Artists’ Roundtable

Watch Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky  in discussion with artists Anna Binta Diallo, Atanas Bozdarov, Barbara Hobot, Adriana Kuiper & Ryan Suter, Brendan L.S. Tang and Couzyn van Heuvelen. This roundtable explores various thematic threads that connect and resist within the exhibition—The Further Apart Things Seem. 

Introductions by co-curators Shannon Anderson and Jay Wilson.

The Further Apart Things Seem

Co-curated by Shannon Anderson & Jay Wilson

In a social and political moment where opinions are often divisive, the possibility of finding common ground can seem beyond reach. Debates over human rights, climate change, land claims, and even the politicizing of the pandemic often seem at cross-purposes and irresolvable. How do we respond in times of uncertainty—when do we push forward, when do we give up, and when do we try things differently? In The Further Apart Things Seem, artists follow distinct paths toward subtle forms of resistance, while exploring areas of connection between that which feels disconnected or in opposition. By testing the unexpected, they embrace material experimentation and provisionality as productive spaces for building resilience, resolution, and understanding.

About the Artists

Anna Binta Diallo

Anna Binta Diallo (b. Dakar, Senegal, lives in Winnipeg, MB) is a multidisciplinary visual artist who investigates memory and nostalgia to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at La Maison des Artistes Francophones (Winnipeg), Art Gal­lery of Southwestern Manitoba, Art Gallery of Alberta, Towards (Toronto), Access Gallery (Vancouver), Vancou­ver’s Capture Photography Festival, MAI (Montréal Arts Interculturels), MOCA Tapei, SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), and BOZAR (Palais des beaux-arts de Bruxelles). In 2021, Diallo was awarded the Barbara Sphor Memorial Prize from the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre and received the Black Designers of Canada Award of Excellence. She has an Honours BFA in painting and design from the University of Manitoba’s School of Fine Art and an MFA from the Transart Institute, Berlin, Germany, and currently teaches at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art.

Atanas Bozdarov

Atanas Bozdarov (b. Etobicoke, ON, lives in Toronto, ON) is an artist and designer whose recent projects have explored systems of access and accessibility, unnoticed conditions of disability and design, and architectural propositions for public space. He received his HBA from the University of Toronto Mississauga and his MDes from OCAD University. He has exhibited at the Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto; Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto; the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Georgia; Montréal, arts interculturels (MAI), Montreal. His project, Every Step on Queen Street West & Every Ramp on Queen Street West, a collaboration with Craig Rodmore, was selected as a feature exhibition at the 25th edition of CONTACT Photography Festival. Bozdarov teaches design in the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College’s joint Art and Art History program.

Barbara Hobot

Barbara Hobot (b. Toronto, lives in Kitchener, ON) is interested in creative processes and actions that de-centre the human. She has worked with loose trompe l’oeil, alchemy, gravity, and chance, creating a confusion of materials that draws attention to our incomplete grasp on the world that surrounds us. Her recent sound work explores the process of attempting to access unreachable knowledge. Her work has been exhibited at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Cambridge Art Galleries, the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Forest City Gallery in London (ON), and AKA artist-run in Saskatoon. She has also exhibited her work in Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Hobot holds an MFA from the University of Western Ontario and is represented by Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.

Adriana Kuiper & Ryan Suter

Adriana Kuiper (b. Toronto, ON, lives in Sackville, NB) and Ryan Suter (b. Tilbury, ON, lives in Sackville, NB) have collaborated on work since 2010. They have completed a number of public site-specific works in the Magdalen Islands, QC; Halifax, NS: and in Dawson City, YK. They have exhibited together at the Confederation Centre for the Arts in Charlottetown, PEI; the Kenderdine Art Gallery, SK; and the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, AB. Kuiper completed her BA at the University of Guelph and her MFA at the University of Western Ontario. Her work has been shown across Canada and internationally in Oslo, Norway. She is a professor in sculpture and drawing at Mount Allison University. Suter is a multimedia artist who holds a BFA from the University of Ottawa and an MFA from the University of Guelph. He has worked as an arts administrator in artist-run centres for the past 15 years and has taught a variety of courses at the Nova Scotia of Art and Design and Mount Allison University. His work has been shown at many artist-run centres across Canada.

