JE ME SOUVIENS — FTAA Exhibit, One Year Later

Exhibit on the Summit of the Americas returns us temporarily to the fence in
Québec City then to the reasons behind the mass
demonstrations against corporate globalization.

JE ME SOUVIENS — FTAA Exhibit, One Year Later

Exhibit on the Summit of the Americas returns us temporarily to the fence in Québec City then to the reasons behind the mass demonstrations against corporate globalization.
http://www.cumuluspress.com/titles/counterproductive

----------SCHEDULE----------

May 5 to 8 — Salle l’X, 182 Ste-Catherine E. (metro Berri-UQAM)

sunday may 5
18h - 22h workshop: Urban intervention

monday may 6
13h - 17h film + presentation
18h - 22h film + roundtable: Role of the media

tuesday may 7
13h - 19h kioskes + activist presentations
20h Exorcism of imperialist capitalism

wednesday may 8
16h film
19h VERNISSAGE + BOOK LAUNCH "counter productive"

It's been one year since 16.3 km2 of downtown Québec City were sealed-off with a perimeter fence to host the Summit of the Americas, where 34 heads of state from every country of the Americas (except Cuba) came to secretly negotiate the terms for the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Protesters who oppose the ftaa's neoliberal ideology, converged on the provincial capital in numbers estimated at up to 60,000 strong. What have we retained of this important event and from which sources did we get our information? What questions are we still seeking answers to, and how have our perspectives changed over the last 12 months?

We all remember the deployment of 6000 police into the streets, either from facing them in Québec City or through news clips and headlines from the media. Many of us will not soon forget hacking on toxic chemicals from the 5,148 cannisters of teargas used during the Summit to silence our voices. Nor will our memories be washed of the scenes of folding protesters, hit—point blank—with one of 903 rubber bullets shot over the weekend using lazer-guided scopes. Conversations between residents of Québec City, Canadians from across the country, activists from the US and throughout Latin America—at, and since, the Summit—have influenced our discourse.

Evolution has been swift. Much has changed since the heads of state left Québec City, since protesters returned home, since mainstream media moved on to more marketable stories, and since the perimetre fence was dismantled, swept under into oblivion.

Je me souviens reminds us that Québec City's 2nd Summit of the Americas is still under negotiation and is scheduled to be ratified in 3 years, so there is still time to defeat it. The exhibit will include photographs, live art, music & performance, activist art, films, round table discussions, video & audio art, a book launch, DJs, alternative information kiosks, activist presentations. It will return us temporarily to the 3.4-kilometre fence, then carry us forward in an attempt to better understand our place in a global community. Je me souviens reappropriates the term 'globalization' from free market advocates who use it as a synonym to their hierarchical "new world order', where a few are at the front of the order and everyone else is left somewhere behind. Je me souviens promotes true 'globalization' where all the world's residents participate in decisions, and benefit from them. Je me souviens emphasises that the corporate/state alliances, negotiating the FTAA and other global trade deals from inside militarized perimetres, are not talking about equitable distribution of wealth, rather they discuss its further consolidation. They are the genuine 'anti-globalization' advocates.