A short text for
The Conversation Canada:
London, Ontario's history as both a test market town and home to regionalists artists astutely aware of Canada/US relations offers valuable insights for this present moment of trade wars and threats of American annexation.
Image: A 1960s political ad for the Nihilist Party of Canada in the London-based arts publication, 20 Cents Magazine. Image courtesy of McIntosh Gallery.
The fifth edition in this ongoing and
12-part annual series
by
Christof Migone. Presented by the artLAB Gallery in partnership with the Art Gallery Of Hamilton, Doris McCarthy Gallery, Forest City Gallery, Futura Resistenza, Glenfiddich Artists-In-Residence, McIntosh Gallery, NAISA, National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition (NIMAC), Other Sights, the School for Advanced Studies in the Arts & Humanities (SASAH), Thames Art Gallery, and WalkingLab.
The above thumbnail shows stills from video works by SASAH students Kate Armstrong and Claire Liu.
Managing editor for the catalogue publication for
GardenShip and State, an artistic research project, exhibition and series of community-based workshops and projects conceived at the intersection of environmental critique, decolonial theory, and artistic practice. The project examines urgent issues confronting us today: climate change and global warming and the measures states and non-state actors can, or should, take to resolve them. Co-curated by
Patrick Mahon
and
Jeff Thomas, with contributions from 27 artists and authors. Catalogue designed by
Katie Wilhelm. Available for purchase through
Museum London.
Essay contribution toward
An Alternative Cultural History of London, Ontario: Art and Activism, 2024. Edited by Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and designed by Olivia Mossuto. Published by
the Embassy Cultural House. This anthology reveals the vibrant yet often overlooked cultures of London, Ontario. The history of collective action within the city is narrated through essays, conversations, poetry, and archival images. It includes texts and images by 36 contributors.
Conference presentation for Reconnecting and Recovering: The second virtual joint conference of the Literature Film Association and the Association of Adaptation Studies. Remakes, glitch ghosts, fan grief, and ditching climate anxiety to embrace the metaverse. Organizers Julie Grossman, Peter Kunze, Thomas Leitch, and Allen Redman.
Conference presentation for the 2022 Conference of the Universities Art Association of Canada. Let's consider the exhibition in terms of a card spread. Presented for the second of a two-part panel, "Paranormal Exhibitions," chaired by
Jennifer Fisher.
A contribution to In Media Res: Props and Media Materialism about the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII. Cumbersome as it is, the Buster Sword is a hybrid symbol of nostalgia (both within and outside of game play), friendship, inheritance, and the mental and emotional 'Strife' of its wielders.
Based in London, Ontario, the Renal Community Photo Initiative is a collaboratively-driven interdisciplinary partnership between
the Kidney Clinical Research Unit
at the London Health Sciences Centre and the
Department of Visual Arts
at Western University. In this patient-centric interdisciplinary study, participants are invited to use one of five different camera systems to produce images of their lives on dialysis. Project leads are Dr. Chris McIntyre, Cindy House and myself.
"Butler's works don't admit a straightforward order of signification, and are amplified by our disorienting present. [...] Repeating characters and fraught or emancipatory circumstances resurface across decades with: swimmers, bodies mid-step-fall-ascent, conflict, elation, buoyancy and pressure. Butler's strength is in teasing familiar and archetypal moments with restraint." Co-curated by
Pamela Edmonds
and
Patrick Mahon
with Assistant Curator Sarah Charette.
An exhibition organized with Dickson Bou for the
Artlab Gallery
at Western University in January, 2021. This Department show features works from nearly thirty faculty members, staff, and grad students from the Department of Visual Arts at Western (as well as their collaborators). We invited participants to speak to how they've been experiencing the last year, to explore and express how isolation has shifted focus, research, art practice, as well as our forms of connecting with one another. This link will take you to the virtual exhibition which features participant texts, documentation and video features.
A community-focused exhibition, poster and publication project that asked London, Ontario artists: "What do you want?" Initiated for the 2015 founding of
Good Sport Gallery
, and reprised with current residents for its 5th-year anniversary. Featuring anonymous texts and designs from community members, past and present Good Sport residents.
An essay for Blackwood Gallery's broadsheet,
SDUK: Tilting (1), published in the early weeks of COVID-19. I write around a series of images of Eusapia Paladino's technique for freeing her own hand, made by spiritualist investigator Camille Flamarrion. Personal anecdotes and forensic "reading" of the images were written in a moment of collective pause and bewilderment—an attempt to consider crisis in a post-truth era.
A text co-written with artist
Lili Huston-Herterich
for her solo exhibition of the same name at
Zalucky Contemporary
(Toronto).
Collaborative design and editing on an artists' book with participating artists: photographs and photo spreads by
Jeff Downer; writings by Justas Patkauskas. This project is a case of a photographer and a writer trying very hard not to talk to each other. It is the second Split Folio collaborative work published by Edna Press. (external link)
An accompanying text for artist
Adam Revington's
exhibition,
Non-Music Life, Assorted Footage & Projects, at Main Street (Toronto). (external web archive link)
Collaborative design and editing as Edna Press with participating artists: artwork by Sarah Munro; writing by
Faith Patrick.
