Watch our May 27 panel discussion celebrating Asian Heritage Month with Roy Caussy, Gwenessa Lam and Marigold Santos, moderated by AGA Executive Director/Chief Curator Catherine Crowston.Watch our May 27 panel discussion celebrating Asian Heritage Month with Roy Caussy, Gwenessa Lam and Marigold Santos, moderated by AGA Executive Director/Chief Curator Catherine Crowston. …
Key moments
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Catherine Crowston
Catherine Crowston
2:15
Catherine Crowston
2:15
Roy Cossey
Roy Cossey
3:06
Roy Cossey
3:06
Marigold Santos
Marigold Santos
4:36
Marigold Santos
4:36
Aswang
Aswang
10:42
Aswang
10:42
Butterfly Sleeve
Butterfly Sleeve
15:48
Butterfly Sleeve
15:48
The Articulate Object
The Articulate Object
25:36
The Articulate Object
25:36
The Clay Cup Series
The Clay Cup Series
36:53
The Clay Cup Series
36:53
Mountain Club Feasts
Mountain Club Feasts
39:54
Mountain Club Feasts
39:54
Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript.
2:05
good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us for this special artist conversation organized as part of the archive of
2:12
awareness programming in recognition of asian heritage month my name is catherine crowston and i’m
2:17
the executive director and chief curator of the aga i would like to begin by acknowledging that we’re hosting this event from
2:23
edmonton i’m a swarachi waskahikin in treaty six territory and region four of the metis nation of
2:30
alberta we acknowledge this as the traditional ancestral home of the new hawk
2:35
anishinabe soto mitsutapi blackfoot nakota sioux dene and metis peoples and
2:42
acknowledge the many indigenous first nations and inward people who make alberta their home today
2:47
we recognize that this acknowledgement is just one small recognition of the work that we need to do
2:52
to address and reverse the ongoing impacts of colonization it’s my great pleasure to be able to
2:58
introduce the three artists panelists who are joining us today to share their work in this special conversation
3:04
born and raised in hamilton ontario roy cossey’s practice is an outcome of his semi-nomadic lifestyle
3:11
having established studios in hamilton vancouver medicine hat and halifax khasi conceptualizes his
3:17
journeying as the inheritance of his family’s history of immigration and diaspora
3:22
while allowing the geography and history of each place he inhabits to inform his practice
3:28
most recently causey spent four months living with his mom in hamilton where every sunday he learned to cook
3:33
meals that both he and his mother grew up eating casey has received various grants
3:38
including those from the national canada council for the arts and it’s exhibited both nationally and
3:44
internationally this summer he will be in part of a group exhibition we do not work alone curated by jesse
3:51
burch at the nanaimo art gallery roy cossey currently resides in halifax
3:56
nova scotia glenessa lamb is the visual artist and educator
4:01
lam received her bfa from the university of british columbia and an mfa from new york university
4:07
her work has been exhibited at the bronx museum of art the queen’s museum of art in new york the gallery to ucam and montreal and the
4:14
glenbaum museum she has been an artist in residence at the virginia center for the creative
4:19
arts skull hagen mcdonald colony yatto as well as the banff center
4:25
lam has taught at new york university the university of british columbia the alberta university of the arts and
4:31
is currently associate professor at emily carr university of arkansas in vancouver marigold santos was born in
4:38
the philippines and immigrated with her family to canada in 1988 she pursues an interdisciplinary art
4:45
practice involving drawn painted and printed works sculpture tattooing and sound
4:51
her work explores selfhood and identity that embraces multiplicity fragmentation and empowerment
4:58
as informed by experiences of movement and migration she holds a bfa from the university of
5:04
calgary and an mfa from concordia university as a recipient of grants from the county council for the
5:10
arts the alberta foundation for the arts and that concedes art it is lecture to quebec she continues to exhibit widely
5:17
across canada marigold maintains an active studio practice and resides in treaty 7
5:23
territory in mokinsus calgary before i turn things over to our guest
5:28
speakers just a few notes each of the artists will speak for about 10 to 15 minutes following which we will
5:33
have a moderated conversation and answer your questions please answer any questions you have
5:38
using the chat function i would also like to take this opportunity to thank epcor
5:44
who support aga online programming through their heart and soul fund as well as the support of the canada
5:49
council for the arts please join me now in welcoming marigold santos
6:01
hello everybody uh thank you for joining us today my name is marigold santos and
