VIVA! Art Action

Initiated by Patrick Lacasse and Alexis Bellavance, VIVA! was founded in 2006 by six artist-run centres from Greater Montreal to support the production of events dedicated to the presentation and advancement of action art practices and knowledge.

The organisation’s energies are primarily focused on VIVA! Art Action, an international biennial whose eighth edition took place from the 13th to the 16th of September 2023 and was the fruit of a partnership with four artist-centred organisations. The festival provides the public with an accessible and convivial context in which to encounter performance art in its most striking and avant-garde forms.

For the past decade, the biennial has brought artists together to provide them with a space for revitalization, learning and exchange. The artistic programming is developed by VIVA! and its partners using a de-centred working method that combines multiple programming strategies into one hybrid process (open calls, curatorial invitations, field research, etc.). Therefore, whether it’s presented in public space or at VIVA!’s pop-up headquarters, the programming always connects a rich variety of forms, perspectives, and identities. By providing artists with professional support adapted to the specific needs of the discipline, VIVA! opens itself up to performative practices that are sometimes difficult to frame within the visual arts: furtive actions, relational projects, durational works, happenings and infiltration projects. We also actively develop new strategies for encounter, such as the wildly popular VIVA! Kitchen, an artist-in-residence component of the festival that serves daily performative meals. Uniquely accessible, specialized and lively, VIVA! generates unprecedented experiences for artists as well as for the public.