Art History Graduate Conference: no neutral art, no neutral art historians

no neutral art, no neutral art historians (11th annual art history graduate student association conference, concordia university, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka traditional territory)

All events are free and wheelchair accessible. The York Amphitheatre (EV.1.605) is located on ground level, whereas both the EV Junction and the Digital Image Slide Collection (3rd floor) are accessible by elevator.

The following bathrooms are gender neutral: 1.42, 2.406, 2.608, 3.408, 3.608.

We would like to warmly thank the Concordia University Graduate Studies, the Concordia Council on Student Life (CCSL), the Graduate Students Association - Concordia University, the Concordia University Alumni Association and the Department of Art History for their financial support.

Untitled, for now, an installation by Uppity NDNs, FOFA Courtyard.

This work is made of 10,000 red beads. We take one bead that sits all alone and string it together into a larger piece. Our individual stories together are what form the larger narrative; what it means to be Indigenous women living in an urban space in 2017. As a beaded form is realized, the form confronts space, we are holding this space for missing women. Together the beads form the shape of a droplet. Think of a teardrop, a teardrop that turns red. Now the teardrop is stained and in it’s place blood.

Cheli Nighttraveller, Camille Usher, and Isabella-Rose Weetaluktuk together are the founding members of the Uppity NDNs, an all-Indigenous women’s biking collective, using biking as a methodology to decolonize space, inspire relevant conversations, and spur creative production of all kinds. We find the bike to be a vehicle of autonomy, self-care, empowerment, and a means to incorporate health and wellness into our lives as urban Indigenous women who aim to occupy space with our bodies and our art. Our goal in making publicly visible artworks is that we hope people will take it upon themselves to invest in new ways of thinking about decolonization and spatial indigenization. We try to make visible the presence of Indigenous women and to be accountable for each others’ well being and safety in a society where our lives are often taken for granted. The Uppity NDNs sprung from a conversation Cheli Nighttraveller and Camille Usher had published earlier this year. Since that initial conversation, several other Indigenous women have joined the group and together as a community, we are working to raise awareness of Indigenous women’s bodies in the public sphere.

Friday, January 27th, 2017

18:30 - 20:00, York Amphitheatre, EV 1.605

Introductory Remarks

A talk by Goth Shakira - 'but like i just want to tell instagram all my secrets without having to worry about 4chan neo-nazis: Autobiography, Intersectionality and Privacy in Political Meme Art'

Goth Shakira is an internet artist, writer and editor based in Montreal. She is interested in how low culture, mystic spirituality and memetic patterns of thought transmission relate to intersectional feminism. Her work has appeared in the FADER and has been covered by i-D, Flare and W magazines, and has been shown in Montreal, Toronto and London.

From a dollar-store diary with a plastic lock to a series of viral Instagram posts that have culminated in an online performance art practice, Dre AKA Goth Shakira has always been obsessed with both documenting and protecting her secrets. Her work today aims to incorporate a tension between objective distance and subjective intimacy into sociopolitical commentary. She has used the accessibility of memes to cross-pollinate low culture with aspects of intersectional feminist thought which may have before been considered relegated to liberal academia — but not without (predominantly male, right-leaning) backlash. Does a subjective, autobiographic angle render the work of femmes less viable? In a Tr*mpist context, can the internet ever be safe for increasingly more radicalized immigrant femmes? How do we protect ourselves without compromising our voices and our art? In an attempt to answer these and other questions, Goth Shakira navigates discursive spheres in which URL and IRL are not mutually exclusive.

https://www.instagram.com/gothshakira/

Saturday, January 28th, 2017

9:00-10:30: Confronting colonial images, York Amphitheatre, EV 1.605

Moderator: Travis Wysote

Travis Wysote is a Listuguj Mi’gmaq researcher, currently studying and living in Haudenosaunee territory. He holds a Master’s degree in Art History and Communication Studies from McGill University, a Bachelor’s degree in Honors History from the University of New Brunswick, and is currently working towards his Interdisciplinary PhD in Humanities at Concordia University. His research interests are broadly related to Mi’gmaq history and culture, with writings on Mi’gmaq treaties, aesthetics of sovereignty, and the politics of genocide recognition. As of late, Travis is working towards the integration of Indigenous and Western forms of scientific knowledge by attempting to reconcile the ontological, epistemological, and ethical frameworks of Mi’gmaq Creation stories with the “agential realism” articulated by feminist quantum physicist Karen Barad.

