Book Launch for Strangers Need Strange Moments Together with Daily tous les jours

“It may feel strange to smile, dance, or make music with a stranger these days. But connecting with others through joy, bringing bodies, minds and spirits together in laughter, is a proposition we need for survival of what’s left of our humanity. Enchanted moments as resistance. Whether you call it art or infrastructure, strangers need strange moments together.”

Join Head Hi and Montreal based studio Daily tous les jours for the book launch for Strangers Need Strange Moments Together, a new collection of essays by designers Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat on creating interactive art in public spaces around the world using music, dance, art, and other mediums during the past 15 years. Emphasizing the joyful, magical, and unexpected to create moments of connection and care between strangers, they have been building an emergent practice combining technology, storytelling, performance, and design, while asking fundamental questions to create meaningful work in a world in crisis.

Meet the authors, meet a stranger! Get your book signed, get a free poster! Let’s celebrate and learn from this book’s experimentation with infrastructure for the human spirit.

More about the book:

This book frequently uses the word ‘we’. We, as in the general public, engaged citizens, humans of planet Earth… And we, Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat, together with our team at Daily tous les jours, as we seek new models for living together. Welcome to our journal.

We crave living in environments that support us, nourish us and inspire us. We dream of places to go through our lives together, inclusively and tolerantly. Can we re-enchant the raw material of our collective daily experiences?

We have been creating interactive art and narrative experiences in public spaces around the world for fifteen years. Using music, dance, art, and other mediums to emphasize the joyful, whimsical, and unexpected, we create moments of connection and care between strangers.

Through this book, we share our experience in building an emergent practice combining technology, storytelling, performance, and design, while asking fundamental questions to create meaningful work in a world in crisis. Meet us outside the urban masterplan, where we experiment with infrastructure for the human spirit.

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Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat founded Daily tous les jours in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal in 2010. The award-winning art and design studio works in an emergent field of practice combining interactive art, storytelling, performance, and urban design to reinvent living together for the 21st century. With permanent and temporary installations created in more than 60 cities around the world, their work encourages citizens to play an active role in the transformation of their cities, with the public spaces we share everyday as their canvas. The studio has garnered numerous recognitions, including a UNESCO Creative Cities Shenzhen Design Award (Grand Prize), Winner of the Knight Cities Challenge, and Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award.

Mouna holds a Bachelor’s degree from Concordia University where she is currently an adjunct professor, and Master’s degree from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). She is also a member of the Société des arts technologiques (SAT)’s board of directors.

Melissa holds a Bachelor’s degree from UQAM’s École de design and a Master’s degree from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, UK, where she co-founded a research unit focused on responsive environments. She is a visiting lecturer at UQAM, Concordia University and Central Saint Martins, and is also a member of the board of directors of the Centre de Design de l’UQAM, Molior, and Xn Québec.

Head Hi in the City is an Archtober pop up shop and program space at Center for Architecture spotlighting recently released architecture publications selected to celebrate the festival theme of Shared Spaces and a commitment to deepening our relationships with the places we inhabit. Featuring books and design objects for sale, as well as weekly events including book launches, talks, and the New York Architecture & Design Book Club gathering, Head Hi in the City is an extension of Head Hi, New York’s premiere architecture and design-focused bookstore and cultural organization bridging architecture, design, and art via projects, reading materials, and public programming.