Brendan Lee Satish Tang

Brendan Lee Satish Tang (b. Dublin, Ireland, lives in Vancouver, BC) explores issues of identity and the hybridization of material and non-material culture in his work, drawing from futuristic technologies, contemporary culture, and ancient traditions. Tang’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver; the Gardiner Museum, Toronto; the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, QC; the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Italy; the Boston Art Museum; the Seattle Art Museum; and the Foundation d’Entreprise Bernardaud, Limoges, France, among others. He was a recipient of the 2016 Biennale Internationale de Vallauris Contemporary Ceramic Award, France; shortlisted for the Sobey Art Prize; and a finalist in the Loewe Foundation’s International Craft Prize, Madrid, Spain. He received a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and an MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Couzyn van Heuvelen

Couzyn van Heuvelen (b. Iqaluit, NU, lives in Bowmanville, ON) is a Canadian Inuk sculptor. His work explores Inuit culture and identity, new and old technologies, and personal narratives. While rooted in the history and traditions of Inuit art, the work strays from established Inuit art making methods and explores a range of fabrication processes. He has par­ticipated in exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Artspace in Peterborough, Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax, Winnipeg Art Gallery, and SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art in Montreal, among others. Van Heuvelen holds a BFA from York University and an MFA from NSCAD University. His work has been longlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and he has received commissions through the Sheridan’s Temporary Contemporary Artists series, in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Mississauga; and the George Reid House Project through OCAD U.

About the Moderators

Rhonda Weppler & Trevor Mahovsky

Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky, based in New York and Toronto respectively, are artists who have worked collaboratively since 2004. Their work, laborious and handmade, is concerned with material culture and our relationship to the world of things. Their practice has increasingly incorporated aspects of craft that are communal and more broadly collaborative, such as the production of DIY tutorial videos, the distribution of source files for the making of versions of their works, the hosting of virtual crafting bees, and facilitating other collaborative public projects within and without institutional settings. Their current ongoing project, Crafts Abyss, produced in conjunction with and hosted by the Museum of Arts & Design, NYC, was first created during the 2020 edition of Contemporary Calgary’s Collider residency.

Other exhibitions include: National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), LABoral (Gijon), Dos de Mayo (Madrid), Aurora (Dallas), Vancouver Art Gallery, Flux Night (Atlanta), Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Power Plant (Toronto), Musee d’art Contemporain de Montreal, Tokyo Wonder Site, loop-raum (Berlin), 516 Arts (Albuquerque), Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), Alter Space (San Francisco), Glow (Washington DC). Mahovsky has written for journals such as Artforum and for catalogues such as Liz Magor (MACM: Montreal, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst: Zurich, and Hamburg Kunstverein). In 2017, Weppler was the inaugural artist in residence with the MFA Art Practice program at the School of Visual Arts, New York, and in 2018 she completed a major project for the Community Arts Initiative, Artists Project program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

About The Further Apart Things Seem

In a social and political moment where opinions are often divisive, the possibility of finding common ground can seem beyond reach. Debates over human rights, climate change, land claims, and even the politicizing of the pandemic often seem at cross-purposes and irresolvable. How do we respond in times of uncertainty—when do we push forward, when do we give up, and when do we try things differently? In The Further Apart Things Seem, artists follow distinct paths toward subtle forms of resistance, while exploring areas of connection between that which feels disconnected or in opposition. By testing the unexpected, they embrace material experimentation and provisionality as productive spaces for building resilience, resolution, and understanding.

