The Beach + Mule: Exhibit and Book launch
Interview with artists Brett Barmby & Lynn Finch
Mark it in your calendars: Monday, October 9th is the vernissage and official launch of The Beach + Mule by Brett Barmby and Lynn Finch; so we decided to sit down with them beforehand and discuss how bikes inspire and permeate their art. We’ve presented our questions with their replies as they were received, and we hope you enjoy this little glimpse into the mind, methods, and madness of these wonderfully creative and beautiful messfolks.
- For how long and where were you a bike courier? What did being a bicycle courier teach you about your art?
Brett — About 2 years in Vancouver and 6 in Montreal. I’ve also picked up shifts or shadowed folks in Toronto, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Chicago just for fun while traveling. Being a messenger greatly informs my art practice considering I usually work in a serial format, and each iteration in the series is something I’ve seen while riding around the city. Had I been working a job in an office, my inspiration would’ve had to come from somewhere completely different. I finally hung up my Sidi’s in 2021 when just about every full-time messenger job in the city disappeared.
Lynn — 5 maybe 6 years now? I’ve only ever ridden in Montreal. I started in the food scene for 1 year doing Foodora and then got in with Chasseurs. I love Chasseurs more than anything but RIP the 2018 food scene, it was really special for me. I always wanted to get into photography. I’ve been treeplanting since I was 19 and after my first season I bought my first digital camera. I learned I don’t really like digital cameras. I used it a lot to film skateboarding though which was great. Many years later I was suddenly a bike messenger. I moved into the old Chasseurs’ office. This guy, Jersey, moved out and left a point and shoot camera behind. I picked it up and it was on! I found a subculture I loved. I found a camera that felt good. All at the same time it filled my addiction to film, skate, party, be gay, document, and forget about the things I hate.
2. How would you describe your upcoming exhibit/project?
Brett — A closet-sized memory box giving a glimpse of the history of Montreal bike messengers over the past 25 years.
Lynn — Mule is a hard cover film photography book documenting the Montreal bike messenger scene from 2017 to 2023 as well as some Toronto. 100+ pages of races, parties, culture, downtown, OG’s, foodies, spills and pills in lynnvision.
3. How did you get the idea to create your project? What was the impetus, the genesis, the catalyst?
Brett — I’ve collected a bunch of things during my years on the road but they’ve always just stayed in a shoebox in my closet, rarely ever getting looked at. Every time I move apartments I inevitably dig through all this detritus and think to myself that this could be interesting to display. I also know that most people who’ve done the job for a while have their own memory box, and depending on when they were on the road or what kind of things they collected, their box will offer a slightly different snapshot of the messenger scene and their experiences at that point in time. When I went to NACCC in Philadelphia, G.S. Landlords had a mini-exhibition full of things like what I’ve been collecting as part of their checkpoint, which gave me the confirmation that I could do something similar myself and that it could look good.
This year I joined the artist collective Gham et Dafe, and each member gets a month-long exhibition in our vitrine gallery, and so I decided I would curate these little collections from as many people as I could into one big display. I asked around and got a lot of responses, as of now I think I have about a dozen people contributing items, some of them going back as far as 1995.
Lynn — Skate culture and television taught me everything I know. Being 12 years old and mimicking old Kostan, Bam, Jason Dill videos. Filming everything on old recorders. I looked up to people that documented their lives. So I naturally became the same way. I figured out people love seeing themselves in a picture or video no matter how much they say “don’t film me”. It became an obsession. I felt like it was my duty. No one is doing it. I didn’t want to be famous. I wanted people to remember that time we spent 2 hours trying to kickflip the 4 stair behind Limeridge Mall. I want people to remember the priest yelling at us for stealing electricity because we had our stereo plugged into the church. The idea to make this project was just embedded in me. All I had to do was grow up and find the right community.
4. What was important for you in this process?
Brett — It was important to represent not just my own experience as a messenger on display but to instead get the broadest view possible from as many people as I could. I’ve only been in the city a couple years and I didn’t want the exhibition just to be “Brett’s Messenger Experience” but rather a summary of the community as a whole over the years.