> Marilou Thomassin. Helen Bannerman and Little Black Sambo (1899): A legacy of Othering and the dehumanization of the black subject in Canada through children’s literature

Marilou Thomassin studied photography at Champlain College in St-Lambert and proceeded to McGill University in Montreal to complete her bachelor’s degree in art history and education. Recipient of the 2016 “National Student Research Competition” at the National Association of African American Studies and Affiliates, Marilou is currently working on her master’s thesis at McGill University under the supervision of Dr. Charmaine Nelson. Her current work focuses on the representation of black children and the visual culture of slavery in New France.

> Joana Joachim. You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat: Unpacking the Cultural Significance of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Maritime Landscapes in Canada

Joana Joachim is a PhD Student in Art History at McGill University working under the supervision of Dr. Charmaine Nelson. Joachim holds a Masters degree in Museology from Université de Montréal. Joachim is a member at large of the Ethnocultural Art Histories Research Group. She has been published in Tic-Art-Toc a publication on diversity in the arts. Joachim has also given guest lectures at UQAM, Bishop’s University and McGill University and spoken at conferences including the Black Canadian Studies Association Biennale. Her current research interests include critical race theory, Black feminist studies, Black Canadian studies and Canadian slavery studies. Her work examines representations Black women in Canadian and American nineteenth century genre paintings, she is particularly interested in notions of identity, self-representations and self-fashioning.

> Magdalena Miłosz. (Not) approved: Alex Janvier's Art in Colonized and Colonizing Spaces

Magdalena Miłosz is a doctoral student at McGill University, where her research focuses on the historical uses of architecture in the Canadian government’s attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples. Her work is supported by a Doctoral Fellowship from SSHRC and a Schulich Graduate Fellowship from McGill. Magda's writing on art and architecture has previously appeared in print and online. She is also an intern architect

and holds a Master of Architecture and an Honours Bachelor of Architectural Studies (With Distinction) from the University of Waterloo.

10:30-10:45 Coffee, EV Junction (EV 2.789)

10:45-12:15: Situating the self, York Amphitheatre, EV 1.605

Moderator: Corinn Gerber

Corinn Gerber is an MA Candidate at Concordia University’s Department of Art History. She is also an editor and publisher, co-founder of Passenger Books, former Director of Art Metropole (Toronto) and the CCA Bookstore (Montreal), and Deputy Director of Zurich’s Women’s Bookstore, among others.

> Tamara Harkness. Liberating the Archive: Black Histories and Pedagogical Approaches in the Work of Deanna Bowen

Tamara Harkness studied textile art in both Vancouver and Halifax where she earned her BFA at NSCAD University. Frustrated with a lack of representation in the field, she began the art history master's program at Concordia University in 2014 where her focus is on Black Canadian art. Since her arrival in Montreal she has been heavily involved with Concordia's Ethnocultural Art History Research group (EAHR). EAHR is a student driven organization that facilitates opportunities for exchange and creation in the examination of and engagement with issues of ethnic and cultural representation within the visual arts in Canada. Alongside her academic research, Tamara is a practicing textile artists whose current work deals with microaggressions and inherent racial biases.

> Lauren Fournier. Feminist Auto-Theory as a Counter to Formalism: Considering Chris Kraus’s Art Writing Practice

Lauren Fournier is an artist and writer who works across media. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, she holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from the University of Regina and a Masters in English from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver with a focus on feminist performance theory. She is currently a PhD candidate in English at York University, where she researches auto-theory as a mode of contemporary feminist practice across media. Her work has been shown in galleries, artist-run centres, and alternative spaces across Canada, the United States, and Berlin. Her writing has been published in Canadian Art, Magenta, The Journal of Comparative Media Arts, West Coast Line, Canadian Journal of Woman Studies, and Ineffable Magazine.

12:15-13:30: Lunch, Digital Image Slide Collection, EV 3.741

13:30-15:00: The BIPOC Imaginary Space; Memory and Resistance, York Amphitheatre, EV 1.605

Moderators : Kanwal Syed and Nima Esmailpour

Kanwal Syed completed her under-graduation as a studio-practicing artist, with a minor in painting and major in sculpture (with Honors) from National College of Arts, Pakistan.

In 2012, she completed her M.A thesis in Art History  from University Sains Malaysia, entitled Caught in The Middle”: Socio-Political Imageries in Contemporary Art in Pakistan Post 9/11 (2001-2013). She is the author of two published texts in peer reviewed international journals. She is currently in the second year of her Ph.D.  program at the Art History Department, Concordia University. Her research interests encompass contemporary Pakistani Art. Specifically her current research aims at documenting the curvature in the visual trajectory of Pakistani artistic discourse pre and post post 9/11, focusing on the genealogy of the representation of the “female” image throughout Pakistan’s artistic history, with a particular emphasis on shifting representation of this image after the incident of 9/11.

