The Atelier d’art social de Montréal is 33 years old “I would not be who I am without the people I have known …”

20 Mar The Atelier d’art social de Montréal is 33 years old “I would not be who I am without the people I have known …”

Michel Dongois, in collaboration with Denis Schneider

Denis Schneider

The Atelier d’art social de Montréal has just celebrated its 33^rd year of existence. Thirty-three years, the great death-resurrection cycle… Since its beginning on May 28, 1984, the Atelier has touched hundreds of individuals with its lectures, workshops, artistic exercises and biography sessions. Denis Schneider, its founder, now asks himself: “Today, the Atelier has reached a turning point, a chrysalis stage. After these many years of effort on the part of participants and collaborators that have created the caterpillar, how can we now encourage the butterfly to free itself and spread its wings? Whatever the answer may be, two important questions must be faced: what to do at the present time and what are the needs that must be addressed?”

It was upon returning home from England with wife and son, following a training course in social development at Emerson College, that Denis Schneider decided to found the Atelier in order to put into practice what he had learned. He says that his time at Emerson College was one of the most wonderful years of his life. “I met biography and discovered the concepts of social art and the threefold social order. I was literally filled with wonder.” But then Denis, who had studied sociology and fine arts, had to ask himself an essential question: “Am I an artist or a social worker? This was my greatest life question. And there before me was the answer – with social art I could be both at the same time!”

The first workshop, an experience of unification, took place in December of 1983 in a space within the Résidence Sophie-Barat. One of the basic laws of the development of an initiative is to be able to recognize that something is new and alive. Denis recalls how “In this respect, the activity and absolute trust of Lucie Gervais, a consultant and entrepreneur, were decisive. It was she who allowed us to get started by offering us the use of a space in her premises.” The Atelier’s actual “birth certificate” as a non-profit organisation came five months later, in May of 1984.

This initiative then had to find its place and discover its initial project. Being something completely new could seem daunting for many. But Denis Schneider had trust in his star, a feeling that was reinforced as he recalled these words of the astrosophist Willi Sucher: “If you ask something of the spiritual world, you will always receive an answer.” Denis goes on to say that what he now understands these words to mean is that the path forward would be strewn with trials and hardships.

Create an initiative – all well and good… but in what field could social art be applied? What spiritual landscape needed to be created so as to become a living reality? Denis Scheider went on to say: “It rapidly became apparent that our biography workshops entitled Making your life into a work of art, inspired by the research of Bernard Livegoed in Holland, would be at the very heart of our work.” At the outset, international figureheads in the field of social art, Christopher Schaeffer and Coen van Houten, enterprise consultants and promoters of the threefold social order, were invited to give lectures and workshops, among which were sessions aimed specifically towards the art of creating initiatives. Other prominent figures also came to bring inspiring contributions: Athys Floride spoke on the contemporary question of Evil and of the continuing quest of Faust. René Querido, along much the same lines, presented his ideas on the great challenges of our times (the animalisation of the body, the vegetative state of the soul, the mechanisation of the spirit). The Atelier d’art social became a focal point that would shed its light elsewhere in the world, especially in England, the USA and in France.

Two artists, Chantal Trudel and Marcel Dulude, were among the signers of the official document alongside Denis Schneider, who adds: “… with the moral support of Lucie Gervais and Andrée Lanthier, who became the Atelier’s eurythmist and who had inwardly carried this project with me for the whole time, as she continues to do.” Within a short time, other individuals joined this undertaking with heartfelt enthusiasm, bringing with them their personal fields of expertise. France Beaucage brought her interest for the economic questions and the threefold social order. Micheline Cossette, a painter, explored the threefold social order through the language of colours. Michel Bourassa shared his love of pantomime, theatre and poetry and their relationship to philosophy. Alain Bouilhaud, a visual artist, “imaged” the great masterpieces of the Renaissance and prepared large-scale expositions. All of these collaborators participated in biography work applied to the social question; all joined as well in researching the planetary rhythms. Research in astrosophy is based on the principle that within one’s biography, and according to the questions one is living with, an individual contributes to the movement of the planets. Upon death there then appears in the configuration of the planets a panorama of the essential events of one’s life. One of the Atelier’s workshop dealt with the 17-year rhythm, another with the importance of the 42^nd year in human life.

Masculine-Feminine

Corrie Mienis brought a new field of exploration with her workshops on this very contemporary theme. The women of the Ariadne group in Holland approached the question of self knowledge in a new way, freeing one from identifying too closely with one’s physical body. During the sessions, each of the 20 participants (women and men in equal number) observed how this strong polarity was at work in his or her various bodies – physical, vital and consciousness bodies. In 2009, Isabelle (clay modelling) and Jean-Pierre Caron presented an in-depth exploration of the same question. The participants, working with images of the origin of the human being and mythology they themselves created, attempted to discover the type of woman or man they themselves were. The workshop leaders had prefaced their session with a quote by Victor Hugo: “Man stands where the earth ends; woman stands where the heavens begin.” Although the theme of these workshops was deeply serious, they were often given over to moments of laughter and sometimes even took on a festive mood.

Each and every human encounter teaches us a bit more about who we are. When we attend workshops on the theme of polarities, as they apply to the essential gestures of social life – for example giving and taking or carrying and supporting – we experience how human encounters cause a rational element to appear. As Denis Schneider explains: “In these situations, we experience the feminine quality, in which team work is the most important element, bridging the gap between individuals, feeling ourselves in harmony with the other person.” Denis goes on to describe the workshops the Atelier organized to explore great works of art such as Raphael’s paintings of Three Graces and the Deposition. “What we have here is a celebration of the Eternal Feminine that our modern world does not sufficiently recognize.”

