Wren Tian-Morris is a trans Chinese Canadian artist, facilitator, and organizer. Their creative practice is interdisciplinary and explores themes of pleasure, queerness, and the diaspora. Raised in K’jipuktuk (Halifax), they frequently consider leaving, but are finding themselves rooted in “the little nooks and crannies of the city,” which speaks to the transient nature of this...
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In being invited to contribute to this issue of Visual Arts News on the theme of Change, we decided to put forward a conversation about how important it is for settler cultural workers to embrace and embody not knowing, in order to let go of and mourn attachments to the status quo—a status quo built...
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This event occurred on October 14th 2020, as an Anchor project of Nocturne Halifax. Meeting Waters: Cross-Cultural Collaborations on Environmental Racism with Ingrid Waldron was an online event centering Black and Indigenous solidarity through cross-cultural exchanges on environmental racism in Mi’kma’ki. Speakers and performers were brought together to share stories and experiences of environmental racism...
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Gut Feeling showcases a roster of artists who, in Halifax, are nothing short of beloved. Even on a snowy night in a busy week of exhibition openings, Dalhousie Art Gallery was packed with friends and community members who are deeply devoted to the artists featured. Many artists have practices that intersect with their roles as...
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Emily Critch is a visual artist, curator, and writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry from Elmastukwek, Ktaqamkuk (Bay of Island, Newfoundland). Critch’s work was recently featured in Future Possible (2019) at The Rooms and her upcoming curatorial project mitsujuk | kussikuashu | kpitni’sewet | they sew will be exhibiting in Corner Brook in 2020. Critch...
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“Hometactics,” according to Latina philosopher Mariana Ortega, is a notion of everyday praxis as a way to feel comfortable in unwelcoming worlds, all the while remaining aware of the oppressive nature of dominant norms in those worlds. The contradiction of finding comfort in a hostile environment can be observed in Memorial: Work by Venezuelan Diaspora...
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I expected to cross a number of hurdles during the fourteen weeks I spent hiding my pregnancy from the art world. For instance, I put little pieces of cut-up lime on the rim of tumblers of ginger ale at openings. I vomited in the Cineplex lobby seconds before re-applying my lipstick and introducing filmmakers at...
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What does it mean to revisit the stories we’ve been told, the stories that purport to tell us who we are? And why might we do so in the first place? This is the premise that underpins What Carries Us: Newfoundland and Labrador in the Black Atlantic, an exhibition curated by Toronto-based artist, curator, and...
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“The only thing more powerful than the revolutionary imaginary is revolutionary action. The world can be better. Can be socially just. Can have full. Employment. Can create dignity for all.” The voice belongs to Gillian Dykeman, a Fredericton-based artist, educator, cultural worker, and, in this instance, fitness instructor quasi anti-capitalist comrade.
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Black American visual artist Heather Hart’s series of rooftop oracles based on the four directions (East, West, North, and South) is an-ongoing series of work that offers prophetic predictions for imagining new futures. Most recently, she’s created Northern Oracle, an exhibition curated by Ann MacDonald and presented in partnership with the Africville Heritage Trust at...
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