Decolonizing the Institution
SATURDAY, June 15th, 11 am – 12 noon
Location: The Rooms Theatre (9 Bonaventure Ave)
Arranged by Mireille Eagan (The Rooms) and Matthew Hills (Grenfell Gallery, Memorial University)
This group discussion pivots on three fundamental questions, with each presenter rotating the role of provocateur — to invite meaningful conversation about the nature (and future) of institutional practices.
Panelist:
Sally Wolchyn-Raab is a Jewish-American interdisciplinary artist, critical writer and Artist-Run Centre nerd. She resides in K’jipuktuk (Halifax) where she works as the Artistic Director of Eyelevel and received a BFA in drawing from ACAD in 2010. Her work centres community-based and intersectional feminist approaches to science, body, and space.
As an artist/writer, her work has been published and exhibited in Canada and the United States including Nocturne Art At Night (a collaboration with her best friend, Sage Wheeler) HOAX Magazine (San Francisco), Visual Arts News (Atlantic Canada), LUMA quarterly (Southern Alberta), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago), Nuit Blanche Edmonton, and the 2012 Calgary Biennial.
Logan MacDonald is a Canadian-based artist, curator, and educator and activist who focuses on queer, disability and Indigenous perspectives. He is of European and Mi’kmaq ancestry, who identifies with both his settler and Indigenous roots. Born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, his Mi’kmaq ancestry is connected to Elmastukwek, Ktaqamkuk. His artwork has exhibited across North America, notably with exhibitions at L.A.C.E. (Los Angeles) John Connelly Presents (New York), Ace Art Inc. (Winnipeg), The Rooms (St. John’s), and Articule (Montréal). He is author of a forthcoming chapter on Indigenous Art Histories of Newfoundland that is being published by The Rooms, for the Future Possibles exhibition / art history catalogue. He is a graduate from Concordia University with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Studies and a MFA in Studio Arts from York University. He is currently Vice-Chair of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective, and is an Assistant Professor in Studio Arts at the University of Waterloo.
Kai Bryan is an award-winning visual artist, curator, and drag performer based in St. John’s, Ktaqmkuk. Their works in video, performance, and installation deploy craft-based practices, cinematic references and eroticism to playfully undermine and question experiences of intimacy, pleasure, and desire. Kailey is currently curating a year of programming as part of Retroflex curatorial team that use queer community building through archival practices to critique representations of queerness by art institutions. They love large bodies of water, puzzles, and puns.