Pique Fall Edition is a hybrid event with limited capacity live outdoor performances, indoor screenings, installations, a workshop, and a digital program of audio-visual works available on demand at thisispique.com.
Featuring IRL:
Backxwash x Mechant Vaporwave
Sydanie✧
Debby Friday
Frosty Valentine
Quinton Barnes
Yolande Laroche
Lady Charles
Jules Filmhouse
Randy Schmucker
Heathcliff
+ Infinite Vibes: Intro DJ Workshop facilitated by Pass the Vibes✧
and URL:
Abdu Ali
La Neve
New Chance
Amanda Lowe
with guest curator Shaya Ishaq
(✧ guest curated programming)
COVID-19 Policy
By purchasing a ticket and attending Pique, attendees agree to follow our current COVID-19 policy. Audience members must:
Wear a face mask at all times, even while outdoors, if you cannot maintain a 6-foot physical distance with other people.
Consume food and beverages outdoors and at a 6-foot distance from those not in your household or bubble
Wash your hands or use the provided hand sanitizer often
Contact tracing information collected in Eventbrite and/or at the box office.
Accessibility
In-person programming will be happening in and around the Arts Court and Ottawa Art Gallery buildings, including the SAW Courtyard and OAG Jackson Terrace. Live performance spaces are accessible by ramp, and the indoor spaces are accessible by automated doors and elevator to all floors. We regret that the Portico performance area is not accessible to everyone. Wheelchair accessible, gender neutral washrooms are available throughout the building.
For accessibility and visitor information for the Arts Court building and the OAG go to:
https://artscourt.ca/visitor-info-en
https://oaggao.ca/plan-your-visit
All Pique virtual content will be accessible online at thisispique.com.
Safety
Attendees are expected to respect one another. Violence, aggression, oppressive behaviour or language, or bullying will not be tolerated. If you are currently implicated in an accountability process, please ensure you are respecting the space and well-being of those your actions have affected before joining this space virtually or in-person. If staff and/or Board are made aware of any behaviour that violates our safety policy, the person(s) perpetuating this behaviour will be asked to leave immediately. We reserve the right to intervene and/or remove ANY person(s) in the space who are creating or contributing to an unsafe environment.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge and pay respect to the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people on whose land we operate. If you support our programming, please consider supporting a local Indigenous organization or fundraiser. Learn more about this land acknowledgement and find educational resources and ways to support at
Pique is produced in partnership with SAW, Ottawa Art Gallery, Artengine, DAÏMÔN, Digital Arts Resource Centre, Firegrove Studio, Le Seltzer, Dominion City Brewing Co., Also Cool Magazine, Ottawa Fringe, CKCU FM, CHUO FM, Apt613, and is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, City of Ottawa, Ottawa Community Foundation, SOCAN Foundation, and FACTOR.
Graphic design & web development by @mouthoftiger. Original wordmark typeface created by Moritz Esch.
Schedule
Click to enlarge.
About the artists
Backxwash
Backxwash is a Rapper/Producer that was born in Lusaka, Zambia. The music she makes is cathartic, expressive and based on her lived experiences.
In her self-released album I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES, Backxwash serves harrowing raps over industrial horrorcore beats. This audio-visual landscape of pain and despair features Backxwash as an empress of chaos on a path of self-destruction.
DEBBY FRIDAY
DEBBY FRIDAY is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work spans the spectrum of the audio-visual. She is at once musician, writer and filmmaker whose every project blurs the categories of genre and artistic discipline. She has released two self-engineered and produced EPs to critical acclaim, 2018’s BITCHPUNK and 2019’s DEATH DRIVE. The latter spawned her directorial debut for the lead single “FATAL” and resulted in her first ever Prism Prize nomination. In 2020, she wrote, directed and scored her first short film BARE BONES, which screened at MUTEK Montreal and was an official selection at the Toronto Lift Off Film Festival. In 2021, she co-directed the music video for her latest single, “RUNNIN”, shot on 35mm. Following this, she presented her graduate thesis project, LINK SICK, an audio-play which she wrote, directed and scored and later minted as her first NFT. FRIDAY maintains an experimental writing blog at CRACKINGCLOSER.COM and she is currently working on her debut LP and a short film.
New Chance
New Chance is the solo project of Toronto-based music producer, Victoria Cheong. Her work in music also includes backup singing, remixing and a long time collaborative practice in contemporary dance. Occasionally she scores film and video, occasionally she DJ’s or makes thematic mixes, and very occasionally she organizes events. Other recent projects include a collaboration with reggae legend Willi Williams, and the musical duo Nice Hands with poet Aisha Sasha John. She released an EP, Hardly Working in 2019 and LP, Real Time in 2021.
Abdu Ali
Abdu Ali is a Baltimore based electronic musician, writer, cultural worker and multidisciplinary artist who works in sound, collaboration, video and performance. Their work often interrogates ideas of race, gender, and sexuality that manifests as poetic inquiries of identity, promoting liberation from oppressive ideologies and encouraging self marginalized peoples to be self determined. Their work also centers promoting authentic Black queer legacies and narratives as our histories are often subjected to distortion and erasure.