6:09
before i begin i just want to take uh this moment to let you know that i am presenting to
6:15
you from 2d7 territory and i would like to acknowledge the traditional territories of the people of
6:20
the 27 region in southern alberta which includes the blackfoot confederacy comprising of the sikhsica
6:26
pikani and kainai first nations as well as the satina first nation and estonia nakota
6:32
the city of calgary is also home to metis national of alberta region 3 and as i live and
6:39
work as a settler on this land i commit to practicing decolonization as a process of constant
6:44
and continuous listening and learning and acting with care responsibility and
6:50
gratitude so with that i’m going to begin and talk a little bit about
6:55
my most recent work as you can see here the title of the pieces that are grouped
7:01
together here is bini at which in tagalog means seeds and knots
7:14
so so so uh this is my first slide here this is pieces titled shroud anastomosis
7:22
and as uh catherine had said in my bio my work really deals with themes of
7:27
selfhoods that are empowered and that are fragmented
7:32
and multiple through a look at a diasporic experience where i
7:39
critically look at the heritage of my culture to try to understand my personal
7:46
experiences and where i come from and my roots and my ancestry and how they inform my identity today which is a multiple
7:53
and porous identity so my work takes on the form of
7:58
other worldly uh images so i borrow and are i reference folklore of my
8:05
heritage fables and sensorial memories of my own personal lived experience
8:13
and i take those and i reconfigure them and i reconceptualize them so this particular one uh refers to a
8:20
fable the origins of the pineapple fruit which is a really important fruit in the
8:27
philippines you know it’s its leaves um produce a fiber where traditional fabrics come from um
8:35
it’s a very particular flavor and the palette of philippine cuisine um but it’s not
8:42
necessarily native to the philippines and it’s actually introduced through colonization and so
8:48
um in this fable depending on who’s telling it and how you hear it it deals with a little girl who’s either
8:56
um losing her eyesight or she’s lazy and uh isn’t isn’t earnest and so
9:04
um a hex is kurt is put on her curse by her loved one and she disappears and
9:10
is reborn as a fruit with a hundred eyes and so
9:16
the fable really talks about obedience and earnestness and um you know following the rules and
9:22
and um here you can see it maybe not so well but uh in this particular image the figure
9:29
is wearing this sort of big hat that has a lot of eyeballs and it’s got the texture of a pineapple so
9:35
it’s not quite necessarily distinct um the foundations of what i’m working with
9:42
unless you you get to know it a little bit more um often in my imagery
9:47
you’ll see giant hats or big garments or objects that these figures are wearing
9:52
and they uh refer to the shroud that is an ongoing and continuous
9:58
sort of part of my visual vocabulary so here’s the next one here um
10:04
and so you can kind of see this sort of shroud element it takes on a different form but there is a continuity of visual
10:11
elements like the inkiness of the figure and this atmospheric landscape also the figure is unraveling and um
10:19
in this image vocabulary of mine the woven is to represent the repaired or a figure
10:26
that is being recreate recreated and through that woven through that
10:31
unraveling there creates strengthening and resilience so it’s a radical way of
10:37
looking at folklore and in this particular way this folklore that i talk about is a figure called an aswang and for
10:43
those who are familiar with my work will recognize this figure i mainly use it as a metaphor
10:50
for a diasporic experience in that this figure is has the ability to self-sever it
10:57
comes from a rich history and also comes from colonial violence so
11:02
what i do in my work is i really reconfigure that i invert it and i create new meaning through that
11:08
and this particular one the figure is dancing which relates to folk dance of my heritage and is holding a particular
11:15
fruit and this one are tamarind pods in tagalog and again tamarind is something that is
11:22
very important in terms of sensorial memory it’s a flavor profile that’s very distinct in
11:28
cuisine of the philippines
11:35
and this next one here you can see a severed hand that’s sort of like fluid and
11:41
amorphous again the imagery here refers back uh to that aswan character of the severing
11:47
of the self um and the characteristics of that and when i make these works what i’m
11:53
reflecting on is a way of trying to grasp at my heritage or my culture that’s very difficult to possess being
12:01
part of the diaspora most of our learning is presented in fragments so i
12:06
you know i don’t have the luxury of being immersed in my homeland and in that culture 24 7.