Lynn — Include everyone. It can’t just be my friends running around. This isn’t a Chasseurs book. It’s a Montreal Mess life book.
5. What was your method for the creation?
Brett — The method has just been messaging people and asking to see what kinds of things they have in their collections. The challenge has been carefully documenting and cataloging every item to make sure it gets back to its original owner at the end of the show.
Lynn — ohhh godddd. I’d literally go sit on any corner that had a nice dep or building behind it and wait for someone to ride by and take a picture. I learned that if you sit anywhere in Montreal within 1 hour someone that is delivering something on a bike will ride by. But the chances of you getting a good photo are kinda lowishhhhhh. You just gotta be in the streets.
6. What can we expect to see at your exhibit?
Brett — Something resembling both a carefully curated museum display and a bike messenger’s bedroom wall. There will be photographs, zines, books, videos, spoke cards, race manifests, waybills, work bags, posters, work ID’s, broken bike frames, t-shirts, jerseys, caps, race numbers, drawings, paintings, patches, and local messenger-made bike products.
Lynn — An honest look at what being a bike messenger and the lifestyle is like. The youtube videos are fun but this is ‘by the people for the people’. It’s real.
7. If you had a message to deliver through the project, what would it be? What do you hope to accomplish or prove with this project?
Brett — I’m not trying to accomplish much or deliver any kind of profound message. I was lucky enough to live through the twilight years of a dying industry, one that has almost entirely disappeared since covid, and I want to give a lasting document of its history and the people who made it the highlight of my life.
Lynn -
1 Run away from home.
2 Everyone is equal.
3 Get a cool bike: fuck Trek; fuck Cannondale.
4. Be the gayest.
8. What did you learn through completing your project that you didn’t know before? What surprised you?
Brett — That not much has changed in 25 years. Messengers have always been a bunch of close knit punks that love the job and the people who do it.
Lynn — I hattttttteeeeeeee editing. I also learned something very real about myself though this year. I was away tree planting for 4 months. And there is always a pretty big level of discomfort with being trans. The world can be scary. But when I got back home and threw my bike kit on and got back on my bike, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I realized I don’t care if people say something to me as a messenger. When people look at a messenger they know you’re weird. They know you’re an annoying bike person weaving through traffic. They don’t expect you to be anything else. And I’m not saying this is good but once my kit is on I’m not afraid. We’re out here grinding and you can’t deny that. It felt so real to remember my community.
9. This is a delicate question about language politics: you’re both Anglophones in a majority Francophone milieu. Do you reckon that this is a mere coincidence or the result of a phenomenon?
Brett — I think it’s pretty common, it’s one of the few jobs that doesn’t require perfect bilingualism and also isn’t soul-crushing like working in a call centre or a warehouse. We both moved here from out of province and either had experience already or were simply into bikes, and so it was a natural fit.
Lynn — My first job was when I was 17 and worked at ManuLife Financials doing computer work. I fucking hated it. To this day it was probably the best job on paper to the normal everyday person. There are many people who are messengers because they don’t speak French or aren’t able to get such jobs. I choose to be a messenger. I recognize that it is a privilege. Anglo, Franco, I was always going to find the chaos.
10. Your exhibit coincidentally opens on Canadian Thanksgiving Day. What are you thankful for after your years on the road?
Brett — Friends.
Lynn — My community
11. Do you have any additional comments that you would like to share?
Brett — If you would like to participate in the show (I dunno when this is getting published), send me a message and I’ll try to squeeze your stuff in, up to the day of the opening. The show will be up for the month of October, and I will probably end up doing something with the documentation later on.
Lynn — Shout outs to speedball courrier.
We want to thank these two artists for providing this glimpse into their process. One thing that we have found fascinating throughout this interview is how bikes, and their experiences as bike messengers were so important to them. It’s interesting as well how riding bikes has also been a voyage of self-discovery for these artists. The way that bikes allowed them the freedom to pursue their passions, and became passions in their own respect is something that we have heard from so many others in the bike community. Although these are just two voices in the vast, weird, wonderful, vibrant world of bike messengers, we suspect that this thread of passion, self-discovery, and weirdness is something that almost all messengers and bike lovers can relate to.
May your lights be green!
