HERE : 15 years aboard the S.S. NOMAD - a creative odyssey off the tracks of the Mile End

NOMADlife.tv
May 1
2 min read

Updated: May 8

Today, May 1st, 2025, marks 15 years aboard NOMAD at 129 Van Horne. Fifteen years ago, a group of us moved our offices from Moment Factory into our very own building. There was Sharif, Noé, Victorine, Fanny, Sindre, Namai, and a good many others, who came together and rolled our industrial desks a few blocks down the train tracks, to land here. And what a place here has become.

How many stories have been told within these walls, and about them? How many people have not only passed through, but called this place their own? From the coworking to sound studios, the guitar shop, countless shoots, and many iterations of the garage, “NOMAD Nation” has grown to count hundreds of citizens past and present. The sheer number of creative projects born or realized here is incalculable.

Because that’s been the point of this place from the very beginning: to be free, and to create. From that first day in May 2010, our ambition was simple but profound : to make this building a haven for creation. A space where, whether for a day or a decade, anyone could feel at home in their process. A place where all things were possible, if not now, then in time.

And if we hadn’t owned the space? We wouldn’t still be here.

The pressure over the years has been relentless : from a city intent on cracking down on “illegal parties,” targeting NOMAD with bogus sound complaints, unwarranted inspections, and the kind of resistance that would have broken us if we didn’t have our name on the lot. They tried to paint us as some underground nightclub. But we were never that. We’ve always been, and will always be, creators.

From conception to dissemination, NOMAD has been home to bold experiments in storytelling, process, and media. From NOMADlive.tv, our 24/7 livestreaming era in 2014–15, to ALL WE HAVE IS NOW, our immersive theatre experience that broke the fourth wall and never looked back. From NOMADslow.tv, our atmospheric travel channel redefining our relationship to screens, to ANTENNAE, our crown jewel, an immersive musical and physical ritual that defies description, except perhaps to say that WE ARE ALL ANTENNAE. Each project fed into the next, a living sequel in pursuit of something far greater than profit or popularity: creative and spiritual fulfillment. Freedom. Truth. Our truest dreams, and the freedom to live them. Live. NOW.