VIVA! Art Action


VIVA! Art Action is a biennial performance art festival based in Montreal, Quebec. It was founded in 2006 by Alexis Bellavance and Patrick Lacasse in collaboration with six different artist-run centres in the city. The festival usually spans over the course of a few days, during which performances, discussions, installations, and shared meals take place.
The next edition is programmed for October 7–11, 2025 at L'Union Française, in Downtown Montreal.
WWW vivamontreal.org

Mandate

Viva! aligns itself with practices of performance, art action, body art, happenings, and more. The festival's mandate prioritizes experimentation, encouraging artists to take risks and challenge their practice. The festival usually showcases projects that are relational, durational, ephemeral, or infiltration based, amongst others.

Partnerships and funding

In 2006, the artist-run centers involved in the establishment of VIVA! were Centre SKOL, Centre Clark, Articule, Dare-Dare, La Centrale, and Praxis. As the festival found its organizational structure throughout the years, different forms of collaboration have emerged. VIVA! now stands as its own collective, not simply a joint effort between centres. However, Montreal's art centres are still involved in supporting the event. In 2023, the organizations listed as supporting the festival included Centre Clark, Dare-Dare, Oboro, and Le Lieu.
The festival receives funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec, Conseil des Arts de Montréal, and the City of Montreal, amongst others. Community fundraising also contributes to the continuation of the events, namely through off-season events and donations during the festival.

Location

From 2006 to 2013, VIVA! took place at the Bain Saint Michel, located in Montreal's Mile End neighbourhood. This building housed a historic bathhouse, inside of which an empty swimming pool acted as a stage.
In 2015, the festival moved to Ateliers Jean-Brillant, in the Saint-Henri neighbourhood. Programming stayed there until 2019, at which point the COVID-19 pandemic affected operations for a couple of years and interrupted the planned 2021 edition.
Resuming in 2023, VIVA! took place at l'Union Française, a cultural center located in Downtown Montreal.

VIVA! Kitchen

Throughout the festival, meals are offered in a convivial manner, to be shared amongst artists, organizers, volunteers and the public. In every edition since 2006, a different artist or collective has run the kitchen as a part of their artistic practice. The project is offered as a type of art residency adjacent to the festival.
2011SP38 aimed to create a moment for sharing and interacting with one another, exploring the imagery of the family dinner table.
2017Sonja Zlatanova & Andreja Dugandžić presented VIVA's first collaborative kitchen project. Their work explored hybridization and the inversion of the private space of the kitchen, primarily reserved for women.
2019The invited artist, David Sébastien Lopez Restrepo, was denied a visa for entry into Canada. His project was completed at a distance and explored themes of migration, translation and technological mediation.
2023Diyar Mayil explored the theme of giving through action.