12:13
so what comes to me comes in fragments and it’s okay to embrace that process and whatever process that
12:19
that takes shape in um and so some of those those uh fragments that come to you
12:26
are through sensorial memories like taste or touch and smell and sight um and and even invented
12:33
memories that you kind of like uh try to invent in your in your mind
12:38
so here are these um these fruits are sprouting from these fingers uh it’s called tempus or a rose apple
12:46
um and the next slide here is very similar as well
12:51
this one here again features a severed hand that’s kind of fluid and
12:57
amorphous similar to the last one but this one is referring to a fragrance maybe a particular
13:02
particular smell of a roselle flower or type of our gardenia
13:08
it’s very distinct it has a very cute smell and it’s found in on wreaths
13:15
and garlands in many many many households in the philippines uh particularly catholic households
13:21
because these wreaths are used to adorn religious icons so um you know when when sort of tapping
13:29
into this smell i’m making these connections with my heritage with my homeland with my experience of my past
13:36
through this particular sensorial memory which is transportative and transformative in itself
13:42
and the fluidity of this image really speaks to this identity or a selfhood
13:48
that’s always constantly in flux and then process and is evolving and that in itself creates that
13:57
self-actualization through that reflection of critical thinking and questioning and remembering
14:08
and the last two slides i’m going to show you are ink drawings of mine that relate to tattoo practice so the subject matter
14:15
in these next two uh drawings have to do with my heritage again so they are
14:22
fragmented pieces um derived from my grader work so you might
14:27
recognize pieces in there uh textures from my painting something from my sculpture they all
14:33
deal with the same the the same concepts the same themes my tattoo practice is one of the same as
14:39
part of my studio practice as a whole these are ink on paper and ink on paper
14:46
obviously to me has a relationship to ink on skin very different but they’re cross-referential um
14:53
and here i’m dealing with fragments of experiences so you might see textures of the landscape of my heritage
14:59
you might see actual objects that then go to live on the skin of someone else so
15:05
in a way when i tattoo it’s a way for me to create conversation
15:12
and exchange and dialogue and it’s a way to share my culture and uh with another person where we have
15:19
this very you know intimate and reciprocal environment um so some things that you might see in
15:26
this flash this is what we call flash so it’s available for people to choose from and get tattooed uh with
15:33
or might be you know plants and objects animal life that’s related to my heritage and you
15:40
know that one shape there that’s kind of like a crescent or i guess it’s like a tombstone shape
15:46
um it’s a sleeve it’s called a butterfly sleeve on a traditional dress that you would
15:52
find in the philippines um called eterno and it’s just one sleeve and it
15:58
might look abstract to others but you know for some people who know what it is it’s it’s very iconic and they know what
16:04
that is and so when i create imagery like this it really provides a way for me to connect
16:11
with my dysport community and a way for us to have these ties
16:16
through the imagery through my reconceptualization of my themes through dialogue and in
16:24
essence a way for me to connect with my heritage and to keep my heritage alive in me as
16:29
i live and learn and evolve through through time so that’s a
16:35
very quick summary of my work um thank you so much for listening and i’m
16:41
gonna pass it on next to gwenessa thank you
16:56
hi everyone like the little jack in the box coming up here that was amazing thank
17:01
you so much marigold um just to start us off in those wonderful thoughts to um build on i have lots of things with
17:08
cool chat about and thank you catherine um michael and helen who are behind the scenes
17:13
doing their magic uh their wizards dre and i’m just gonna put my little reminder
17:19
here and of course rory i’m really excited just to be uh here with with all of you this afternoon um so i
17:26
am speaking to you from the traditional territories um the unseated territories of the muslim squamish and slave tooth nations
17:34
um and i have been thinking a lot about my relationship to this place
17:40
and the wisdom and resilience that very much resides in these lands and
17:47
i myself was born in vancouver but as a chinese racialized settler
17:53
i’ve been thinking about that what that means and my work has shifted to think about my family’s
17:59
migration here in terms of its relationships um relationships to
18:05
the lands where we are from and the relationships to the lands that we arrive
18:10
to i know my time here is is um with you is brief so i’m going to
18:15
quickly try to share um uh two uh artworks or just sort of two visor ways of thinking
18:22
that considers these connections between um different lands and cultural histories
18:29
um so in in leia especially i think in light of of current events
18:35
especially i particularly with with anti-racist conversations uh i’ve also been thinking a lot about
18:41
um ideas of visibility and legibility so that’s what i was thinking about when i titled this
18:47
you know are thinking through the idea of like writing the illegible um so what it means to be seen
18:55
uh but also to be understood and legibility and conversely eligibility are i i think
19:02
are interesting words to me because it both links and sets apart the act of seeing and the act of knowing
19:10
and and they don’t always coincide uh you can you can see a scrawled word or image clearly
19:17
without actually understanding it um however i want to i’ve been wanting to
