PAUL MACHNIK

Paul is a printmaking artist who collaborates closely with Indigenous artists from different parts of the world. His studio serves as a platform to connect different practices and cosmovisions which, anchored in indigeneity, represent a strong political statement indispensable in the discussions around memory and reparation that take place in Canada today. His studio was located for more than 20 years at the old Canadian Power Boat Company building, located at 4000 St Patrick street, in a strategic location beside the Canal Lachine, on the south-west of Montréal. Expropriated by the city, Paul relocated his studio to an industrial building on Saint-Laurent street, on the north side of the city. With the relocation, the studio not only lost a space, but also a vibrant community that enriched the experience of visiting Indigenous artists coming from different parts of the country and the world. Sharing a daily life with other craftspeople, artists and artisans, was a key part of the different creative processes happening at the studio, an immaterial value that nourished everybody’s practices in a symbiotic atmosphere of collaboration and solidarity. What was lost with the expropriation of this patrimonial building is irreplaceable, value that is invisible for developers and planners who only measure the viability and the importance of urban environments based on a profit scale.

https://www.studiopmmontreal.com/