Take a guided virtual tour of The Further Apart Things Seem with Co-Curators Shannon Anderson and Jay Wilson

Online Curatorial Talk with Shannon Anderson & Jay Wilson

Extended as a public program of The Further Apart Things Seem, the curators walk us through the genesis of this curatorial project, and the factors that shaped the choice of work. They’ll also elaborate on the relevance of the show today, especially within our current socio-political context. 

About the Curators
Shannon Anderson & Jay Wilson

Shannon Anderson is an independent curator and writer based in Oakville, Ontario and Jay Wilson is an independent curator, artist (sculptor), designer and educator based in Toronto, Ontario. Their first co-curated project, The Closer Together Things Are, was a group exhibition focused on artworks that examine the space between similarity and difference arising from intense observation and consideration. An exploration of nearness and proximity, the exhibition brought together the work of ten artists from across Canada, including Kathleen Hearn, Ève K. Tremblay, Laura Letinsky, Micah Lexier, Dave Dyment, Roula Partheniou, Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky, Luke Painter, and Chris Kline. Independently curated and organized, it travelled to the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (Waterloo, ON), the Owens Art Gallery (Sackville, NB), Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery (Halifax, NS), and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (Lethbridge, AB) between 2017 and 2018. 

Anderson’s curated exhibitions have been shown at galleries across Canada, and she is currently the Art Curator for the Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. She has also written essays for publications produced by numerous art galleries, and feature articles for Canadian Art, C Magazine, Carousel and EyeMazing Amsterdam. She holds a Specialist BA in Art and Art History (with distinction) from the University of Toronto and an MA in Art History from Concordia University in Montreal. 

Wilson is a full-time professor of design in the Art and Art History program, a joint program between the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College. He has an Honours degree in Wildlife Biology and Statistics from the University of Guelph, a diploma from the Ontario College of Art and Design and an MFA from York University. As an artist, Wilson has shown both locally and internationally, and has received numerous creation, research and exhibition assistance grants. His design and art practices are a mix of conceptual considerations and play, often full of segues, spontaneity and contradiction. 

About The Further Apart Things Seem

In a social and political moment where opinions are often divisive, the possibility of finding common ground can seem beyond reach. Debates over human rights, climate change, land claims, and even the politicizing of the pandemic often seem at cross-purposes and irresolvable. How do we respond in times of uncertainty—when do we push forward, when do we give up, and when do we try things differently? In The Further Apart Things Seem, artists follow distinct paths toward subtle forms of resistance, while exploring areas of connection between that which feels disconnected or in opposition. By testing the unexpected, they embrace material experimentation and provisionality as productive spaces for building resilience, resolution, and understanding.

Take a guided virtual tour of The Further Apart Things Seem with Co-Curators Shannon Anderson and Jay Wilson

Hamburger Eyes
Presentation + Q&A 

Sunday, February 13, 2022
1:00 PM  - 2:00 PM

Join Exposure and Ray Potes, Founder and Editor of LA based Hamburger Eyes, to hear about the legendary publishing label that has launched over 200 zines, magazines and books, along with notable collaborations with Supreme and Mailchimp. Hamburger Eyes has developed a unique photographic style dedicated to the pictorial history of the iconic and unseen moments of the everyday. Publishing since 2001, Hamburger Eyes has provided an outlet for both upcoming and established photographers worldwide. 

This event is free and hosted online via Zoom. The meeting link will be sent to the email you provide in this registration form at least 24 hours before the event start.

Maya Beaudry discusses The Pergola, a site-specific work at Contemporary Calgary, 4 November 2021 – 30 January 2022. Download Maya’s interactive presentation below.

Maya Beaudry’s site-specific installation The Pergola considers the idea of interiority and containment as it relates to the natural and the built environment. Wrapped in a fabric printed with photographs of dwelling spaces, and buttressed by an organic wire growth, the pergola offers a structural fluidity of being between inside and outside; and between intention and spontaneity. The photographic fabric embodies the man-made along with all the memories of places lived and imagined, while the wound wire suggests a more instinctual, natural and fungal growth. Punctuating this threshold is Beaudry’s interest in investigating the potentiality of alternative architecture—one that is laborious, hand-made, somewhat enigmatic, and is in opposition to the dominant discourse.