19:23
explore the idea of the illegible or the unrecognizable not as a roadblock
19:29
per se but as a generative a prompt uh where our movement towards
19:35
a desire to understand can can open up a different way of thinking
19:40
and a little bit rusty here
19:46
okay um so i began considering i think ideas of
19:52
legibility and and um in an earlier body of work titled mongrel histories
19:58
and this was a series of drawings uh based on a collection of buildings these are
20:03
historical buildings known as the kai thing dulo and answer using the the cantonese
20:08
pronunciation and dulo are multi they’re these multi-story homes
20:14
built mostly in the early 1900s and uh they were spread out throughout
20:20
china mostly southern china um but the ones i was looking at were like located in kai bing
20:26
county and in guangdong the guangdong province and china uh and as so they you know appear very
20:33
much as towers and they’re built mostly to protect against theft and banditry but also some
20:39
you know from seasonal uh floods and click here so there’s the details on the
20:46
right and so i i first encountered these
20:54
towers in 2007 during a visit to my mother’s village which is in in the same county and what
21:01
i found unique was the mix of architectural styles as they were described as having
21:07
um like you’ve seen this one like uh actually not this one so much but like roman columns french windows which i think you
21:14
can see here and um islamic domes and i later discovered
21:19
that these features reflected the the places where where people where families and people had traveled
21:26
uh had traveled um and at that time because at that time there was much immigration to north america
21:33
south asia and australia where family members would would work you know when they would save up and and
21:40
was able to uh return and rebuild these
21:45
elaborate homes um so these drawings are i’ll explain a little bit or portions of
21:51
them um uh brought together and i’ll talk about that
21:56
here some detail so those are some of the features that i talked about
22:03
um however much of the ornamentation was focused on the um the tops of the towers you see the
22:11
the detail here and and frequently um sometimes they would display inscriptions referencing the heavens
22:19
longevity and wealth so it was very much an image or a building that was
22:24
expressing um success and power and and i was thinking about these
22:30
ideals in some way were in contrast to the reality and the hardship that the fam that um migrants had experienced
22:37
overseas like you know and it was only if they survived their labor um they were able to come back and
22:43
celebrate um these experiences um but so partly in homage partly to
22:50
acknowledge i think those unspoken unspoken hardships these drawings were created
22:56
very much i was thinking about marigold in terms of what you’re talking about the you know the breaking of things the fragmentation so also i was thinking
23:02
about that way of like how i was severing the tops of these powers and um conjoining and like joining them
23:10
back together to create these these free floating structures which is what you saw in the the larger
23:16
image previous to that okay click here
23:24
um and what was also really remarkable to me though was how um the buildings and the architecture
23:32
became a record of cultural interaction um and the sharing of ideas
23:37
and knowledge across you know distinct communities like through the where they had gone and come back um and
23:44
so here is one such building that exhibits and i’m going to zoom in like there’s a crescent moon i don’t
23:49
think it’s the most here reflecting the influence of um islamic architecture
23:54
you can see so i’m going to zoom in so this bit uh is here and so there’s like a little
24:01
detail like the tops have these um crescent moons um oh i’m sorry i just saw a comment
24:09
here the size of these works i don’t know when that popped it but the larger drawing the one the very first one you
24:16
saw was about like floor to ceiling so 120 inches i think
24:21
it’s over six you know 12 feet but these ones are smaller so i would say they would range like three
24:27
feet to yeah two to three feet um sorry about that um uh thank you for
24:33
that question um and uh oh yeah so here’s the detail
24:38
and so again i created this image like many years ago um you know after that trip of 2007 so 2014
24:45
i made this but but i think it it was interesting for me to revisit for this talk especially in
24:50
light of what was is happening with the uyghur population and many muslim minority groups further north and so
24:57
like to think about in the past there was more of an exchange and a community and and it’s unfortunate to think about
25:04
what’s happening now hopefully that will change um uh
25:10
let’s just see here oh yeah next slide and so this is um more recent and some of you may have
25:16
seen it uh really um uh
25:21
grateful to have shown this um body of work this is the second body of work i’ll briefly touch on it was shown last year
25:28
and and came down this year at the aga so i thought it would be great to revisit it with you here um and so this was uh
25:36
titled the articulate object and um uh can continue in several forms but uh
25:42
this body of work uh was it was part of the al alberta by another last year uh but it began
25:50
much earlier through seeds of conversations i had with colleagues about connections
25:56
between chinese and indigenous communities in north america and in these conversations
26:02
i came across this legend of fuson um and fusong
26:09
is a 7th century myth of that describes the the travels of a buddhist monk
26:16
named hoysan who was believed to have visited the coast of the americas in the the latter
26:23
part of the fifth century um fuson was a name given to the land
26:28
