Friday, May 12th
Arrivals in the afternoon
4:00 Tour of residency with Artscape Staff
6:00 Communal Dinner prepared by Ilene for the artists with introduction activities
- Meet in the kitchen
7:30 – 9:00 pm Anti-Oppression Workshop Led by Anu Radha and Berkha Gupta. ( Fireplace Room )
Anu Radha Verma (pronouns: she/her) has lived, worked, played, studied and struggled in places as disparate as Mississauga, Peterborough, New Delhi and Toronto. She plays many roles in her community-based social justice work across the Greater Toronto Area including worker, agitator, curator/programmer, trainer and facilitator. Anu Radha has focused on capacity-building and community engagement in particular around the areas of sexuality, gender, race, the environment, and community health. Her current unpaid work includes the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre Board of Directors and QTBIPOC sauga. She currently works multiple part-time jobs, and also has an independent consulting practice. Anu Radha was raised, and currently resides, in the suburbs. She loves creating space for dialogue, particularly when that dialogue includes self-reflection and the cultivation of care. Anu Radha identifies as a queer, diasporic, sometimes-femme, with complex connections to “south asia,” a survivor of sexual assault and a person with lived experience of mental health struggles. Anu Radha can be reached via email at anuconsults@gmail.com or on twitter
Berkha Gupta (pronouns: they/them) has spent the last 9 years working and volunteering in the non-profit sector in the City of Toronto and the Region of Peel, primarily engaging youth and LGBTQ communities. They are currently the Executive Director of the LGBT Youth Line,an organization that offers peer-based online support to LGBTQ2S youth across Ontario. Prior to this, they have worked at Planned Parenthood Toronto, a community health centre serving youth 13-29 in Toronto. They have led multiple workshops for service providers, volunteers, and youth on anti-oppression and creating queer, trans inclusivity. As a trans (non-binary) person of colour, they are committed to creating and supporting community spaces for LGBTQ people of colour using an intersectional lens and have led the creation of projects such as the Q? Y Art? Project – a multi-disciplinary arts program for South Asian LGBTQ youth and a colour deep – a new online community of LGBTQ South Asians in the GTA.
Communal Art Making Happiness
9:00 onwards…Feminist Collage Party (Supplies Provided!)
With various inspiring collage and craft supplies, the artists will gather to have some social time creating feminist art together. ( Fireplace Room )
Saturday, May 13
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
9:00 Breakfast items will be out for people needing food before grocery shopping
10:00 am trip into town with Jenna for supplies for those who need Groceries and art supplies!
4:00 Decolonizing and Indigenous Land Recognition with Jon Johnson from First Story
Jon Johnson is a critical interdisciplinary researcher that works within Toronto’s Indigenous community. His work is focused on Indigenous Knowledge and land-based storytelling traditions in Toronto, and the connections among Indigenous culture, storytelling, the land, and health. He has published on topics related to Indigenous environmental history, Indigenous land-based storytelling traditions, and Indigenous foodways, colonialism, and health. He attained his PhD in the Communication and Culture program at York University in 2015 where he currently teaches courses.
His research is grounded in his ongoing involvement with and participation in Toronto’s Indigenous community. He is an organizing member of First Story Toronto, a program devoted to researching and sharing Toronto’s Indigenous heritage through a variety of popular educational initiatives. As a part of this work, he leads many walking and bus tours of the Indigenous heritage of the Greater Toronto Area, engages in public talks for diverse audiences, and supports and develops a variety of artistic and historical community projects and collaborations.
Jon Johnson also dabbles in digital art, and has worked on a variety of graphic design and web development projects.
Sunday, May 14th
8:30 am 30-minute silent secular morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
1:00 Artist Talk and Workshop with Author and Spoken Word Poet Andrea Thompson
Poet, novelist, educator, essayist and spoken word artist, Andrea Thompson has published and performed her work across North America and overseas for the past two decades. In 1995, she was featured in the documentary, Slamnation, as a member of the country’s first National Slam team. In 2005, Thompson’s CD One was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award, and in 2009 she was awarded Poet of Honour by the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. In 2008, Thompson toured her one-woman show, Mating Rituals of the Urban Cougar across the country, and in 2011, was host of the nationally broadcast television series, Heart of a Poet. Thompson’s writing has been featured in a variety of journals and anthologies, and she is the author of the collection, Eating the Seed (Ekstasis Editions, 2000), the co-editor of the anthology Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out (Inanna Publications, 2005) and author of the novel, Over Our Heads (Inanna, 2014). Thompson currently teaches Spoken Word through the Ontario College of Art and Design University’s continuing studies department and Workman Arts in Toronto.