Beaudry’s practice draws largely on the language of patterns in urban design and architecture. Fused with organic interruptions, she complicates the logic of the grid—that pervasive infrastructure that has become synonymous with urban living, from the block, and city to the pixels on our screens. The Pergola then can also be understood as a portrait of a hypercomplex system that mediates planned and entropic growth, safety and entanglement. It is a way to find meaning in how we inhabit spaces.

Online Resources

Biography

Maya Beaudry
(she/her)

Maya Beaudry is based in Vancouver, BC. She received a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2013 and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2017. She has exhibited work in Canada, the United States, Germany and France, with solo exhibitions in Berlin and Marseille. She was the recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists, the Felix Gonzales Torres Foundation Travel Grant, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts/CD Howe Award, and has participated in residencies at Triangle France in Marseille and September Spring at the Kesey Farm.

Extended as a public program of Corri-Lynn Tetz’s solo exhibition Art Lover, the artist discusses her practice and artistic journey with her gallerist Shannon Norberg. They each share their insights into amplifying the female gaze and underlining the agency of women artists.

About the Speakers

Corri-Lynn Tetz
(she / her)

Corri-Lynn Tetz was born in Calgary, Alberta and now lives and works in Montreal. She studied at Red Deer College, Emily Carr and most recently graduated from the MFA program at Concordia University. Tetz has received project support from the Conseil des Art et des Lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, and in 2016, was awarded the Brucebo Residency Fellowship. Her work was featured in The Magenta Foundation’s Carte Blanche: A Survey of Canadian Painting and in 2012, she was a finalist in the RBC Painting Competition. Tetz’s paintings have been exhibited across Canada, Sweden and the United States, with acquisitions made by the Senvest Collection and Equity Bank among others.

Shannon Norberg 
(she / her)

Shannon Norberg is the partner and co-director of Norberg Hall. From the gallery’s inception (Jarvis Hall Gallery) in 2010, founded by Jarvis Hall, and continuing over the past decade alongside Norberg, they have re-envisioned the possibilities of what commercial contemporary art galleries can be for artists, collectors and the vibrant Canadian arts community they value. Their desire for a strong visual culture and passion for gender equity has played an integral part in the shaping of the Norberg Hall and its programming. Throughout the years, Norberg Hall has actively supported the practices of emerging, mid-career and established artists to foster a deeper understanding of their creative processes, while providing a platform and space to share these critical dialogues.

Beauty and the Brain: The Neurobiology and Psychology of Aesthetic Appreciation

A talk by Oshin Vartanian

A curious relationship exists between visual art and our brain. Art impacts brain function, thinking and emotions, and our brain influences our perceptions of beauty, our preferences in art and the meaning and relevance we ascribe to it. It’s a relationship exquisitely affirming our individuality and the uniqueness of how we view and react to art.

Dr. Vartanian examines differences between representational and non-representational art and discusses how “context” influences how we experience and value art. Learn how the brain responds when art created by great masters is presented versus computer-generated art; how the brain responds to authenticated art versus forgeries; and how we respond differently to art seen in and outside museum settings.  

The beauty of the brain and in art is ours to know.

Co-Organized By

Warehouse 1993 was an iconic work by Wyn Geleynse damaged in the Calgary flood of 2013. In conversation with collector Ken Bradley, Geleynse reimagines Warehouse 1993-2015, a new work that reflects on time and memory and includes additional layers of meaning and sound. This video guides us through the artist’s process behind the making of both works.

