Contemporary Conversations Presents:

Marigold Santos in conversation with Haema Sivanesan

Wednesday, March 29, 2022

Join us on a journey through Calgary-based artist Marigold Santos’ work as she talks to curator Haema Sivanesan about the intent, the stories, and the processes behind her work.

This conversation is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Human Capital, on view until April 16, 2023.

About the Speakers

Marigold Santos
ARTIST

Marigold Santos pursues an interdisciplinary art practice involving drawn, painted, and printed works, sculpture, tattooing, and sound. Her work explores self-hood and identity that embraces multiplicity, fragmentation and empowerment, as informed by diasporic experiences. She holds a BFA from the University of Calgary, and an MFA from Concordia University. As a recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, she continues to exhibit widely across Canada. Marigold Santos lives and works in Mohkinstsis/Calgary

Haema Sivanesan
CURATOR

Haema Sivanesan is a curator, researcher and art writer with extensive experience across a range of sectors in the visual arts in Canada and abroad.  She has held leadership and curatorial positions in public art galleries, artist-run centres and festivals, most recently as a Curator, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (2015-2021); and Consulting Curator at the Bengal Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh (2014-2018). Before immigrating to Canada from Australia in 2005, she was a curator in the Asian art department at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1996-2004). Her research typically focuses on Asian and Asian diasporic transnational and transcultural art histories. In 2018, she was the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (New York) Curatorial Research Fellowship; and in 2016, the recipient of a Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation (Hong Kong) multi-year research and exhibition development grant for the project In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art and Social Practice (2022). She is the newly appointed Director, Leighton Studios and Program Partnerships at the Banff Centre.

Human Capital is presented in partnership with the Mackenzie Art Gallery

Contemporary Teens: Comic Strip Workshop

March 25, 2023 | 12:00-2:00 PM

For youth ages 12-18.

Our free onsite Contemporary Youth programs help inspire young people through the exploration of contemporary art, connecting them to community, global, and social issues that affect all of our lives.

Using drawings and sketches, comics and graphics, youth are encouraged to think of representing their own lives as a narrative within our contemporary times. Touring through the comic work of Chitra Ganesh, this workshop introduces the youth to storytelling and ideas of world-making.

Maximum group of 30 youth.
Snacks and workshop supplies will be provided.

About the facilitator,
Makayla (she/her)

Makayla has been involved with Antyx since she was in Grade 9! Makayla found her passions at a very young age when she discovered volunteer opportunities and the ability she had to create change in her community. She always found ways to express her devotion to art whether it be music or visual and incorporate it into her learning and advocacy journey. 

She believes art is a way to express your voice on social justice issues and explore topics like human rights through community building.  She likes to inspire youth and children to challenge themselves and step outside of their comfort zone with different art forms such as theatre, painting, music, and poetry while working hand in hand with social workers to still implement important social justice into their day-to-day lives. She is currently a student at Mount Royal University.

About Antyx

Antyx works in communities across Calgary. Antyx community arts projects can have a neighbourhood focus or they may be focused on addressing community-identified issues. Arts are used in development processes to build community capacity and to creatively and critically engage people in processes that address important community issues.

Their work has a focus on engaging youth in their communities, school and neighbourhoods.

Antyx uses the arts to engage youth and spark their curiosity and commitment. Community arts projects provide opportunities for youth to make tangible contributions to their community and be recognized for those contributions. The arts open the door to self-reflection and self-expression, allowing youth to explore who they are and their place in the world.

About the artist,
Chitra Ganesh (she/her)

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. 

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India. 

