B.4.1 Utopia as Method: Feminisms within Canadian Artist-Run Centres

• Amber Berson, Independent

What is a flourishing future? When applied to the state of artist-run centre (arc) culture, and specifically feminist identified arcs, in Canada, questions that follow include, who gets to represent futurity? How are arcs and art communities transformed by the inclusions of Indigenous and Black futures and futurism? How and by whom is feminism defined in these spaces? How does white feminism get out of the way of a flourishing future, or how doesn‘t it? Throughout, I return to the concept of utopia as method. At its core, Ruth Levitas‘s method comprises three simple steps: state the problem, attempt an archaeological dig of the past to shed insight into how we reached the problem, and then educate our desires. This grounding in utopian methodology leads me to specifically ask: how can arcs benefit most from incorporating intersectional feminism and anti-oppression work into their daily operations? Here I consider a selection of historically feminist arcs, active during the second wave of feminism to the present, to understand how they advanced specific feminist agendas, and to evaluate what kind of impact state policy and state funding priorities had on these arcs. In my survey of feminist-run arcs in Ontario, both historical and contemporary, I have found one major consistency: if a space was explicitly feminist, run by women, worked on issues of gender and cultural equity, and applied for public funding, then it struggled financially—and consequently with member retention—and shut down. Organizations at the forefront of challenging the norm with regards to diversity—organizations that lobbied for critical changes in policy for women—were systematically ignored by the funding bodies they hoped to change. Given these realities, what strategies have been developed or need to emerge in order for futures arcs to actually take shape?

keywords: artist-run centes, feminist institutions, resiliance, utopia as method

B.4.2 Conversational Quilt Project

Lindsey Bond, Independent Artist

I will discuss The Conversational Quilt as a participatory art project, a flexible site and method for unsettling divergent and overlapping colonial inheritances in home and institutional spaces. The on-going project brings together a collective of artists, folx, parents and grandparents, self-identified as the Collab Quilt Collective. The Conversational Quilt invites the creation of individual “quilt” pieces that attempt to reveal, unravel and re-story inherited settler colonial harms to sew a more conscious legacy forward.

The collective members come together through the conceptual prompt of working with inherited piece of material, item or a skill. Size, colour, material and quilt patterns continue to be open to each artist’s interpretation radically stepping away from highly structured and production based traditional quilting group projects.

Fostering a safe environment for decolonial discussions inside and outside of the home is core to the health of the project. The group has found unique ways of working separately and together at different stages that keep the conversations critical and generative. The practice of the Conversational Quilt calls attention to ongoing repair work of engaging in critical family conversations (Hunt and Holmes 2015). The Conversational Quilt also engages in “sewing as material conversation” (Strohmayer 2021), as a process to learn about slow textile processes, uplift materials as teachers and metabolize the weight of settler colonial inheritance Over time, the discussions aim to build a foundation for intergenerational settler responsibility, accountability and healing.

The Collective critically questions how the “quilt” pieces (from different territories, backgrounds and nations) will be presented in the future deeply considering how transportation and collective quilt making has previously paralleled monolithic nation state building. This project rather serves to grow artist-family connections through listening and sharing stories. Each artist contributes a critical perspective that facilitates collective learning in turn supporting folx/folks in different living rooms, kitchens, classrooms and gallery spaces.

keywords: critical material conversation, textiles, participatory art, repair work, Collab Quilt Collective

B.4.3 Seen and Heard: dialogue, active listening, and visual representation to create presence, resistance and change

Lisa Wood, Brandon University

My visual art practice has been investigating how listening, dialogue, and intimate exchanges can facilitate interpersonal connection, share knowledge, create transparency and dispel illusions of power, prestige, and exclusion. In my two ongoing bodies of work, The Dinner Parties and Table Making, I am preparing, hosting and documenting home cooked meals with artists. In The Dinner Parties I dined with gender marginalized artists to discuss gender equity in the art world, and in my new series Table Making I am dining with socially engaged artists to understand how they are disrupting broader systems such as colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy. Artworks resulting from these dinners have included multimedia figurative drawings and paintings that examine common physical gestures, and an ongoing pursuit of accompanying sound art components.

The name for the project Table Making was inspired by Carmella Laganse and Taien Ng-Chan’s contribution to the UAAC panel Radicalizing the Lazy Academy (2019), and Ng-Chan’s following essay Towards a Radical Re-Thinking of Tables (Ng-Chan, 2020), where she describes the efforts artists at the margins are making to create their own tables, instead of waiting for, or accepting, a seat at the table that already exists. “Let us call our tables places of friendship, where we can develop relationships, networks, spaces for ourselves. Let us teach each other and learn from each other’s mistakes in table-building.”(p.79)

The sharing of a meal and intimate time together is a strategy for inviting speculative analysis of current socio-political conditions, visioning what more supportive environments might look like and strategizing ways to get artists (and academics) what they need to continue to make art and find meaning in their practices. My art practice reflects my desire to create spaces for listening and learning, and to collectively consider alternatives to the dominant systems.

Reference: RACAR, Vol. 45, no. 1 (2020)

keywords: dialogue, active listening, feminism, visual representation