Joshua Vettivelu

Joshua Vettivelu employs video, sculpture, and installation to delve into the phenomenological experience of citizenship. Focusing on the mobilization of neoliberal subjecthood within Canadian citizenship, Vettivelu examines the conditions that define one's humanity in the eyes of a state and its citizens. Vettivelu traces the thresholds of empathy to explore how violence is rationalized against those whose humanity is rendered illegible.

Previous works, like “Prayers for a Word”, use smell and taste to reinterpret the spice trade, revealing how bourgeois desire for new sense experiences accumulated into a system of extraction and dehumanization. “Surface Tension” utilizes the physics of surface tension to create a 70,000 lb sand sculpture, documenting Canada's shifting perception of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. In “Cloud Painter”, Vettivelu offers a speculative fiction that references Canada and Sri Lanka's creative industries to understand why neoliberal states permit art and culture.

Joshua Vettivelu (they/them) is currently pursuing their MFA degree with the support of the Dale & Nick Tedeschi Studio Arts Fellowship. They have previously worked as the Visual Art Manager for Workman Arts, the Managing Director of Artspace TMU, and the Director of Programming at Whippersnapper Gallery. Vettivelu has exhibited in Trinity Square Video (Toronto), the Art Gallery of Ontario, the British Film Institute, Eastern Edge (St. John's Nfld), The Academy of Arts in Prague, the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Archives Gallery (Toronto), the Center for Contemporary Art Glasgow, Nuit Blanche Toronto, and more. Their work is included in multiple private and public collections, including a public installation in St. Michael's Hospital's St. Jamestown Health Center. Vettivelu has been invited to speak at Cornell University, University of Toronto, York University, University of British Columbia, the Canadian Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance and Industry (INDU), alongside multiple grassroots community platforms.

joshuavettivelu.com

Joshua Vettivelu. Surface Tension (or What Holds an 'Us' Together). 2019. Sand, water. Eastern Edge Gallery. St. John's, NL

Joshua Vettivelu. Prayers for a Word (or a Lack that Builds the World). 2021. Beeswax, cinnamon, fire. Visual Art Center of Clarington. Bowmanville, ON.