Presented By

A Discussion with Ryan Sluggett and a special screening of his recent 2020 animation film, Ed Terrestrial

Thursday, October 21
5:30pm - 7:00pm

Of Ed Terrestrial, Jackson Arn, the American critic, has written:

“It’s never easy to make art that’s deliberately, self-consciously “about” society; to fail is to invite ridicule, and sometimes to succeed is to invite even more. The difficulty of the problem has led too many artists and critics to conclude that it’s pointless to try—a hedged, managerial sort of conclusion… I’ll say this much: for Ed Terrestrial, [Sluggett has] developed a style of animation that exposes the malevolence lurking beneath cozy, infantilizing entertainment; the sludge lurking beneath “good taste”; and the queasy cocktail of interest and disinterest that we’ve all been drinking—and anyone who doesn’t see the urgency of making art about these things has been living in a cave.”

Biography

Ryan Sluggett was born in 1981 in Calgary, Alberta. He received his BFA with Distinction in Painting from the Alberta College of Art + Design in 2003, and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011.

Ryan Sluggett has had nine solo exhibitions at TrépanierBaer Gallery; the most recent titled The Ego and the Ed (2021). Selected group exhibitions of note include: Summer Bomb Pop: Collections in Dialogue, Tang Museum, New York (2021); Everywhere You Are, Contemporary Calgary (2020/21); Out of Sight: New Acquisitions, Vancouver Art Gallery (2014); and Made in LA., the Hammer Museum Biennial (2012).

Sluggett has successfully completed numerous commissions. In 2013, he completed a major commission for the Ivey School of Business at Western Ontario University in London, Ontario. This large multi-paneled work is comprised of three panels measuring 8 feet by 8 feet each, for an overall dimension of 8 feet by 24 feet. In 2015, Sluggett completed a commission for a major video piece for a private collector in the United States; and he has recently completed a painting commission for a Canadian collector.

Sluggett’s work is included in numerous public collections including the Booth Collection at the University of Chicago; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Vancouver Art Gallery; Glenbow Museum, Calgary; the Rubell Collection, Florida; the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Collection, Edmonton; and numerous private and corporate collections throughout Canada and the US.

WATCH: Artist Daniela Ortiz in conversation with Curator Florencia Portocarrero

Extended as a public program of the ongoing exhibition, Notes for Tomorrow.

Daniela and Florencia discuss the complicated relationships between structures of colonial, patriarchal and capitalist power and the fraught emotional responses that these generate. Within this framework, they explore the various ways in which art practices and the everyday intersect.

Participants

Daniela Ortiz

Through her work Daniela Ortiz (Cusco, Peru -1985) aims to generate visual narratives in which the concepts of nationality, racialization, social class and gender are explored in order to critically understand structures of colonial, patriarchal and capitalist power. Her recent projects and research deal with the European migratory control system, its links to colonialism and the legal structure created by European institutions in order to inflict violence towards racialized and migrant communities. She has also developed projects about the Peruvian upper class and its exploitative relationship with domestic workers. Recently her artistic practice has turned back into visual and manual work, developing art pieces in ceramic, collage and in formats such as children books in order to take distance from eurocentric conceptual art aesthetics. Together with her artistic practice she is the mother of a 2 year old, gives talks, workshops, does investigation and participates in discussions on Europe’s migratory control system and its ties to coloniality in different contexts. Daniela lives and works in Barcelona.

Florencia Portocarrero

Florencia Portocarrero (Lima, 1981) writes, lectures, teaches, and, organizes both exhibitions and public programs. Her research interests are focused on how to rewrite art history from a feminist perspective, regimes of subjectivation in the context of neoliberal globalization, and the questioning of hegemonic forms of knowledge. Between 2008 and 2010, she completed a master’s degree in Theoretical Studies in Psychoanalysis at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Later, from 2012 to 2013, Portocarrero participated in the Curatorial Program of the Appel Arts Center in Amsterdam, and in 2015 she completed a second master’s degree in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths University in London. She has participated in several international conferences and her writings on art and culture appear regularly in specialized magazines such as Atlántica Journal, Artishock, and Terremoto. In 2017/2018 Portocarrero received the Curating Connections scholarship, awarded by the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and the KfW Stiftung. In Lima, she worked as a Public Program Curator at Proyecto AMIL (2015-2019) and is a Co-founder of Bisagra.