Communal Dinner Meet in Kitchen at 6:00 ( Dinner Provided )
Monday, May 15th
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
12:00 Sign Up in the Kitchen Private Psychic Tarot Readings in the Fireplace Room with Magda
8:00 pm – Feminist Theatre Performance Reading with talk-back / group feedback in Fireplace Room Operation Sunshine – Solo performance by Jennifer McKinley
“Toronto, 2014. I stripped and rescued 179 women from the dank bathroom walls in the basement of my childhood home. The SUNshine Girls, models who posed for the Toronto SUN newspaper from 1988-1991, and their reverse news articles come to life. They provide the catalyst for true and fictional stories about the objectification of women, children in peril and gender-based violence. Experience a bygone era of Toronto as a child of the city navigates sites of danger in this dark comedy and coming-of-age story”
Jennifer McKinley is a cisgender intersectional feminist activist and a writer, performer, producer, educator and arts administrator. She received education and training in liberal, performing and creative arts and uses themes of personal and collective memory in her work. A fourth-generation Torontonian. Jennifer is committed to community and has done volunteer work with youth and families at Frontier College, Young People’s Theatre and the Toronto Public Library.
Tuesday, May 16th
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
11:00 Artist talk by Pam Paterson followed by individual critiques. ( Sign up in Kitchen )
Pam Patterson (PhD, OISE) has, for 30 years, been active in the health, art, performance and women’s communities. Her research, performance and teaching have focussed on embodiment in art practice, the “body” in art, women and health, disability studies, women’s studies and feminist art education with publications in journals such as: Studies in Art Education, Canadian Review of Art Education, Canadian Art Teacher, Resources for Feminist Research, Matriart: A Canadian Feminist Art Journal, FUSE, Fibrearts, Parachute; and presentations in conferences such as: the Feminism and Art Conference (Toronto), History of Art Education Symposium (Penn State), and Moving Bodies, Embodying Movement: Exploring the Rhetoric of the Body (State University of New York, Brockport). Her book, Enacting Learning: An Arts-Informed Inquiry with the Bay Area Artists for Women’s Art (BAAWA) was published by Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrücken, Germany. She has been an active member for the Canadian Society for Education through Art (CSEA) and acts as an ambassador for OCADU and OISE, University, of Toronto for the Canadian Association for the Study of Women and Education (CASWE)
She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses for various institutions: Sheridan College, George Brown College, Ryerson Polytechnical University, York University, Toronto School of Art, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo and, for over 10 years, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Since 2004, she has been Associate Scholar for the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto where she directs WIAprojects, a feminist interdisciplinary program in community-based, arts-informed, feminist -inspired research. For WIAprojects, she teaches workshops and curates exhibitions, performances and events. WIAprojects also publishes various documents and monographs. Patterson has also been teaching and coordinating Art and Design Education in the Faculty of Art at OCADU since 2010.
As a performance and visual artist, she has exhibited and performed across Canada and internationally. Recently, she presented performance/video works Distended Topographies, EdgeZones, Miami and Red Square forTorinoPERFORMANCEART International Festival 2013, Turin, Italy. Other works include: Body as Site/sight, presented at A Space for 7A11D International Performance Art Festival in Toronto; and she lectured and performed works from the “Body in Extremis” series for Psi: Being Uncomfortable, Brown University, Rhode Island, Towards Tomorrow at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, andPerformance as Pedagogy for the Universities Art Association, Victoria. Patterson will be presenting a new work for Made of Walking, in La Romieu, France in August 2017 and will be working in a self-directed residency in Ireland for the month of Sept 2017.
7:30 Community Art Share – Meet in the Fireplace Room to have mini meet ups and feedback on your art from your fellow resident artists
*(Bring computer/ images to show text to read)
Wednesday, May 17th
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
Trip into town to see Galleries in Toronto with international artists
*Meet in the kitchen at 12:00 pm
Meet in the kitchen at 4:30 to go to the city of Toronto for a Feminist Art Tour of the Art Gallery of Ontario with Maureen DaSilva
If you are in town, meet at AGO at 6:00 in front Lobby ( FREE )
Maureen Da Silva is a Toronto-based second-generation Portuguese settler and cis-gendered community-driven artist and art professional committed to an intersectional feminist practice. She is a printmaker specializing in silk screen and lithography and dabbles in bookbinding as well. She has taken her love of print into the founding of the not-for-profit artist group The inPrint Collective, of which she is the Managing Director. Through the inPrint Collective, Maureen has been proud to showcase work in Scotiabank NuitBlanche (2012), Printopolis (2010), Culture Days (2010-present) and across the GTA as well as engage in a number of community-based projects with partners such as The Scarborough Museum, East End Arts, First Story Toronto and more. A 2008 graduate of York University’s B.F.A program, Maureen has also completed her Master’s of Arts at the University of Toronto (2009), as well as her Certificate in Museum Studies from the Ontario Museum Association (2013). Her research in her Women and Gender Studies Master’s program focused on the politics of inclusion within feminist art collectives, an interest which brought Maureen into the Feminist Art Conference committee. Her own practice in feminism and printmaking, as well as the artistic wealth of her print community has inspired Maureen to (hopefully) a lifetime of creativity and non-stop learning.