Ganesh's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, NY,USA; MoMA PS1, NY, USA; The Kitchen, NY, USA; The Rubin Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA, USA; Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden; and Times Square, NY,USA. Her work has also been exhibited in important group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, MN, USA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, USA; The Queens Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Asia Society, NY, USA; The Bronx Museum, NY, USA; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA, USA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, LA, USA; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Museum, London, UK: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; the Gwangju Contemporary Arts Centre, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; Indira Ghandi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennial, India; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh among others.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; Printed Matter; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Presented By

DIY Comic ZINE Workshop

Sunday, January 29th | 10:00-11:30 AM

We’re going to plan, fold and draw ourselves the perfect mini-zines for at-home publication! While we’re making those, we’ll also be exploring questions that the medium inspires, like: how will we look at comics in the future? We’ll learn how to graph a story, where to place text, and what kinds of character designs are easily ‘read’ in a story.

This workshop is presented in conjunction with the Chitra Ganesh: Astral Dance exhibition.

For ages 12+
Non-members: $20 /person
Members: $10 /person
Maximum capacity: 35 persons

Workshop supplies will be provided.

About the facilitator,
Shea Proulx (she/her)

Shea Proulx has a BFA from Emily Carr and an MFA from The University of British Columbia. Her published books, Alice at Naptime and ABC Monstrosity, were both short-listed for the Best Illustrated Children’s Book category by the Alberta Book Publisher’s Association. Shea is a co-editor for Home, the first volume of the Alberta Comics Anthology, and Vice-President on the board of directors for a comic-creator festival called Panel One. Last year Shea was the proud recipient of a Canada Council grant in support of a series of paintings that feature surreal versions of environments she drew while sort-of also somehow supervising her children.

About the artist,
Chitra Ganesh (she/her)

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. 

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India. 

Ganesh's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, NY,USA; MoMA PS1, NY, USA; The Kitchen, NY, USA; The Rubin Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA, USA; Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden; and Times Square, NY,USA. Her work has also been exhibited in important group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, MN, USA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, USA; The Queens Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Asia Society, NY, USA; The Bronx Museum, NY, USA; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA, USA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, LA, USA; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Museum, London, UK: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; the Gwangju Contemporary Arts Centre, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; Indira Ghandi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennial, India; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh among others.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; Printed Matter; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Flipbook Animation Workshop

Saturday, January 28th | 8:00-9:30 PM

We’re spending the evening watching Chitra Ganesh’s animations, while also testing our own skills as animators through doodling, and flip book making.

We’ll be asking ourselves some important questions: Whether things that appear in sequence always tell a story? How do we create mystery in our work? What can we gain by adding animated elements to two-dimensional work? And who here remembers Spy vs. Spy?

This workshop is presented in conjunction with the Chitra Ganesh: Astral Dance exhibition.

For adults ages 18+
Non-members: $20 /person
Members: $10 /person
Maximum capacity: 35 persons

Workshop supplies will be provided and also popcorn!

Beverages will be available for purchase at our cash bar.

About the facilitator,
Shea Proulx (she/her)

Shea Proulx has a BFA from Emily Carr and an MFA from The University of British Columbia. Her published books, Alice at Naptime and ABC Monstrosity, were both short-listed for the Best Illustrated Children’s Book category by the Alberta Book Publisher’s Association. Shea is a co-editor for Home, the first volume of the Alberta Comics Anthology, and Vice-President on the board of directors for a comic-creator festival called Panel One. Last year Shea was the proud recipient of a Canada Council grant in support of a series of paintings that feature surreal versions of environments she drew while sort-of also somehow supervising her children.

About the artist,
Chitra Ganesh (she/her)

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. 

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India. 

Ganesh's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, NY,USA; MoMA PS1, NY, USA; The Kitchen, NY, USA; The Rubin Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA, USA; Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden; and Times Square, NY,USA. Her work has also been exhibited in important group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, MN, USA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, USA; The Queens Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Asia Society, NY, USA; The Bronx Museum, NY, USA; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA, USA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, LA, USA; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Museum, London, UK: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; the Gwangju Contemporary Arts Centre, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; Indira Ghandi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennial, India; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh among others.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; Printed Matter; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Telling Our Family Stories Through Art - 55+ ZINE Workshop

Thursdays, January 26 - February 23

Participants will share their family stories through Zines that incorporate collage, photography and drawing.  (Zines are self-published magazines that are usually reproduced with a photocopier). Contemporary Calgary exhibitions Human Capital and Astral Dance will be used as resources to support generating ideas and approaches to using the materials. This program will be held at Contemporary Calgary, across the street from the Kerby Centre.