Notes for Tomorrow is a traveling exhibition organized and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI) and initiated by Frances Wu Giarratano, Becky Nahom, Renaud Proch, and Monica Terrero. The exhibition was made possible with the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, VIA Art Fund, and ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum.

A roundtable discussion with Deeter Schurig, President and CEO of cSpace, Patti Pon, President and CEO of CADA, Sandra Vida, Artist and former Contract Administrator with Elephant Artist Relief Society, Larissa Tiggelers, Artist and Former Director of Stride Art Gallery, Frank Frigo, Leader, Watershed Analysis, Water Resources, City of Calgary, and artists and community leaders, Eveline Kolijn and Mandy Stobo.

Moderated by Katherine Ylitalo.

The roundtable is part of a series titled I Remember the Flood organized by Contemporary Calgary to explore the devastating impact of the 2013 Calgary flood on art and artists, as well as our community at large. Considered one of the worst and costliest natural disasters in Canadian history, we revisit the herculean efforts of local leaders and organizations in the art community. The series is dedicated to individuals, who in the midst of chaos, through sheer determination and ingenuity effectively contained the damage and loss to artworks. 

The series is a public program of the two-part exhibition Everywhere We Are, that comprises several artworks damaged during the flood. The exhibition is co-curated by Contemporary Calgary and the University of Calgary Nickle Galleries. 

MODERATOR

PARTICIPANTS

Join Contemporary Calgary for an online Artist Talk with WATER EVENT artist, seth cardinal dodginghorse as he discusses his work The Glenmore Rezerveoir, a water sculpture made in response to Yoko Ono’s invitation to produce a container that held water. The work is one of six water sculptures produced for Ono’s ongoing collaborative work, WATER EVENT (1971/ 2020), part of Ono’s exhibition GROWING FREEDOM at Contemporary Calgary.

This Artist Talk it is hosted as a Public Program of the ongoing exhibition, Yoko Ono: GROWING FREEDOM and will be held online on Zoom and broadcast through Contemporary Calgary’s Facebook Live. A recording of this discussion will be posted on Contemporary Calgary’s website at a late date.

About The Glenmore Rezerveoir

Made of the dirt from Tsuut’ina/The SW Calgary Ring Road, parfleche, earth pigments, sinew, 15L grocery store water jug meant to hold and sell Calgary municipal water, the sculpture is in direct response to the necessitated purchase of bottled water on the Tsuut’ina Nation and is concerned with the larger issue of displacement for alleged progress. 

Describing the work, seth writes, “The Glenmore Reservoir is built on Tsuut’ina Nation land that they were forced to sell in the 1920’s to the city of Calgary. The SW Calgary Ring Road is currently being built on my family’s Tsuut’ina land that was stolen and sold in 2013 to the city of Calgary. Since 2013, I haven’t been able to drink clean water from my tap on Tsuut’ina because of the SW Calgary Ring Road. I now have to buy bottled water that comes from stolen Tsuut’ina land. 

“Dear Calgary and Calgarians, stop forcing Tsuut’ina Chief and Councils to sell land, they can’t say no. Think about what you drink and where you drive.”

WATCH: Studio Tour and Artist Talk with Omar Ba, In Conversation with Justine Kohleal

This program is presented in both English and French, please click the [CC] icon for English subtitles and close captioning.

Presented By

Join Contemporary Calgary and The Power Plant for a candid conversation between artist Omar Ba and curator Justine Kohleal as they discuss Ba’s practice from its early beginnings to current observations. Walking us through his studio in Dakar, Ba takes us behind the scenes, sharing his process and method of working, as well as insights into exhibition Same Dream, on view at Contemporary Calgary (17 September 2020 – 14 March 2021).

