During this Asian Heritage Month, the Conseil des arts de Montréal wishes to acknowledge the significant contribution of Festival Accès Asie to the artistic vitality of Montréal.

Rooted in various neighborhoods across the island, this festival serves as a valuable platform to amplify both emerging and established Asian voices, while highlighting their fruitful collaborations with other artistic communities. From dance to visual arts, cinema to literature, including interdisciplinary practices and even gastronomy… the festival embodies the city’s creative energy through its bold blurring of disciplinary boundaries.

As we celebrate this 30th edition, we warmly welcome Ziya Tabassian, who marks his first year as the festival’s Artistic Director. We look forward to discovering his vision through a rich array of events taking place in several of Montréal’s most iconic creative spaces.

Moreover, our team is delighted to once again host the festival’s opening cocktail on Thursday, May 1, 2025, at 5 p.m., in the atrium of the Conseil des arts de Montréal.

For nearly 30 years, Festival Accès Asie has been offering a rich program of events highlighting the cultural traditions of Asia.

The festival also recognizes the tremendous contribution made by Asian communities to Montréal life and to the city’s effervescence.

Accès Asie is one of the highlights of Asian Heritage Month, inviting the public to discover the know-how and passion of emerging and professional artists. By promoting exchanges and discussions, the festival helps to increase openness and understanding between the various communities that enrich our city.

I’d like to congratulate everyone involved in organizing this festival. Your work contributes to showcasing the artistic richness of Asian communities and reinforcing Montréal’s status as a cultural metropolis.

I warmly invite Montrealers to take part in the various Accès Asie activities.

Enjoy the festival and Asian Heritage Month!

For three decades, the CALQ has been investing in the imagination of those who forge our cultural identity and help it flourish at home and abroad.

Fueled by this same desire, also for 30 years, the Festival Accès Asie has been offering emerging and established artists a unique opportunity to present their work, while providing a space for creation and exchange that fosters new collaborations between different arts communities, particularly the Asian and Indigenous communities.

I would like to congratulate all those involved in putting together this rich, inclusive festival, guided by Ziya Tabassian, its new artistic director. Your efforts provide a showcase for the excellence of artists from the Asian diaspora and nourish the city’s cultural vitality.

It is exciting to live in a society that is open to cultural diversity and artistic expression in all its forms. The more people are exposed to Québec’s cultural richness, the more they will want to protect and share it.

I hope this festival for all Quebecers is a forum for discovery, exchanges, and encounters with artists from the Asian diaspora. I am convinced that their talent and creativity will allow us to build bridges between different communities and open up previously unimagined perspectives of the world; something we are greatly in need of right now.

Enjoy the festival!

The arts help us tell our stories, recognize our shared humanity and build a vision for the future together.

And the world needs more of what the arts provide: more beauty, more conversation and more connection—that’s why there has never been a more urgent need to support the arts.

Arts organizations and artists are essential to their communities, ensuring that people across Canada have the opportunity to experience great art. The Canada Council for the Arts is proud to support the Festival Accès Asie and its creativity in bringing the arts to life for audiences from coast to coast to coast.