How can I know you?
CURATOR: Suzanne Morrissette
ARTISTS:
KC Adams
Anong Beam
Panya Clark Espinal
Melissa General
Dana Prieto
Krista Belle Stewart
Using materials sourced from the earth, the artists in How can I know you? work to share site-specific knowledge about kinship and generational relations, industry and settlement, social and political histories tied to settler nationalism and institutions, and about Indigenous territories in dialogue with one another.
How can I know you? is a question that comes from a comment artist Panya Clark Espinal shared during a studio visit with curator Suzanne Morrissette. It is a question that Clark Espinal asks of her materials, both as a way of coming to know them, as well as coming to know people, place, and history through the act of engaging with materials. It is a question that supposes the liveliness and agency of these materials and their capacity to share and convey knowledge.
This question guides the exhibition with a suggestion that the way we learn imparts an opportunity of acquaintance with possibility. It suggests that one’s approach to getting to know someone, or something, can influence the nature of that future relationship and the degree to which we are able to acknowledge and validate that which lies outside of our own experiences. Thinking about art practices that highlight the animacy of clay and land-based materials can, in this way, support a discussion about how we understand relationships between human and non-human beings, and the unique social and political contexts in which we are not only situated but with which we are in relation. This is an ethic of learning that is rooted in understandings of the animacy of the land and of our own states of belonging, of being out-of-place, or, of being in complex relations of power and history in an ever-changing world.
Meet The Artists
Suzanne Morrissette
Suzanne Morrissette has recently exhibited Gallery 44, Toronto, and daphne art centre, Montreal. Her work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions such as Lii Zoot Tayr (Other Worlds), an exhibition of Metis artists working with concepts of the unknowable, and the group exhibition of audio-based work about waterways called FLOW with imagineNATIVE Film + Media Art Festival.
In recent years Suzanne has organized two curatorial research projects to recognize and honor the legacies of artistic knowledge in her hometown of Winnipeg. One of her SSHRC-funded research projects, Social Histories/Indigenous Art examines the history of Indigenous visual culture in Winnipeg, with specific emphasis on visual art projects related to Indigenous-led social advocacy during the 1980s and 1990s. A related and yet to be titled Canada Council for the Arts-funded project involves working with artists who were active in Winnipeg between 1970-1996 to collect audio- and photo-based stories about Indigenous art histories in the city. This time period represents a gap in recorded history related to Indigenous artistic production in Winnipeg, which the project will address. These stories will be shared through an interactive online platform that will launch in its first iteration in summer/fall 2023.
Morrissette is also leading a team of researchers on a partnership with artist run centres in Canada to examine questions about how to meaningfully implement Equity, Diversity and Inclusion initiatives (EDI) and governance. Our collective work will address barriers and disparities within past and present governance models to inform future policy and program design within the arts.
Morrissette holds a Ph.D. from York University in Social and Political Thought. She currently holds the position of Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director for the Criticism and Curatorial Practices and Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Histories Masters programs at OCAD University.
Gallery