Omar Ba is a Senegalese artist whose paintings evoke a shared cosmogony between humans, plants and animals. His penchant for depicting personal narratives alongside collective ones speak to the “in-between” condition of his work, as he splits his time between Dakar, Senegal and Geneva, Switzerland, and blends the visual texture of both places through his practice. Ba draws from and intertwines a range of elements—the historical and contemporary, figurative and abstract imagery—from both African and European cultures.

ABOUT THE ARTIST AND CURATOR

Omar Ba (born 1977, Dakar, Senegal) lives and works between Dakar and Geneva. Ba has participated in numerous international group exhibitions, most recently at MAC Marseille, France (2018); the Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris (2017); BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Ferme-Asile, Sion, Switzerland (2015); Hales Gallery, London, UK (2017, 2014); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2014); Biennale de Dakar, Senegal (2014); and Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland (2012), among others. Ba’s works can be found in private and public collections, including Credit Suisse, Switzerland; Fonds municipal d’art contemporain de la Ville de Genève, Switzerland; Fonds municipal d’art contemporain de la Ville de Paris; Centre national des arts plastiques, France; the Barbier-Mueller Collection, Geneva; the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France; and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In 2011, Ba received the Swiss Art Award.

Justine Kohleal is an Assistant Curator at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, Ontario. Select past curatorial projects include [INTERFACE] (Fringe Gallery, Edmonton); Intellectual Play (dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton); and Sounding the Alarm: The Poetics of Connection (Art Gallery of Ontario). Since joining The Power Plant she has curated show by Beth Stuart, Thomas J Price, and Howie Tsui, and assisted on exhibitions by Ellen Gallagher, Shuvinai Ashoona, and Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa. She has interned with The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Luce Foundation Centre for American Art and with the Art Gallery of Ontario. Kohleal holds a curatorial M.F.A from OCAD University and a B.A. from the University of Alberta with a focus in Art, Design, and Visual Culture.

WATCH: ARTIST TALK | Faye HeavyShield on Yoko Ono’s WATER EVENT (1971/2020) 

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Faye HeavyShield discusses her work aohkii/water, a water sculpture made in response to Yoko Ono’s invitation to produce a container that held water. The work is one of six water sculptures produced for Ono’s ongoing collaborative work, WATER EVENT (1971/ 2020), part of Ono’s exhibition GROWING FREEDOM at Contemporary Calgary.

Faye’s water sculpture comprises a glass bowl collaged on the outside with images of Oldman River, filled with river stones and water. It is a work that honours the rivers; especially the aptly named Old Man. Faye explains, “This is a reflection of our place .. meaning our responsibility. It is a reflection on the fragility and the strength of rivers (and of us)”.

WATCH: Pillow Talk: John and Yoko’s BED-IN FOR PEACE, with Joan Athey and Minnie York
Wednesday, November 25
5pm MST / 7pm EST / Nov 26 10am AEST

It was a circus. It was a song. It was bigger than both of them. Find out the lesser-known inside stories at Contemporary Calgary's online conversation with Joan Athey and Minnie Yorke, custodians of the Gerry Deiter and Ritchie Yorke archives that form an integral part of the exhibition GROWING FREEDOM. Through photographs of the fanfare and spectacle, to more tender moments of love and shared idealism at the 1969 Montreal BED-IN-FOR-PEACE, their research and investigations of what went on behind the scenes have informed our understanding of the art and social activism of John and Yoko.

This conversation is hosted as a Public Program around the ongoing exhibition, GROWING FREEDOM: The Instructions of Yoko Ono and the art of John and Yoko, September 17, 2020-  January 31, 2021.