For adults age 55+

Facilitated by: Gail Hinchliffe, MFA candidate, UCalgary
Location: Contemporary Calgary
Registration Fee: $60 + tax

Agenda:

January 26: Orientation & Introduction / 2-4 PM

• Getting to know each other, an introduction to the project: Zines, and an introduction to the Chitra Ganesh: Astral Dance & Human Capital Exhibitions.

February 2: Collage / 2-4 PM

• Participants will create backgrounds for Zine pages, using Chitra Ganesh: Astral Dance as a reference for approaches. In this session, you will plan the composition of your Zine, including photos, drawn elements and text.

• Please bring: textured/patterned papers, magazine pics, etc that you might want to use to develop the backgrounds of your Zine’s pages. Instructor will bring additional papers, etc. to supplement materials that participants are able to bring.

February 9: Photography / 2-4 PM

• In this session, participants will take photos of original pictures that they would like to use in their zines (e.g. pictures of parents/grandparents, recipes in their original form, artworks in the home, pictures of their childhood home, pictures of their first home in a new country, etc.). 

• Participants will have the opportunity to learn how to edit these pictures on their phones. Final images will then be submitted to the instructor via email. 

February 16: Drawing / 2-4 PM

• In this session, participants will add photos from the previous session to their Zine and begin to include drawn elements and text. Upon completion, they will learn how to connect the pages together.

February 23: Exhibition Opening / 2-4 PM

• Participants are invited to bring guests to the Exhibition Opening where they can view Zines completed during this workshop.

• There will be light refreshments provided by the Kerby Centre café.

This program is part of the YYC/LRT: Community-Based Art as Community Development study. Those attending this event may choose to participate in a study exploring the role of art in community development. This would involve completing a questionnaire and including your art as data in the study. The Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board has approved this study (REB22-1227). For more information please email jreiserm@ucalgary.ca.

Contemporary Teens: Who Is Your Superhero?

January 28, 2023 | 12:00-2:00 PM

For youth ages 12-18.

Our free onsite Contemporary Teens programs help inspire young people through the exploration of contemporary art, connecting them to communal, global, and social issues that affect all of our lives.

Using drawings and sketches, comics and graphics, youth are encouraged to think of superheroes of our contemporary times. Touring through the comic work of Chitra Ganesh, this workshop introduces the youth to storytelling and ideas of world-making. 

Maximum group of 30 youth.
Snacks and workshop supplies will be provided.

About the facilitator,
Amany Awad (she/her)

Amany grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and has resided in Calgary for over six years. She is currently enrolled in Child and Youth Care Counselling with a minor in Psychology at Mount Royal University and is ambitious to use her degree to either become a counsellor or pursue social work with a focus towards newcomers to Canada. 

Amany uses her knowledge in the field of child and youth care and experience working with low-income families and minority youth to facilitate leadership and community programs. Her previous work experience with Aspen and current role with the City of Calgary and Antyx allows her to create enriching programs and lessons that are fun and creative!

Working with a focus on diversity programming and child and youth development, she has always had a passion for art and art expression. In her free time, you can find Amany spending time with loved ones, bike riding or reading a book. 

About Antyx

Antyx works in communities across Calgary. Antyx community arts projects can have a neighbourhood focus or they may be focused on addressing community-identified issues. Arts are used in development processes to build community capacity and to creatively and critically engage people in processes that address important community issues.

Their work has a focus on engaging youth in their communities, school and neighbourhoods.

Antyx uses the arts to engage youth and spark their curiosity and commitment. Community arts projects provide opportunities for youth to make tangible contributions to their community and be recognized for those contributions. The arts open the door to self-reflection and self-expression, allowing youth to explore who they are and their place in the world.