Nima Esmailpour is an Iranian artist, art historian and educator based in Montreal. He is the co-founder of Taklif, an imaginary platform and travelling library project that promotes the (un)learning practices associated with the BIPOC community through art and dialogue. He graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with a MA in Art & Politics and is currently pursuing a PhD in the Department of Art History at Concordia University. His research examines shifts in art production enabled by discursive and institutional (trans)formations in the Middle East.

www.taklif.org/about
info@taklif.org

>Taklif : تكليفpresentation

> Hanoor Bhangu. Making Space: Curating Islamic Art in Western Museums

Harnoor Bhangu received her Bachelor of Arts in the History of Art from University of Winnipeg, where she is currently working on her Master of Arts in Cultural Studies: Curatorial Practices. After the completion of this program, she wishes to pursue a PhD in contemporary Islamic Art. Her focus is on South East Asian, Central Asian and Middle-Eastern artists who interrogate gender, religion and diaspora in their work. Harnoor is currently researching Islamic artists in the city of Winnipeg, Canada to understand what kind of opportunities and arenas are available to them.

> Vince Rozario. Imagining Resistance and Globality through Video Ephemera

I am an independent curator, writer, researcher and community organizer focusing on issues of decolonizing the canon, multiple modernities, queer diasporas, and transnational futures. Having observed vibrant cultural scenes both at the centre of Canadian and Global art ecosystems, my work aims to explore modes of art production and circulation that circumvent the current globalizing trends in the art market.

> Samantha Merritt. Mimcry and Subversion of the Archive in Ursula Johnson's Mi'kwite'tmn (Do You Remember)

Samantha Merritt is in her final year of her MA in the Art History Department of Concordia University. Her thesis, titled "Sincere Irony and Crafting Critique: Institutional Memory in Ursula Johnson’s Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember)" examines the work of contemporary artist Ursula Johnson. Samantha's research focuses on the intersecting relationships between education, art institutions, craft, and race.

15:00-15:15: Coffee, EV Junction (EV 2.789)

15:15-16:45: Radical interventions, York Amphitheatre, EV 1.605

Moderator: D.J. Fraser

D.J. Fraser is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (BA, Art History) and the University of Victoria (MA, History in Art) and a third year doctoral student at Concordia University. As a writer, an art historian and an instructor, they operate at the intersection between archival practices and queer cultural production in the frame of art history’s evolving relationships with archives. In their current work they are exploring the content of the Electronic Media and Film Art Memory Archive for queer developments in New York Art HIstory; trans initiatives on campuses across Canada and ways in which to think through and “queer” museum practices.

> Anastasia Tuazon. Public Space, Painful Memory:  Responses to “Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt

Anastasia is a PhD student in the department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at Stony Brook University in New York. She is interested in offering a queer-feminist critique of visual culture, and her recent research traces the genealogies of thought around gendered subjectivities within the history of feminist art and performance.

> Nazik Dakkach. Future-less? Sans-futur ? Futurismes décoloniaux : hantologies dans les enjeux actuels de recherche et de commissariat

Born in Casablanca, Nazik Dakkach currently lives in Montreal where she is a MA candidate in Art History at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Her research mobilizes decolonial futurist methodologies and examines contemporary orientalisms and the effects of coloniality on art historical research and curating. She is also active as an independant curator and as an artist within transdisciplinary collective Artivistic.

> Genevieve Flavelle. The Night Before Utopia: Queer Feminist Art Praxis

Genevieve Flavelle has been known to curate exhibitions and write about art. After completing her Art History BA at NSCAD University in Halifax NS, she recently completed an MA in Art History at Western University, ON. Genevieve's research and curatorial interests include queer feminist art practices, feminist curatorial strategies, contemporary art, and queer theory. Genevieve views her academic, artistic, and activist practices as interconnected and she is interested in art as a meeting ground for politics, theory, creation, and agitation. She is currently based in Toronto ON.

16:45-20:30: Closing reception, EV Junction (EV 2.789)

DJ set by Geronimo Inutiq

Geronimo Inutiq is an electronic music producer, DJ, and multimedia artist. He takes his cultural experiences from living in metropolitan centres and his Inuit and aboriginal traditions, and mashes it into expressive and captivating soundscapes. He also does video work, and installation art in galleries, and likes to work with digital images, photography and painting. Guided by the notion that creative personal expression is a highly subjective experience, he is interested in the dialogue that emerges between the individual and the increasingly large and complex interrelated circles of socially constructed systems of meaning.

http://umati.webs.com/

Programme Notes:

Presentations in English or French. Bilingual discussion to follow.

For more information about the activities of the Art History Department, please consult the following page: https://www.concordia.ca/finearts/art-history.html.