About the Speakers

Joan Athey & The Gerry Deiter Archives

Joan E. Athey has worked with creative people all her life. A marketing and promotions strategist for over 20 years, she spent the bulk of her career as a communications specialist with the CBC in Vancouver. Born in Toronto, Joan’s father ran a camera shop on Danforth Avenue where she was exposed to the magic of photography. She learned about journalism working for the Toronto Star as an entertainment writer. Eventually making her way to the West Coast via Edmonton, Joan learned about music production in the studios at the CBC. For the last 11 years, she has been the curator of this precious archive of images that Gerry Deiter took in 1969, exhibiting  them  to over 200,000 people in Liverpool, Coventry, Bogotá, San Diego, Tokyo, and elsewhere. 

Gerry Deiter was a native of Brooklyn, New York. He apprenticed with Frances Scavullo, a famous New Yorker known for his controversial portraits of celebrities.  As a photographer, his career varied from the gruesome (crime and medical photographer) to the sublime as a fashion photographer for Women's Wear Daily. He was a friend of Timothy Leary's,  a photo-journalist for the Village Voice, Time and Life magazines,  as well as teaching at the Pratt Institute. Through his involvement with the Manhattan avant-garde art scene, Dieter was introduced to Yoko Ono. He moved to Montreal in 1968.  In 1969, on assignment for Life Magazine, he attended John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.  Intending to stay a few hours, he stayed the entire 8 days, the only still photographer to do so. Life never ran the photos, and he hid them away for nearly 40 years. He died December 9, 2005.  His friend Joan E. Athey purchased the archive of over 400 slides and negatives in 2007 to carry on Deiter's desire to rekindle the spirit of Give Peace A Chance.

Minnie Yorke & The Ritchie Yorke Archives

Minnie Yorke has worked in Creative industries all her life.  She started out in the fashion industry then moved on to Film, TV props and Wardrobe. Working for many years on music videos brought her closely in touch with the entertainment business.

 Minnie became Ritchie 'Yorke’s photographer and recording tech after they got together in 2005.  Working closely with Ritchie she became aware of his vast knowledge and connections with all levels of the Music business around the world.

Ritchie has been an active part of Rock 'N' Roll history, touching upon the lives and works of many of the musical greats, including John and Yoko.

Minnie is now the custodian of the Ritchie Yorke Archive of the history Music Journalism circa 1962 -2017. The Ritchie Yorke Project has been working on digitizing many hours of interviews and cataloguing his life’s work ­­and his collection of treasures. She is very grateful to Yoko for being invited to be a part of GROWING FREEDOM putting some of Ritchie­­­''s collection on the world stage to share with the public.

Ritchie Yorke was a Brisbane born music author and journalist. He was the first full-time rock writer for The Globe and Mail, and served as Billboard’s Canadian editor for a decade in the 70s, and for the Rolling Stone. He’s penned books on Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, and more recently his journey with John and Yoko.

He aided the staging of John and Yoko’s famed Montreal bed-in and including meetings with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Marshall Mcluhan as well as their appearance at the famed Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert.

Yorke was instrumental as Lennon’s International Peace Envoy for The War is Over Campaign in 1969. 

WATCH: ARTIST TALK | Adrian A Stimson on Yoko Ono’s WATER EVENT 

Wednesday November 18, 7PM MST

Adrian A Stimson discusses his work We’ve made our Water Bed..., a water sculpture made in response to Yoko Ono’s invitation to produce a container that held water. The work is one of six water sculptures produced for Ono’s ongoing collaborative work, WATER EVENT (1971/ 2020), part of Ono’s exhibition GROWING FREEDOM at Contemporary Calgary.

Stimson offers the waterbed to Premier Jason Kenney UCP, Alberta, who has been cited in a number of studies as being one of Canada’s biggest polluters of water, owed primarily to the industries of oil and agriculture in Alberta. Jason Kenney comes from a long list of politicians in Alberta and Canada who enact legislation that often are detrimental to the environment, specifically the water we all rely on. 

The waterbed is at once a comment on the tongue-in-cheek expression, ‘You made your bed, now lie in it’ and also a nod to Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s historic BED-IN FOR PEACE. The bed is a place of protest and love.