The Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery offers outreach programming that supports engaged, self-reflexive and critical forms of viewership on site, online, and beyond the Gallery and University. Working with our local communities in Montreal and circulating our exhibitions abroad, the Gallery’s outreach programing privileges and amplifies the critical angles that context, standpoint and experience can bring to thinking about and engaging with art and exhibition making.

PROGRAM FOR THE ARABIC SPEAKING COMMUNITY | برنامج باللغة العربية

Lynn Kodeih. Untitled #6, part of the series Image is Blind, 2022-ongoing. Pinhole image, 35 mm. Courtesy of the artist

Mumtalakat مُمْتلَكات

Mumtalakat is a multi-part outreach program exploring the meanings embedded in objects belonging to Arabic-speaking immigrants. Grounded in oral history processes and led by educator Emma Haraké the program comprises an exhibition, the workshop series Kan Ya Ma Kan, public events, and eventually a website collecting interviews and transcripts. Working in the third most spoken language in Montreal and taking place on- and off-site as well as online, Mumtalakat aims to create more spaces and resources for Arabic-speakers to share and listen collectively.

OUTREACH
مُمْتلَكات
MUMTALAKAT
June 19 – August 16, 2019
An outreach project developed by Emma Haraké

مُمْتلَكات MUMTALAKAT
Evening of readings
Wednesday, August 7, 2019, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

KAN YA MA KAN | كان يا ما كان
Once There Was, Once There Wasn’t
Workshop series – part 1
Thursday, December 12, 2019, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

KAN YA MA KAN | كان يا ما كان
Once There Was, Once There Wasn’t
Workshop series – part 2
Thursday, November 19, 2020, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

KAN YA MA KAN | كان يا ما كان
Once There Was, Once There Wasn’t
Workshop series – part 3
Thursday, April 15, 2021, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

QALQALAH | قلقلة
Panel moderated by Emma Haraké
Tuesday, August 9th, 2022

MUMTALAKAT ممتلكات
Website

MEDITERRANEAN EXPLORATIONS: EVOLVING ARCHIVES AND VARIED PERSPECTIVES | استكشافات البحر الأبيض المتوسط: أرشيفات حيّة ووجهات نظر

Mediterranean Explorations: Evolving archives and varied perspectives is a public program initiated by the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, examining the visual archives of the region around the Mediterranean Sea. Inviting artist-archivist Chantal Partamian to explore the constantly evolving nature of archives, the program proposes looking beyond their traditional representation as mere static collections of documents. The program questions the preservation of the integrity and completeness of archives, taking into account the challenges of displaced archives, particularly in former colonized territories and during periods of armed conflict. It also aims to broaden understanding of archives as dynamic entities, highlighting the multiple affiliations and diverse interests of stakeholders. Starting on December 5th and throughout the winter three presenters will participate.

Archives in Movement: Preservation and Diversity of Visual Narratives
Discussion with Chantal Partamian
Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 6 pm

Twelve Faces of Armenian Feminism: Archiving, between preservation and erasure
Sevan Injejikian in discussion with Chantal Partamian
Monday, March 4, 2024, 6 pm

Disrupting the archive: echoes of alternative histories in postcolonial cinema
A talk by Dhakira Collective
Wednesday May 22, 2024, 6:30 pm

NOTES ON LAND | فيما يَخُصّ الأرض

A two-part public program – August 13 and 15, 2024

Following an invitation from the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery to take part in its outreach programming, curator and scholar Amin Alsaden convenes artists whose lens-based practices unveil how identification with land can entail acts of resistance and solidarity. Drawing on Alsaden’s ongoing research into the relationships between diasporic communities and their ancestral homelands, the two-part program focuses specifically on the region conventionally labeled as the “Orient,” or the vast and immensely variegated geography stretching from Southwest Asia to North Africa, and contemplates how image-making can challenge problematic and reductive colonial representations. His research has taken on new dimensions in Canada, where many of those who were obliged to leave the SWANA region sought refuge, to find themselves settling on Indigenous territories, and forming alliances with their hosts. The gatherings will tackle some of the complex and inherently contradictory meanings carried by land as a concept, and how displaced people continue to negotiate the terrains they traverse.

As part of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s Outreach Programming, Notes on Land reflects the Gallery’s wish to develop conversations that respond to the communities, issues, tensions, projections, and changes that shape the society we live in. Artmaking and curating are seen as activities at the crossroads of numerous disciplines, and as sites for free critical thinking. 

PART ONE: ELUSIVE TERRAINS
Film screening program followed by Q&A
Tuesday August 13, 6:00 PM

PART TWO: ENFOLDING TOPOGRAPHIES
Panel discussion + publications display
Thursday August 15, 6:00 PM

Othered Cartographies: On Place and Presence | تموضع “الآخر”, التواجد و المكان

Curator: Lynn Kodeih

Othered Cartographies: On Place and Presence is a multi-part public program that engages with the layered meanings, complexities, and transformative possibilities of diasporas in Montreal—a city shaped by histories of colonization, migration, and overlapping trajectories and cultural lineages. The program seeks to nurture spaces and resources informed by the lived experiences and knowledge of communities often left at the edges of institutional narratives.

This project builds on a legacy of past public programming at the Gallery—one that has long embraced critical, community-responsive approaches to knowledge-sharing and cultural work. Undertaken by artist – researcher Lynn Kodeih, the project continues this trajectory, deepening the Gallery’s commitment to practices that listen closely and act collectively.

Engaging with the communities, concerns, tensions around our present and collective futures— the Gallery acts as a space to reflect on how we live together, and how we might do so differently, foregrounding the need to unlearn colonial legacies and to imagine otherwise in relation to land, power, and community.

Placing Memory: Echoes Across Places (workshop)
Sunday, June 1, 2025, 12 PM to 3 PM

An Image Before Last
Screening Series
Wednesday, August 20, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Wednesday, August 27, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Chantal Partamian
Film projection in the Gallery window
August 4 to 27, 2025