The Michaëlle Jean Foundation and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) have joined forces to present the 4th edition of the POWER OF THE ARTS NATIONAL FORUM, to take place February 16 to 18, 2018 at the MMFA, on the subject “The Arts as Tools for Peace”. The event will bring together over 200 participants from across Canada and every sector of society using the arts as tools of individual and social change and as instruments for peace.
Art as a way of fostering personal and collective emancipation, inclusiveness and togetherness, well-being and mental health, the elimination of discrimination, granting women access to power and security, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples… in short, the arts and culture as “tools for mass construction” of peace in the world. These are the themes on which the many actors from the cultural, political, business, health, legal and civil society sectors will focus at the MMFA as of February 16.
In total, over three days, more than 60 hands-on workshops, lectures, panel discussions and artistic performances will bring together hundreds of participants from different fields who will share their experiences, best practices, realizations and ways of making the most of the power of the arts to create, invent, innovate and revitalize their environment and communities and bring about social change.
Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean stresses the importance of the Forum: “In an increasingly uncertain world, where retreating into the self prevails, we must seek out every opportunity to meet and join together in our common humanity, and this is what the arts can provide, without masks or ambiguity.”
Nathalie Bondil, Director General and Chief Curator of the MMFA: “Since the exhibitions Cuba, Art and History from 1868 to Today in 2008 and Imagine: John and Yoko’s Ballad for Peace in 2009 to the unveiling of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace in 2016 and La Balade pour la paix: An Open-air Museum in 2017, we have committed ourselves humbly to the best of our abilities to this cause. We have numerous collaborators in the community who support these values: inner peace and social peace. The arts play an essential role in bringing peace to our societies: it is pointless to develop artificial intelligence while neglecting emotional intelligence. While emotion continues to be a powerful tool for manipulation, the arts enable us to live together in a better way."
For Jean-Daniel Lafond, Co-Founder, Co-Chair and Executive Director of the Michaëlle Jean Foundation, “The Forum is an opportunity to refurbish the tools of peace. This world has a light side and a dark side too and neither ever wins, humanity is a fragile victory over barbarism, an ongoing struggle, and art and culture are our only tools for building peace and happiness. The aim of this forum is to establish a road map that will guide us to use the arts to foster the culture of peace, social cohesion, dialogue, mutual understanding and equity that our disorientated world needs so badly.”
The MMFA, a partner in the 4th edition of the POWER OF THE ARTS NATIONAL FORUM
The POWER OF THE ARTS NATIONAL FORUM conceived by filmmaker and writer Jean-Daniel Lafond, Co-Chair and Executive Director of the Michaëlle Jean Foundation, continues the 52 “Art Matters” forums which he organised from 2005 to 2010 in Canada and abroad during his wife’s mandate as Governor General.
The first presentation in Montreal after three editions in Ottawa, the POWER OF THE ARTS NATIONAL FORUM 2018 is the fruit of a partnership between the educational and community programmes of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Michelle Jean Foundation.
The MMFA is acknowledged as a pioneer and major actor in the fields of education and well-being through the arts both in Canada and internationally. Under the aegis of Director General and Chief Curator Nathalie Bondil, it is known as a humanist and socially committed museum because of its activities promoting education, inclusiveness and well-being.
Every year, over 300,000 people participate in its educational, cultural, art therapy and well-being programmes, the result of collaborations with more than 450 schools, community and health organizations that strive to counter stigmatization, violence, discrimination, radicalization, racism and homophobia. The Museum makes its vast encyclopaedic collection and its installations available to everyone so they can benefit from the experience of art.
The MMFA’s third partnership with the Michaëlle Jean Foundation
This third collaboration of the MMFA with the Foundation continues a partnership that the two institutions have developed over the course of the past four years: in particular the two Montreal editions of The 4th Wall: Making the Invisible Visible, a major programme of exhibitions and debates of the Michaëlle Jean Foundation, one in 2014 devoted to Black youths and the other in 2016, The Art of Inclusion, to young Muslims.
This project sprang from the two organizations’ recognition of the important role of art as a vector of peace and engine of social progress and our common commitment to dialogue, tolerance, inclusiveness, civic commitment and mutual understanding.
Source: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts