SOAG: (Virtual) Talk Series

We are pleased to host a talk by Kama La Mackerel (they/them), a Mauritian multidisciplinary artist, educator, cultural mediator, writer, and literary translator who lives and loves in tio’tia:ke (Montréal), Canada. Their work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality and self-and collective-empowerment. Kama’s artistic practice spans across textile, visual, poetic, digital, and performative work; their work is at once narratological and theoretical, at once personal and political. A firm believer that artistic practices have the power to build resilience, to heal, and to act as forms of resistance to the status quo, their work articulates an anti-colonial praxis through cultural production.

Live captions and ASL available. Event will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

Artist talk by award-winning interdisciplinary artist Adrian Stimson. Stimson is a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation in Southern Alberta. He holds BFA with distinction from the Alberta College of Art and Design and MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. Stimson’s performance art looks at identity construction, specifically the hybridization of the Indian, the cowboy, the shaman, and Two Spirit being. Buffalo Boy and The Shaman Exterminator are two reoccurring personas in Stimson’s performative repertoire. His monochromatic paintings, often depict bison in imagined landscapes, explore cultural fragility, resilience, and nostalgia. A residential school survivor, Stimson’s installations examine the residential school experience, using the material culture from Old Sun Residential School on his Nation to create works that speak to genocide, loss, and resilience.

Stimson was awarded the Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts in 2018, the REVEAL Indigenous Arts Award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation in 2017 the Blackfoot Visual Arts Award in 2009, the Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005, and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003.

Talk by artist and writer Amy Lam. Amy will talk about a book of poetry she is writing, her Make-Believe Bathroom project (2020, SFU Galleries), and some other past and future work.

Amy Lam was born in Hong Kong and lives in Toronto. She collaborated with Jon McCurley as the artist duo Life of a Craphead, in conceptual art, performance, media art, and curating. Their work will be presented at the Seoul MediaCity Biennale in 2021. Lam is a founding member of Friends of Chinatown Toronto, a grassroots group working against displacement in Toronto’s downtown Chinatown.

Talk by Plug In ICA’s newly appointed Executive Director, Allison Yearwood. From Winnipeg, Yearwood holds a degree in Political Science and Business Administration from the University of Winnipeg and has held programming and leadership positions at The Banff Centre, Yamaji Art (Australia), Collective of Black Artists in Toronto, the Northern Life Museum & Cultural Center (Fort Smith, North West Territories) and was the first non-Indigenous staff member at Urban Shaman. Allison advocates for racialized and disenfranchised groups to decolonize institutions from the ground up, creating safe spaces for underserved communities. She is exceptionally skilled on issues of equity and is a powerful and transformative voice for anti-racism action.