Black Box
is a creative visualization deck of 10 playing cards for all ages. This is the first Split Folio collaborative work published by Edna Press.
Curated for
McIntosh Gallery
(London, ON), "Anti-Profit" explores the histories and current trajectories of independent arts and literary publishing in London, Ontario.
A conversation-in-text with artist Aislinn Thomas about her video work,
"MOUNTAINS USED TO BE UGLY."
Commissioned for the
London Ontario Media Arts Association's
Broad Topics: A Matrilineage of Media
series, in partnership with A Museum for Future Fossils.
Thanks to Aislinn for creating this larger print, accessible pdf document.
A gently destructive reminder against leaving your books unattended for too long. Sandpaper bookmark with embossing.
A reading event at
Good Press
(Glasgow) featuring artists
Graeme Arnfield,
Taylor Doyle,
Rosie Roberts
and
Josh Thorpe. All four contributors were invited to read and respond to
dog in swimming pool
(Edna Press). Topics ranged across dogs, companionship, Marxism, arts economies, accessibility and emotional labour within artistic education, and publishing for communities.
"One Step Below," a short story by Kirsten Kurvink Palm of
Gitche Sabe
included in the band's 2019 limited edition 7",
Weather Comes. Book design, with a cover illustration by Steven Lourenco and vinyl design by Alayna Hryclik. A collaboration between
Out of Sound Records
and Edna Press, in partnership with
Grooves Records.
An artists' book featuring photography by Mike Jordan and texts by
Kelly Jazvac, Kim Ondaatje, and
Lena Suksi. Designed and edited by myself, and the first publication by Edna Press.
Exhibition text for "But, I'll Just Break Your Arm" at
Good Sport Gallery, for artists
Sofia Berger,
Liam Creed,
Olivia Mossuto, and
Michael Thompson. Taking the form of a (fictionalized) overheard conversation between friends.
An ongoing postcard series that quotes from speculative and concrete conversations about what an artists' pension program could/should look like (or not). Pension Program hearkens back to activist-affectionate histories of mail art in Canada, as well as to London, Ontario as the originating home of Canadian Artists' Representation, now CARFAC.
Guest curated for the 50th Anniversary of the
Department of Visual Arts at Western University. This Cohen Commons exhibition explores student works and convictions from the beginning of the Visual Arts Department to the present. The title excerpts a 1985 essay co-written by students Lesley Soden (Art History & Criticism) and Carolyn Vesely (Studio-Fine Art) to introduce their graduating show. Soden and Vesely continue: "The year's success was met through challenge," a sentiment echoed throughout five decades of collected experience and ephemera.
Forward for Forest City Gallery's
Digest: Vol 2 - "What is Left? What is Right?" This publication accompanied an exhibition of the same name co-curated by
Christina Battle
and
Jenna Faye Powell. It brought together work by 13 Canadian women artists spanning from 1895-2017, created in varying political, social, and economic climates. Some of the considerations illuminated in this exhibition included identity politics in relation to place/land, representation, feminism, and agency.
For the exhibition booklet for Cold Front by McIntosh Gallery (London, ON), an essay contribution about Jamelie Hassan's landmark installation work, The Trial of the Gang of Four, and a series of artist interviews with Hassan, Kim Moodie, Thelma Rosner. The exhibition considers London, Ontario artists working during the Cold War (1947-91). In this period of heightened political tension, capitalist and communist countries battled to shape global economic development and modernization according to their respective ideals.
Catalogue design for Bad Sport, a collection of feminist writing and artworks released in conjunction with
Elise Boudreau Graham's
solo exhibition,
If it Makes you Happy (It Can't Be That Bad)
,
Good Sport Gallery. Curated by
Genevieve Flavelle.
BOREDOM was an interdisciplinary graduate conference focusing on research, art-making and experience to engage the artistic and theoretical potentials and challenges of this peculiar concept. Organized in partnership with
VASA, the
London Ontario Media Arts Association,
artLAB,
McIntosh Gallery,
Museum London,
Western Arts & Humanities, and
Western Social Science.
Reading Room was a temporary installation created in collaboration with critic/writer
A. D. Coleman
at
The Petrified Forest Gallery
(London, ON). It ran talks, activities, and exhibitions dedicated to generating dialogue around Coleman's concept of practical criticism. Participating artists included
Dave Kemp,
Gillian Dykeman,
Brad Isaacs,
Jenna Faye Powell,
Mack Ludlow, and
Patrick Mahon.
An arts-focused forum for the sharing of research, work, and ideas between Western University faculty, students, and the public. Participating artists included
Patrick Mahon,,
Mark Kasumovic,
Jared Peters,
Kelly Jazvac,
Matthew Purvis, and
Gabriella Solti. Poster image from Mark Kasumovic.
Photo-based publications, self-published between 2011 and 2013.