“Engrenage Noir / LEVIER (2001-2012)
Engrenage Noir / LEVIER was a Montreal-based non-profit community and activist arts support organization intended to stimulate dialogue about healthy interdependence and ethical responsiveness while encouraging artistic creation addressing the systemic causes of poverty.” (web) LEVIER was co-directed since its inception in 2001 through to its closure in June 2012 by Johanne Chagnon and Devora Neumark. Johanne is an artist with many years experience in public intervention and amongst the founding members of ESSE arts + opinions, a Québecois cultural journal that she edited for 20 years. Devora is an interdisciplinary artist and has experience with violence reduction community work. In April 2013 she completed her research-creation PhD at Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture. Her work focused on the role that beauty plays in the (un)making of home relative to forced displacement.

Devora explained that “LEVIER” means a leaver, and that this is an important symbol for the organization. Its mandate was to support community and humanist activist art projects in the process of becoming self-sustaining. It was a resource that provides advocacy, training and funding support.

Engrenage Noir / LEVIER worked with projects and organizations that serve older youth and adults.

Projects which were supported by Engrenage Noir / LEVIER received training, grant writing, funding and administration help: previously supported project participants, in turn, became the trainers for subsequent programs. Engrenage Noir / LEVIER prioritized ethics, activism and group dynamics, with the outcome of developing stronger and healthier communities.

In 2011, Engrenage Noir/ LEVIER published a book in collaboration with Lux Éditeur and Detselig Enterprises: Affirming Collaboration: Community and Humanist Activist Art in Québec and Elsewhere / Célébrer la collaboration: Art communautaire et art activiste humaniste au Québec et ailleurs.

The publication of the e-version of Affirming Collaboration: Community and Humanist Activist Art in Québec and Elsewhere, in 2013, was an initiative of Devora Neumark and Louise Lachapelle aimed at promoting and distributing this collective work.

http://celebrerlacollaboration.net/

This publication also presents the video compilation Documenting Collaboration that includes five 15-minute documentaries co-created by members of community art projects and members of a humanist activist art project.

People are free to share – copy, distribute and transmit – the electronic version of Affirming Collaboration (including the video compilation Documenting Collaboration) without altering, transforming or building upon this work, for non-commercial purposes, and provided that they attribute the work as follows:

Devora Neumark and Johanne Chagnon, eds. in collaboration with Louise Lachapelle. Affirming Collaboration: Community and Humanist Activist Art in Québec and Elsewhere. Montréal and Calgary: Engrenage Noir / LEVIER, LUX Éditeur and Detselig Enterprises Ltd., [2011] 2013 [Online].

The resource’s catchment area was primarily Québec, however their work extended beyond provincial boundaries. They were very committed to international exchange programs as well. The languages of service were French and English. Before closing, they directly worked with about 38 community organizations/projects implicating many individuals who self-identify as artists and many others who do not. The arts disciplines supported are everything from street performance, spoken word, sound and visual arts.
In addition to the projects highlighted in Affirming Collaboration, before ceasing operations in 2012, LEVIER collaborated on a number of large scale community mobilization projects including AGIR PAR L’IMAGINAIRE / AGIR THE ART OF WOMEN IN PRISON:

http://www.expoagir.com/en_index.html

Sensitive and full of humanity, the audiovisual artworks presented at AGIR / ART OF WOMEN IN PRISON are the result of a collaboration process between 49 incarcerated women whose participation was sought on account of their singular life experiences, and 8 professional artists who were invited into the carceral facilities. Their collective work explores the link between incarceration and poverty – economical, social, family-based, cultural or emotional. Presented by the Société Elizabeth Fry du Québec and Engrenage Noir / LEVIER, this exhibition reveals the individual struggles of women in conflict with the law and acknowledges them in an artistic context – beyond a crime, a prison sentence or a set of stereotypes. Note that this exhibition is available to travel.
Other late collaborations include: the establishment of the Art Entr’Elles collective as an offshoot of the AGIR project.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Art-EntrElles/350405581644095
http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/medium_large/2012-2013/chronique.asp?idChronique=278339”

ArtBridges interview with Devora Neumark March 4, 2010 and updated by Devora Neumark September 10, 2013.