Meet Cath Laporte
at raplapla
I never know how to answer to this question. What I make and do is quite different but it all comes back to the same message. I believe we are in a place right now in humanity where we need to change our paradigms and come back to basics. To who we are as humans. Learn to love and respect each other and ourselves, but really. The message that I share is that.
The tools I use are different. From co-creating a conscious business in Amsterdam, to an immersive pop-up exhibition designed as the launch for Alex Nevsky’s latest album, to teaching and talks.
Yes. To see things differently we need to unlearn to relearn. And that’s what I want to share with my art. A different perspective on feelings, on love … There are other ways to see the world as opposed to how we’ve been used to. Part of it is also to be uplifting, inspiring, and to hold a strong vision of how a positive future can be possible.
I’m really excited about it because I have a post-It at home with everything I see myself doing in the next year. Part of the list is to bring my characters to life. I was participating in a Puces Pop and this lady comes to me and asks if I do exchanges of service. I was like, “Hey, I don’t know, it depends on the person and the project…” She gives me her business card and I saw it was raplapla and immediately I was like, “Oh it’s you! Yes, I’ll do it!” I told her I have this character, Chien-Coeur, who wants to come to life. She was really excited. I sent all my characters to her and she said we need to do more than one. So we have a collection of three characters we call “Buddies”. They’re a reminder for people to play and come back to basics and back to their kid energy.
Chien-Coeur came to life during a collaboration with musician Alex Nevsky and is inspired by his new album. The character represents how love is, basically. We tend to put love in a box. It needs to be like that and if you don’t do this like that then you don’t love me. Love is actually never ending. There is always love, it is infinite, and we can share it abundantly. It needs to be untamed and wild and free. We need to find new ways to share love and to be in love. Every time we talk about love, like all the love songs, it’s super dramatic. Everything related to love is like, sooo heavvvy, and it doesn’t need to be. I think we can love in a more aware way.
Onion Man is this little dude who is an onion. He reminds us how we have to notice the peels we have around us that are sort of like protection, ego, and all of these things that get us further from our core. He’s a little reminder to be in contact more and more with our core to see what’s really there. What unites us. To work from that spot.
In You I See Me is a reminder for us to truly listen to one another because I think now more than ever we say we listen but we don’t really listen. So listen for real and see in the other that we are actually the same. To have this human contact. And if we start really seeing eye-to-eye, we are going to judge less and love more and it will be easier. When you really see the humanity in the other, you wouldn’t act the way you’d be acting, if you are truly connected to the heart of the other.
Notice the little things and be present in the neighbourhood. I’ve noticed that sometimes my body disappears and I am just a head running around, it’s crazy. But then you are like — oh wait — I feel my feet on the sidewalk. I smell the bagel shop. I say “hi” . That person has a turban or cool hair, say “hi” . Just say “hi” ! Start noticing that we are a part of a bigger ecosystem. When you start noticing this I think you feel more compassion and more grateful for what you see around you. It’s also the way you look at things and the perception you decide to give it. That’s how we solve big problems. By looking at things from different angles.
A run on the bicycle path by the railway. A walk at sunset at le Champ des possibles. Le Butterblume for the yuuuum food. 160 St-Viateur for all the inspiring & creative people that work there. La Montréalaise, raplapla, and C&L Cycle Villeneuve for Montréal made goods.
Story by Sarah Di Domenico
Product Photography by Kelly Jacob
Product Photography Art Direction by Carolyne De Bellefeuille
Illustrations © Cath Laporte
Illustration by Mathieu Dionne