ATSA is a non-profit organization founded in 1997 by the artists Pierre Allard and Annie Roy. Our mandate is to create so-called urban interventions: installations, performances and realistic stagings that bear witness to the various social and environmental aberrations which preoccupy us. Our name (Socially Acceptable Terrorist Action) is in itself an aberration, serving as an example of the concerns which motivate the artworks.
Through our interventions, which take the form of realistic dramas or events, we critique and transform the urban landscape. We privilege the interrelation of realistic elements whose qualitative, aesthetic or symbolic oppositions create visual and psychic tension. The sometimes bizarre, often spectacular artworks provoke strong emotions and encourage reflection on a specific social problem. This direct participation by the urban population brings each work to life. Without this process of community engagement, we would miss our goal of raising consciousness and promoting a sense of social responsibility. ATSA aims to restore the citizen's place in the public realm by depicting it as a political space open to discussion and societal debates. This approach channels the aesthetic and symbolic power of art into a tool of social responsibility.
The provocative nature of our methods and projects has made headlines and helped to reposition the role of art in society. Note, for example, the appearance of ATSA on such high-profile Quebec radio and television programs as Téléjournal, Le Point (to discuss the new left) and Indicatif Présent (as part of Annie Roy's editorials). Invading media space of all stripes is a key aspect of our mandate: it provides a drive of "legitimacy" to our actions, and extends their reach and effect. Our terrorist interference and inquisitions hit hard and oblige seemingly inflexible institutions to respond to our vision. Our political style is urgent and pre-emptive, resulting in unusual solutions that transcend and reconfigure certain bureaucratic labyrinths. In one instance, during the État d'Urgence of 1999, the city had to call a last-minute press conference to address the media furor over its unwillingness to grant our request to occupy Berri Square. ("State of Emergency" is a recurring event organized by ATSA. We create a temporary refugee camp in the heart of downtown Montreal as a protest against homelessness and dispossession around the globe.)
Our role as artists is to create works that force to people to react, reflect and debate. By grabbing passers-by from their daily worlds and ushering them towards a fiction which strangely resembles reality, the artworks elicit an emotional understanding of the problems at hand and generate positive citizen action. Despite their wide range and elaborate production requirements, ATSA projects remain pertinent and faithful to our mandate of engaging the community in a profound way. Society is our raw material, and we aim to transform the idea of politically and socially engaged art by not limiting ourselves to acts of denunciation. By submerging our art in the unfolding course of events, we foster hope and promote an open, active and responsible vision of artists as citizens contributing to the sustainable development of their society.
Visit our website (www.atsa.qc.ca) for a complete history of the organization, and an interactive chronology of our projects that lets you experience ATSA through image and sound.