On the other hand, in the masculine initiation process, one must meet one’s trials alone. Workshops dealing with this aspect centred on the lives of personalities such as Nicolas Fouquet, minister of finance under Louis XIV, Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, and Nelson Mandela, who brought an end to apartheid. Other workshops explored the lives of Francis of Assisi (troubadour, jongleur and knight), and the Knights Templar, the precursors of the threefold social order. And then there was Joan of Arc, who personified the two types of initiation, both the feminine and the masculine. All of them were social artists carrying a moral treasure who lived through excruciating trials, some even having suffered prison and torture. Yet they were triumphant in bringing to their specific social surroundings, and even to all of history, a seed of renewal. 

The rose and the Garden

Social Art unfolds where the individual and society meet, insofar as it is a question of bringing an individual to a state of acute personal awareness as well as true empathy for others – that is to say, a question of co-creation, of cultivating both the rose and the garden. As Denis Schneider puts it: “Alone, I cannot be a social artist; but rather it is in the exchange with others that a new substance appears. This is the reality on which all social art is based.” But working with others is demanding. Denis adds: “Exchanging with others implies a certain sacrifice on the part of everyone involved, and this is an essential condition if something new is to appear. The most interesting aspect is therefore not only what each one already has mastered and brings to the table, but what emerges in the interval, the space created between the people involved.” It is only when the process has been completed and brought to a close that each participant can endorse the work that has been accomplished, in complete freedom, with the others. Opening up to something new – therein lies the essential element of co-creating. As the founder of the Atelier d’art social affirms: “It is there that we can discover the golden thread that brings to light what poets such as Novalis and Saint-Exupéry were able to foresee.”

The Atelier first developed in the surroundings of the Anthroposophical Society and the anthroposophical community. Indeed, Rudolf Steiner indicated that anthroposophy was fertile ground for the development of the social art. As Denis Schneider points out: “Anthroposophy has been its dwelling, one could say its womb.” It had to be experimented with in small group settings before it could hope to become an active presence in the outer world. It was thus that from 1987 to 2003, the Atelier designed workshops on biography and adolescence for teachers within the professional CÉGEP (junior college) system. The Atelier also organised various activities for managers of gas stations and car wash enterprises designed to help improve the quality of the atmosphere and human relations in the workplace.

Philosophical conversations led by Michel Bourassa, a philosophy professor, were initiated in 2001. For the three hundredth anniversary of the Great Peace of Montreal (1701), which marked a new era in Franco-indigenous relations, the Atelier gave rise to “The Group for Peace,” a collective writing workshop given in conjunction with the Philosophical conversations. There were also poetry writing exercises given during the 12 Holy Nights.

The main thrust of the Atelier’s projects was always aimed at exploring a fundamental question: how can we speak to one another and think together? This was the impulse underlying the research carried out by the Atelier on the 12 points of view as elaborated by Rudolf Steiner. This research led to work in poetry writing and social understanding done with parents and teachers of the Waldorf schools in Montreal, Victoriaville and Waterville. We must also mention the work done on the biography of enterprises as applied to Waldorf Schools; especially noteworthy was the creation of the text of the Foundation Stone for the Montreal Waldorf School. Teachers, parents and members of the board of directors all participated in this experience of co-creation.

In 2004, the Solidarité Ahuntsic organisation, in collaboration with professors from the Université du Québec in Montreal and other public organisations, inaugurated a social project lasting several months entitled Let’s Talk about Health. It brought members from diverse cultural communities together. The creative collective writing activity developed by the Atelier allowed the participants to get to know each other in a new way. In another field of social healing work, Michel Bourassa, himself a cancer patient from 1997 to his death in 2017, and constantly battling chronic pain, took it upon himself to address people in distress through talks and workshops he gave in Quebec, in France and in Switzerland. The theme he carried into these activities: Living with a Serious Illness. And we must not fail to mention the pivotal role Michel played in all the Atelier’s activities for 30 years, despite his illness. Denis speaks thus of Michel and his role: “We worked as a team for all the public activities given around the world. What’s more, Michel took care of the administrative and legal aspects necessary to ensure the Atelier would maintain its status as a charitable organisation.”

Personal Contributions

Throughout the years, many individuals hosted by the Atelier have been invited to present the results of their personal research. Here are three examples:

• Anne Marie (artist) and Chris Heintz (lecturer in the field of economics) came to Montreal to hold a workshop on the evolution of money. This workshop also included artistic exercises.
• Isabelle Val de Flore, architect and friend of Athys Floride and Andrée Lanthier, shared her research on the individuality of John the Baptist.
• And yours truly, the author of this article, Michel Dongois, gave an exposé on the theme of how light can shine into the surrounding darkness by recounting the history of the White Rose resistance movement during Nazi Germany.

As the Atelier d’art social contemplates its future, Denis Schneider can say, with the certainty he has gained during these 33 years of activity and the insights his work with the mystery of human biography have given him: “I would not be who I am without all the individuals I have met in my life.” And, likewise, the Atelier would not have become what it is today without the numerous collaborators and administrators who have supported it over the years: Jeanne Arweiller, Claude Gendron, Nadia Abdelahad, Diane Cadrin, Rachelle Sigouin, and Gérard Chagnon, who has held the role of secretary for over a decade. And of course, those collaborators who have crossed the threshold: Michel Bourassa, Claude Drainville, Lucie Gervais, Léon René de Cotret and Chantal Trudel.