfern

Terror-tourism pageturner

Issue number four of Montreal upstart Maisonneuve magazine hits the stands this Friday, June 6, with the timely theme of "Terrorism & Tourism."

If you haven't caught wind yet, Maisonneuve is an eclectic mix of writing and art with a decidedly Harper's/New Yorker feel and a Montreal bent. Sound ambitious? Editor Derek Webster is confident that they're pulling things off. "This issue," he writes in his opening letter, "… is textually, intellectually and visually weighty, and may be the finest eighty pages you've ever held in your hands."

Topics within stretch from converting Iraq into a theme park to an anti-poseur analysis of NYC hipster-enclave Williamsburg. There's a photo compilation on cabbie culture, a commentary from stereoid supressor Richard Pound and (again with the Harper-esque) a boxed-in compilation of disquieting headlines from a São Paulo daily.

A publication with as much poetry as advertising is a curious thing, but even with the reflections of other mags, Maisonneuve makes a good read. $8 on the newsstand, www.maisonneuve.org. » Matthew Woodley

Still movement

Montrealer Steve Topping's simple yet effective Super-8 film Box Expo is now showing at Skol (460 Ste-Catherine W., #511). Topping's films focus on specific locations. In the past these have ranged from a particular staircase in Stair Movie, to the national landscape shot from illegally hopped freight trains in Reading Canada Backward. This current film records 360 degrees from the rooftop of the Alexander Building in which Skol resides. Inside the gallery, a rotating projector turns in sync with the grainy, scratchy footage of the panoramic view, paradoxically creating a static picture with a moving image. Runs until June 21. Info: 398-9322. » Christine Redfern

Vote visual

ARTtraction is back for another round. The annual exercise in eye indulgence and democracy invites the public to partake in a Plateau/downtown commerce crawl to take in, and vote upon, a fresh batch of local art.

Three hundred and fifty works from 49 artists are currently on display in selected hip clothing stores, chi-chi boutiques and the like, all of which provide voting coupons for you to give your two cents worth. The stores are also offering discounts and "other beautiful surprises," according to organizer Mireille Chéry, who promises much undiscovered talent and sublime art. Polls close on June 30 and the big winner gets a solo show valued at $2,500. See www.cheryart.com or call 525-5312 for the list of venues. » Matthew Woodley

Is it Art?

ONE MAN'S JUNK: Big pat on the strong back of Robbie Cameron. Last weekend he completed 31 days of hauling around a giant backpack full of orange peels, rotting meat, soiled napkins and, well, everything else he'd normally throw out in the course of a month. Cameron was inspired by Adbusters and other consumption-curbing propaganda, but wanted to relate to his refuse on a more personal level. "I find that kind of rhetoric a bit preachy," he says. "A month is a long time, so you really have to think about what you're doing." As did the people subject to his trashy aura. "People would stand like 10 stairs behind me on the escalator at the metro," he laughs.

Cameron, a recent graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, has bigger visions of his effort. "This has all the aspects of a very cliché art project," he muses. "I suffer. I have to carry a burden." Future plans include a Web documentation on www.presstube.com and the prospect that one day the garbage will be sealed in resin and put up for sale. We'll keep you posted.

ArtsHole

ROOTS: Susan Shulman traces her ancestors' flight from Russia and ensuing immigration into Canada through a family archive of photographs and Yiddish letters in her exhibition of paintings In Our Memories Forever, which opens at Espace Trois (5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine) on June 8, 1:30 p.m. • THINGS THAT SPIN: Sylvie Cotton and Chuck Samuels complete last January's joint exhibition InSiteOut, an exploration of spinning and turning, with the launch of a CD-ROM entitled Blind Date today, June 5, 7 p.m., at Dazibao (4001 Berri, #202).

ARTISTAT: Number of years of Holy Land history spanned in the Point-à-Callière Museum's upcoming exhibition Archaeology and the Bible, opening on June 17 (350 Place Royale): 1,000

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