It was a glorious day when we had the chance to see the EN MASSE crew working on anew and huge wall at Village Underground

EN MASSE : (from French) “as a whole”, or “all together”

EN MASSE is a Montreal based, multi-artist collaborative drawing project. It draws life from the many creative individuals who take part in the project to create large-scale, highly spontaneous drawings in black and white.

EN MASSE explores the creation of a collective vision; works created together that are greater than any one person could create alone.

HISTORY

The project was created by Tim Barnard and Jason Botkin in 2009, at the Galerie Pangée. Now under the direction of Botkin and Rupert Bottenberg, the initiative has worked with nearly 250+ artists internationally.

MANDATE

The EN MASSE Project nurtures the broadening and solidification of artistic communities everywhere it goes, serving artists from extremely diverse backgrounds such as graphic novels, graffiti, tattoo, illustration, design and the fine arts.

For the most part, artists participating in the project are self-taught creative entrepreneurs. EN MASSE is a high-profile public platform for these people who have often found themselves in an awkward relationship with many contemporary arts institutions (resulting in their work often being excluded from mainstream galleries, museums, and funding agencies). This is a bridge for artist to institution, and vice versa.