After the general tour, for people who wish, Maureen will be giving a preamble to the Georgia O’keefe show which is in Toronto right now. Tickets are half price on Wednesday Nights
Thursday, May 18th
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
Artist Talk and Critiques with Natalie Majaba Waldburger
11:00 am Artist Talk followed by individual Critiques. Sign up in the Kitchen.
FAC Curatorial Team / TFAP Coordinator
Natalie Majaba Waldburger received her B.A. specializing in Women’s Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. In 1996, she graduated with Honours from the Ontario College of Art and Design receiving the Drawing and Painting Department Medal. Formally, Waldburger was the Ada Slaight Chair of Contemporary Painting and Print Media at the OCAD University where she is also assisted in building the Life Studies specialization. This new area of study is designed to explore the meaning of the human body as it relates to the notion of embodiment, feminism, issues of representation, and the interplay between science, technology and studio inquiries. She has also taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the Media Arts Department where she completed an MFA in 2004. Natalie has exhibited widely in Canada, the U.S. and Europe; in cities such as Berlin, Florence, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami.
6:00 pm Communal Dinner with Natalie in the Kitchen ( Dinner Provided!)
9:00 Feminist Film Night “And Still I Rise” Maya Angelou Documentary
*MEET IN FIREPLACE ROOM
Friday, May 19th
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
4:00 Workshop Gilda Monreal (Fiya Bruxa) Art as tool for social change and community empowerment
Fiya Bruxa is an international award winning visual artist, actress, filmmaker, and writer. Her artistic vision is a social one that questions and celebrates the beauty, dignity and perseverance of those who have, or continue to, overcome adversity and oppression. In visual arts, her chosen mediums of expression include painting, murals, video and installation. As a writer and director, her work has been critically acclaimed and includes her theatre production “Ayelen” (writer and director), her documentary “The Wall That Speaks” (director; produced by the National Film Board of Canada), and her short film “COLD” (co-writer, co-producer, lead actress) which went on to win two international “Best Picture” awards. Fiya’s work has been produced in Canada, USA, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, France, Sweden and Senegal.
6:00 Communal Dinner with Fiya – Meet in the Kitchen
Saturday, May 20th
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
12:30 Audrey Hudson talk and individual Critiques ( Sign Up in Kitchen )
Audrey Hudson is an artist, educator and researcher. As a trained ceramicist, illustrator and creative problem solver, Audrey is a faculty member at OCAD University where she developed a course on the influence of hip-hop on art and design practices. Currently, she is teaching an art and design education course in collaboration with OCAD University and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Audrey recently defended her PhD thesis at University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UT/OISE) entitled, “Decolonizing Indigenous Youth Studies: Photography and Hip Hop as Sites of Resilience”. She believes the arts are a way to bring these rich knowledges and voices of young people into pedagogical spaces to discuss histories of colonization, race, representation and sovereignty. Audrey views the arts as a tool to begin decolonizing education because of the creative platform it provides for historically marginalized communities. Hudson, along with a research team, was recently awarded a SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) Connections Grant, which will bring together hip-hop cultural workers across Canada around education, pedagogy, and creative practice.
6:00 Communal Dinner with Audrey – Meet in the Kitchen ( Dinner Provided )
Sunday, May 21st
8:30 am 30-minute silent morning meditation in the Fireplace Room.
10:30 – 11:30 Group Nature Walk
Monday, May 22st
8:30 – 9:00 Minute Silent Meditation in the Fireplace Room
10:30 – 11:30 Creative Thinking Group Workshop
(Meet in Fireplace Room )
Tuesday, May 22st
8:30 – 9:00 – 30 Minute Silent Meditation in the Fireplace Room
1:00 PM **(Mandatory)** Meeting about planning space use for Open Studio -Meet in Fireplace room
Wednesday, May 24th
8:30 – 9:00 – 30 Minute Silent Meditation in the Fireplace Room
Open Studio Exhibition and Performances
Thursday, May 25th
All Day Group Critique (Mandatory)
Potluck of Leftovers in the Kitchen for Dinner! 7:00 pm
Friday, May 26th – Head home….