About the artist,
Chitra Ganesh (she/her)

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. 

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India. 

Ganesh's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, NY,USA; MoMA PS1, NY, USA; The Kitchen, NY, USA; The Rubin Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA, USA; Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden; and Times Square, NY,USA. Her work has also been exhibited in important group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, MN, USA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, USA; The Queens Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Asia Society, NY, USA; The Bronx Museum, NY, USA; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA, USA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, LA, USA; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Museum, London, UK: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; the Gwangju Contemporary Arts Centre, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; Indira Ghandi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennial, India; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh among others.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; Printed Matter; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Presented By

Contemporary Teens: One Artwork, Many Hands

January 21, 2023 | 12:00-2:00 PM

For youth ages 12-18.

Our free onsite Contemporary Youth programs help inspire young people through the exploration of contemporary art, connecting them to communal, global, and social issues that affect all of our lives.

Inspired by the site-specific mural The Wolf Watcher’s Dream, 2022 by Chitra Ganesh, this workshop involves all participants of the group making a single artwork. The workshop aims at bringing everyone’s voice to the creative process and making an artwork that represents all equally. The group is collectively tasked with choosing a theme and everyone works with a skill/ technique that they feel most comfortable with.

Maximum group of 30 youth.
Snacks and workshop supplies will be provided.

About the facilitator,
Amany Awad (she/her)

Amany grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and has resided in Calgary for over six years. She is currently enrolled in Child and Youth Care Counselling with a minor in Psychology at Mount Royal University and is ambitious to use her degree to either become a counsellor or pursue social work with a focus towards newcomers to Canada. 

Amany uses her knowledge in the field of child and youth care and experience working with low-income families and minority youth to facilitate leadership and community programs. Her previous work experience with Aspen and current role with the City of Calgary and Antyx allows her to create enriching programs and lessons that are fun and creative!

Working with a focus on diversity programming and child and youth development, she has always had a passion for art and art expression. In her free time, you can find Amany spending time with loved ones, bike riding or reading a book. 

About Antyx

Antyx works in communities across Calgary. Antyx community arts projects can have a neighbourhood focus or they may be focused on addressing community-identified issues. Arts are used in development processes to build community capacity and to creatively and critically engage people in processes that address important community issues.

Their work has a focus on engaging youth in their communities, school and neighbourhoods.

Antyx uses the arts to engage youth and spark their curiosity and commitment. Community arts projects provide opportunities for youth to make tangible contributions to their community and be recognized for those contributions. The arts open the door to self-reflection and self-expression, allowing youth to explore who they are and their place in the world.

About the artist,
Chitra Ganesh (she/her)

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. 

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India. 

Ganesh's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, NY,USA; MoMA PS1, NY, USA; The Kitchen, NY, USA; The Rubin Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA, USA; Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden; and Times Square, NY,USA. Her work has also been exhibited in important group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, MN, USA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, USA; The Queens Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Asia Society, NY, USA; The Bronx Museum, NY, USA; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA, USA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, LA, USA; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Museum, London, UK: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; the Gwangju Contemporary Arts Centre, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; Indira Ghandi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennial, India; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh among others.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; Printed Matter; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Presented By

Contemporary Kids: Inside My Head

Sunday, January 8th | 12:00-2:00 PM

For children ages 4-12.

Our free onsite Contemporary Kids programs invite children to learn about modern and contemporary art through unique and engaging art activities. 

Inspired by the work of contemporary artist Chitra Ganesh, children are invited to use colour pencils, crayons and paper cuttings to explore their thoughts and emotions, and all the things that make them special and unique.

Maximum group of 30 children, with one guardian per child. 
Snacks and workshop supplies will be provided.

About the facilitator,
Amany Awad (she/her)

Amany grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and has resided in Calgary for over six years. She is currently enrolled in Child and Youth Care Counselling with a minor in Psychology at Mount Royal University and is ambitious to use her degree to either become a counsellor or pursue social work with a focus towards newcomers to Canada. 