Performing across the United States and Europe, through their energetic visceral live shows, spiritualizing audiences, they have been anointed as a cosmic, punk, and soulful tempest on stage. Ali has performed at MoMa Ps1, The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Kennedy Center and their work has been highlighted by the New York Times, The Fader, Elephant Magazine and Tracks Arte TV. Ali has been a recipient of a 2018 Ruby Artist Grant and have held residencies at 2018 Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp and 2018 Pioneer Works. In 2019, Ali founded as they lay, a curatorial platform that claims space for critical dialogue, collaboration and radical envisioning for Black creative futures.
La Neve
La Neve is part rave, part drag show, part moshpit. Also a member of punk band Downtown Boys, her combination of house, disco, and punk has received accolades from NPR, Paper, KEXP, Stereogum, and many more. She released one EP with Don Giovanni in 2017, her debut full LP 'The Vital Cord' was released in 2019, and her next EP is recorded and scheduled for release in early 2022. In 2019, drummer Karna Ray--also of The Kominas-- joined the band, creating an even more energetic, powerful live performance.
Quinton Barnes
Quinton Barnes is an eclectic and multifaceted artist, songwriter and producer with an often unconventional yet singular style. His music demonstrates a broad stylistic diversity, borrowing liberally from electronic music, R&B and pop with ease. His latest album 'As a Motherfucker' was released on January 15 to critical acclaim.
Frosty Valentine
Frosty Valentine is a retired cartoon turned musical pop star. Alongside her animatronics and puppet team, she is the hottest cartoon in the music industry. Her fever dream performance and danceable toons are like no other. She is such a star, that when you see her, you can make a wish!
Yolande Laroche
Yolande Laroche is a Franco-Taiwanese Canadian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist residing in Gatineau, Quebec. She presents 'Journal d'enfance' - a sonic triptych inspired from the pages of her childhood diaries. Exploring playfulness and freedom in the musical arrangement, the lyrics represent the inner workings of a child looking to express the enchanted wonders of their imagination. The composition was created during a production residency at DAIMON's ambisonic studio in Hull, Quebec. It was co-produced with Nick Schofield, and features an array of spoken word, synthesizers and processed clarinet.
“Journal d’Enfance” was created by Yolande Laroche at artist-run centre Daïmôn as part of the event Détonations
Amanda Lowe
Born in Sri Lanka, raised on Prince Edward Island, and now setting roots in Ottawa, ON - Amanda Lowe Warnakulasuriya is a multilingual musician that writes sweet, heartbreaking, and enchanting experimental-folk music. Blending in her folk roots from both islands that raised her, she creates a witty, warm and emotional vibe through her lyrics, her banter, and her instrumentation.
Lady Charles
Lady Charles is a shape-shifting art rock enchanter/ress from Ottawa, Canada. They released their self-titled debut EP in 2020, blending elements of folk, indie rock, and electronica with themes of gender, apocalypse, and lost friendships. Their 2020 single Manic Pixie Dream Boy brought their sound and image to a wider audience, racking up thousands of listens and views and even getting a shout-out from of Montreal's Kevin Barnes. They are soon to release a new music video for their new single, the holographic glam-pop love song Noella (I Can't Get Enough of You) as well as a full-length album of original music at the end of 2021 featuring contributions from members of Tokyo Police Club, Raphael Saadiq's band, Lavola, and Valois. Buoyed by a kaleidoscopic and vibrant aesthetic, Charles' blend of art rock sensibilities, glam visuals, and punk rock abandon chart a new course into musical parts unknown.
Jules Filmhouse
Julien Fontil, also known as ‘jules filmhouse’, is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Ottawa, Canada. His practice flows through the arenas of photography, writing, music and sound engineering. Entangled mainly in a world of surreal exploration, his work is reflective of a deep interest in challenging art and the cinematic auteurs such as David Lynch and Edward Yang who inspire him. His impetus to create lies in the complex philosophical relationship between meaning/non-meaning, artist intention versus viewer interpretation, and the power of emotionally-driven work.
Randy Schmucker
Randy (he/him) is a comic, artist, and performer residing in the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabek (also known as Ottawa). Randy brings a unique point of view that plays on his experiences as a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, as well as his mixed background of both Anishinaabe and European ancestry. Randy began his comedic career in 2019 with the first ever iteration of the Indigenous comics show: Got Land? and the Fresh Meat Festival. Randy finds comedy as a source to bring people together, relate to one another, and to justify his flamboyant and (sometimes very) meta sense of humour.
Shaya Ishaq
Shaya Ishaq is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and writer whose research interests are engaged in craft, diaspora, design anthropology, and afrofuturism. Devoted to materiality, she works with textiles and clay to create wearable art, jewellery, and installations. Her design palette extends to furniture, objects, and spaces which allows her work to live at the junction of community engagement, creative practice, and speculative imaginings.