<To: Nosy Readers> <From: Congrego>
Congrego: Transitive verb
Collect/ bring together/ assemble/ convene; flock, congregate; group; concentrate
Congrego is an event brand based in Ottawa, Ontario with a focus on connection through shared experiences. Through our events, products, and collaborative projects we wish to highlight the subcultures of our city, and to curate the experiences they provide to anyone who wishes to engage with them. We are constantly searching, listening and reaching out to individuals who excite us with their work in hopes of making a connection that can be further passed onto our own community when the perfect time comes up. Our message is that you could do it yourself, but with us we can do-it-together: D-I-T.
There is an energy to Ottawa’s cultural ecosystem that we’d love to play a part in maintaining.
We began as a series of private multi-medium arts events (dubbed as home parties). These included carefully designed and curated experiences that aim to highlight emerging artists in live music, visual art, photography, clothing makers, and spoken word poetry. Under the name Congrego, we launched “A Home Party” followed by “Supermoon” in our co-founders Calum’s backyard. Aiming to create a safe and engaging environment with varying perspectives, the two home parties reassured the idea that a multifaceted cultural event not only works, but is needed in Ottawa. If the home parties were reassurance, our first public outing; Prepense solidified it.
Under the name and theme of Prepense (meaning intentional) we gathered our longest list yet of artists at Club SAW in November of 2019. 6 Live performances, 3 DJ’s, 3 visual artists, 3 camera specialists and 250+ attendees. We knew that providing memorable and meaningful experiences fosters community growth and a cultural connection to one's city.
To date, the marriage between sub-par performance opportunities and our own impatience has led to us working with over one hundred artists within six arts nights, two collaborative clothing-making events, a trivia night, and our ongoing collaborative projects. The follow-up event to that initial SAW outing was scheduled for April of 2020 under the name Ripple, which thematically underscored the strength of mutual connection, was eventually smacked in the face by COVID-19; the irony behind the theme has yet to escape us. This left us confused, yet we focused nonetheless on keeping our vision alive while everyone in the world was taking steps to adapt. This should bring you up to speed with where we're at now; without events, our focus is on merchandise and collaborative projects that excite us.
Our merchandise has always been a cornerstone element of our brand. If you are buying a Congrego product, it lets us know that the vision we are laying out is one that you identify with. Merch production also creates a creative avenue for us to explore in collaborative events. This has led us to designing events around products, including our booth at Fly Market with collaborative live screen printing, and our Tie-Dye Day in which we provided the blank tee where you dyed it yourself. We’ve also had a handful of ‘in house’ projects such as the self-screen printed tees for Prepense and the Rainbow Dyed Masks. Simply put, we feel that merchandise can be fun and we believe Congrego merch can provide micro experiences and artifacts that can be held onto for the life of our products.
The most recent example of this is the toques we recently released. Made in the USA, 100% cotton with labels we made ourselves which were sewn on by a friend. While we weren’t able to host an event alongside the toques, the focus on engaging with others however we could, remained. To get people outside and experience something alongside others, with some merchandise. 5 colours for 5 different outdoor activities that are free, in the city, and culturally important. (e.i everyone should be getting on the canal at least once every year).
We are conceptualizing some COVID-friendly plans for the summer, but the overall goal remains the same: Work with interesting people doing interesting things, and create collective projects that echo touchpoints of cultural relevance in our community.
What’s next for Congrego? Hopefully more events that everyone and their mums want to attend :)