Amany uses her knowledge in the field of child and youth care and experience working with low-income families and minority youth to facilitate leadership and community programs. Her previous work experience with Aspen and current role with the City of Calgary and Antyx allows her to create enriching programs and lessons that are fun and creative!

Working with a focus on diversity programming and child and youth development, she has always had a passion for art and art expression. In her free time, you can find Amany spending time with loved ones, bike riding or reading a book. 

About Antyx

Antyx works in communities across Calgary. Antyx community arts projects can have a neighbourhood focus or they may be focused on addressing community-identified issues. Arts are used in development processes to build community capacity and to creatively and critically engage people in processes that address important community issues.

Their work has a focus on engaging youth in their communities, school and neighbourhoods.

Antyx uses the arts to engage youth and spark their curiosity and commitment. Community arts projects provide opportunities for youth to make tangible contributions to their community and be recognized for those contributions. The arts open the door to self-reflection and self-expression, allowing youth to explore who they are and their place in the world.

About the artist,
Chitra Ganesh (she/her)

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. 

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India. 

Ganesh's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, NY,USA; MoMA PS1, NY, USA; The Kitchen, NY, USA; The Rubin Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA, USA; Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden; and Times Square, NY,USA. Her work has also been exhibited in important group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, MN, USA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, USA; The Queens Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Asia Society, NY, USA; The Bronx Museum, NY, USA; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA, USA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, LA, USA; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Museum, London, UK: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; the Gwangju Contemporary Arts Centre, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; Indira Ghandi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennial, India; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh among others.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; Printed Matter; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Presented By

Contemporary Kids: Inside My Head

Sunday, December 4th | 12:00-2:00 PM

For children ages 4-12.

Our free onsite Contemporary Kids programs invite children to learn about modern and contemporary art through unique and engaging art activities. 

Inspired by the work of contemporary artist Chitra Ganesh, children are invited to use colour pencils, crayons and paper cuttings to explore their thoughts and emotions, and all the things that make them special and unique.

Maximum group of 30 children, with one guardian per child. 
Snacks and workshop supplies will be provided.

About the facilitator,
Amany Awad (she/her)

Amany grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and has resided in Calgary for over six years. She is currently enrolled in Child and Youth Care Counselling with a minor in Psychology at Mount Royal University and is ambitious to use her degree to either become a counsellor or pursue social work with a focus towards newcomers to Canada. 

Amany uses her knowledge in the field of child and youth care and experience working with low-income families and minority youth to facilitate leadership and community programs. Her previous work experience with Aspen and current role with the City of Calgary and Antyx allows her to create enriching programs and lessons that are fun and creative!

Working with a focus on diversity programming and child and youth development, she has always had a passion for art and art expression. In her free time, you can find Amany spending time with loved ones, bike riding or reading a book. 

About Antyx

Antyx works in communities across Calgary. Antyx community arts projects can have a neighbourhood focus or they may be focused on addressing community-identified issues. Arts are used in development processes to build community capacity and to creatively and critically engage people in processes that address important community issues.

Their work has a focus on engaging youth in their communities, school and neighbourhoods.

Antyx uses the arts to engage youth and spark their curiosity and commitment. Community arts projects provide opportunities for youth to make tangible contributions to their community and be recognized for those contributions. The arts open the door to self-reflection and self-expression, allowing youth to explore who they are and their place in the world.

About the artist,
Chitra Ganesh (she/her)

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. 

Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India. 

Ganesh's work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, NY,USA; MoMA PS1, NY, USA; The Kitchen, NY, USA; The Rubin Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA, USA; Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden; and Times Square, NY,USA. Her work has also been exhibited in important group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, MN, USA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, USA; The Queens Museum of Art, NY, USA; The Asia Society, NY, USA; The Bronx Museum, NY, USA; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA, USA; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, LA, USA; the Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Museum, London, UK: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Italy; the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany; Göteborgs Konsthall, Germany; Arthotek Kunstverein, Göttingen, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; the Gwangju Contemporary Arts Centre, Korea; the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, India; Indira Ghandi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, India; Devi Art Foundation, India; the Kochi Biennial, India; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh among others.

