DISTROBOTO - SINCE 2001
DISTROBOTO machines are former cigarette machines which no longer sell cigarettes, but instead, sell art in the form of miniature books, crafts, comics, music, film, animation and more!
Visit one of our machines in person, located in Montreal at
Casa del Popolo, 4873 St. Laurent (metro Mont-Royal)
Le Petit Campus, 57 Prince Arthur E. (metro Sherbrooke)
Le Divan Orange, 4234 St. Laurent (metro Mont-Royal)
La Salla Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent (metro Mont-Royal)
Zoobizarre, 6388 St-Hubert (metro Beaubien).
Café Cagibi, 5490 St-Laurent (corner St. Laurent)
Concordia University Hall Building (Java U), 1455 de Maisonneuve E. (métro Guy-Concordia)
Café Romolo, 272 rue Bernard Ouest
How to sell your work in Distroboto
To participate, send a sample of the work you want to sell to the address below, and we'll check it for size and suitability. We'll phone or email you a few weeks later to let you know whether you should send us a full batch. Items cannot be larger than 4" x 3-3/8" x 5/8", and all artists will receive $1.75 per item sold.
For more information about the Distroboto project, please use the form in the sidebar to your right, or contact:
Archive Montreal,
C.P. 1232, Place d'Armes,
Montréal, Québec,
CANADA H2Y 3K2
Email: distroboto ]at[ archivemontreal ]dot[ org
The Distroboto mandate
The mandate of the Distroboto project is to provide an opportunity to emerging artists of all disciplines – visual arts, film, animation, music, literature and poetry, crafts etc. – to gain wider exposure by making examples of their work easily accessible to the public.
The low price of the work sold through the Distroboto machines, currently set at two dollars, as well as the original way in which it is sold, encourages the public to discover a whole world of local art that they might not have otherwise encountered.
The fact that the project is administered by a non-profit arts organization allows nearly all sales revenues to go directly to the artists, who are responsible for the cost of producing the work sold.
Since the first Distroboto machine was launched in January, 2001, more than 300 local artists have sold more than 20 000 items through these machines.
More information in the form of press and media clips is available by clicking on the links to the right.
About Archive Montreal
Archive Montreal is a non-profit organization founded in 1998 by local writers, artists and publishers. Its mandate is assisting in the promotion, distribution and preservation of local independent culture.
Its preservation activities involve the ongoing acquisition of independently produced local cultural artifacts and publications which fall outside of the scope of more established archives, such as those of the National Library.
Its promotion and distribution activities include Expozine, Montreal’s largest annual small press fair. Since 2002, Expozine has grown to include more than 200 different exhibitors who showcase their work in both English and French. Along with Distroboto, Expozine helps Archive Montreal not only achieve its goals with regards to promotion and distribution, but also greatly facilitates the ongoing acquisition of cultural artifacts created by the hundreds of participants to both projects.
Aside from the expansion of these projects and activities, Archive Montreal hopes to eventually make the content of its archives more accessible—for example, by digitizing and making them available online.
Graphic by Billy Mavreas