Ganesh’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, USA; The Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Ford Foundation, NY, USA; University of Michigan Museum of Art, MI, USA; The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, USA; the Devi Art Foundation, India; Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, India; the Saatchi Collection, London, UK; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Deutsche Bank, among others.

Ganesh is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts; Printed Matter; the Art Matters Foundation; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Creative Arts; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors; and the Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Presented By

Opening Reception

Chitra Ganesh: Astral Dance & Human Capital

Please join Contemporary Calgary on October 13, 2022, for a series of events in celebration of the opening of our fall exhibitions, Chitra Ganesh: Astral Dance & Human Capital.

FREE with registration. Artists in attendance.

Contemporary Conversations Presents:
Chitra Ganesh & Human Capital

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Extended as public programs of Chitra Ganesh: Astral Dance & Human Capital, please join Contemporary Calgary for a series of Contemporary Conversations in celebration of the opening of our fall exhibitions.

About the Speakers

Chitra Ganesh

ARTIST

Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975 Brooklyn, New York, USA) received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1996. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2001 and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, NY in 2002. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani, and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right wing fundamentalism in India.

Tak Pham

CURATOR

Tak Pham is Associate Curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. He holds an M.F.A in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University. He has curated exhibitions for the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2019-present); Varley Art Gallery, Markham (2020); Nuit Blanche Toronto, Toronto (2017); Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto (2017); Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto (2017); and Y+ Contemporary, Scarborough (2016), among others. His writings and reviews have appeared in Canadian Art, ESPACE art actuel, esse arts + opinions, GalleriesWest, Studio Magazine, ArtAsiaPacific and Hyperallergic.

Nurgül Rodriguez

ARTIST

Nurgül Rodriguez is an artist with an interdisciplinary practice and a PhD student at Werklund School of Education. She has an active individual practice of disciplines and media including porcelain, installation, handmade paper, printmaking, three-dimensional pieces, and more recently socially engaged and collaborative projects. Her work is social, political and personal with a focus on issues of immigration, diasporas, borders and cultures. She explores becoming a diasporic individual during identity formation within a new culture. Nurgul settled in Calgary in 2009 after many nomadic years of living in Turkey, the United States and Spain with her family. She currently lives in Calgary making, writing, teaching, collaborating and always learning.

Nura Ali

ARTIST

Nura Ali is a visual artist, writer and curator, living and working in Calgary, Alberta. She received a BFA in Visual Art from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, a BA in English Literature, Art History and Italian from the University of Leicester and a BA in History from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her wide-ranging practice investigates the linguistic scaffolding upholding the assumptions we bring to the act of reading and writing. Alongside her visual arts practice, Nura is also a prolific writer, a lifelong learner and has participated in various national and international residencies. Her work has been shown nationally and received numerous awards and grants; most recently from the Calgary Arts Development, the Rozsa Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. When she is not curled up with a book or pottering around her garden, Nura is dreaming up ways to dismantle oppressive structures and for this reason, became one of the founding members of the Vancouver Artists Labour Union; a unionized workers cooperative whose mission it is to transform labour practices in the arts sector and create fair, equitable and sustainable working conditions for artists and cultural workers.

Marigold Santos

ARTIST

Marigold Santos pursues an interdisciplinary art practice involving drawn, painted, and printed works, sculpture, tattooing, and sound. Her work explores self-hood and identity that embraces multiplicity, fragmentation and empowerment, as informed by diasporic experiences. She holds a BFA from the University of Calgary, and an MFA from Concordia University. As a recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, she continues to exhibit widely across Canada. Marigold Santos lives and works in Mohkinstsis/Calgary