um where the monk had traveled so you know that would sort of be currently at the west coast of uh north
26:34
america and there’s there’s little historical and archaeological evidence of the monks
26:40
journey but amateur archaeologists have often found ancient chinese burns and coins washed up and
26:47
they wondered whether these could potentially be proof of those encounters um and so most of the objects uh
26:55
that were found were not historically significant but every so often when you know something does come up or
27:01
appears it’s interesting that that that miss sort of resurfaces along as well
27:07
and so i began thinking about it in creating this work and so partly in response to this myth
27:13
um i began to [Music] um
27:20
i began to i think look for uh similar yet to be identified or
27:26
misidentified objects um you know not necessarily just washed up but perhaps they were already
27:32
in current museum collections and i was thinking about uh again this idea of relationships so
27:37
what historical relationships could have could have existed um or could be imagined
27:43
um that could be embodied through these things that you know were were
27:48
mysteries to us in the in this collection so that was a detail of you know the left
27:54
wall of the uh the installation in the museum um and it focused on um the group of
28:02
drawings of photographs circulated or looked at like three case studies i had looked at a different
28:07
museum collections and um and so they’re represented by three little organic clusters which i’ll unpack and
28:15
so this is just the wall and uh so one sort of
28:20
central piece that that forms a cluster is a saturna uh island ceramic figure which
28:27
is what you see you know if you could see my mouse but it’s still in the far right cluster
28:32
and the second cluster circulates around uh focuses on this coin um
28:39
and then a gluteal stone lamp in the middle and then not so much like a cluster but
28:45
on its own is a ruby creek stone figure um on the left
28:50
um so they’re all sort of related to like the the west coast and in different collections um uh throughout the the
28:58
province but one is also in alaska um so again that’s just a view of the
29:03
drawings and on that there’s this sort of a mirrored or parallel grouping with the photographs on the the right
29:09
wall um so as i sort of mentioned this the central to each cluster is that key sort of
29:16
unidentified or yet to be identified um artifact or misidentified artifact
29:21
and surrounding them are i drew the artifacts that archaeological
29:28
archaeologi uh archaeological archaeological archaeologists sorry initially
29:35
uh had selected as potential links when trying to determine uh their
29:40
provenance so it’s almost like um and many of them are actually dead ends in terms of like the
29:46
potential things that they could be uh and didn’t lead to an ads per se so um the project
29:52
is is uh sort of like a visual index of the sort of possible trajectories an object could
29:58
take with you know literally trying to map out what these things could be in terms of their origins
30:05
um okay go okay and i’ll end off with this one
30:13
um and so this is a detail of one of the the sets of um
30:20
corresponding uh photographs but sort of gives you a better uh um image of of the the last the one set of
30:27
um like one case study which i’ll talk to you about um so these objects i think were
30:32
particular of particular interest to me as a story of misidentification
30:39
that comes to be corrected and rectified over time so on the left as i mentioned is in a
30:45
leutique stone lamp and it was about four it’s amazing how they date these things between 400
30:51
to 9 000 years old like just somewhere around there um and on the top is a chinese coin from
30:59
the ming dynasty and they are from the the same they’re from the same archaeological site
31:05
um in alaska and the stone lamp and coin like they’re both
31:11
currently in the collection of the alaska state museum in juneau and i have to really thank the staff there for helping me um
31:19
giving providing that very much the information i’m sharing with you today and according to their documents what
31:24
was interesting with these two objects is that the the presence of one object
31:29
led to the misidentification of the other um so they were found in proximity
31:35
proximity to one another on the same site they knew the coin was chinese but the stone lamp they weren’t quite sure about
31:41
and early documents mistakenly assumed it as like an asian stone lamp and they described the
31:47
central figure as as buddha like um and so now the museum
31:53
identifies it as a boutique and and it’s understood that um they clearly originated from
32:00
different regions but what’s interesting is we still don’t know exactly how the objects came to be
32:06
together so then there may have been a relationship in that the owner of the coin
32:11
was also in possession of the stone lamp or the coin came to the region through trade
32:18
uh if not directly through travel um and so what is really powerful to me
32:25
is is that the more i am learning about the relationship between these objects in relationship to their
32:31
lands i think it provokes me to think about my own my own origins and the the trans-pacific
32:37
pathways that led um to the coast salish territories where i currently reside
32:43
so my understanding is still wet uh illegible but i think moving towards something tangible um so thank you for that
32:51
uh for your patience with the these images and so now i’m going to turn it over
32:56
to roy here
33:09
hey everybody um i hope you can hear me um okay uh so first yeah that was thank you
33:15
for those fantastic presentations marigold and vanessa and um
33:20
and as well the introduction from catherine and um even just to be included um to be asked
33:25
to participate in this panel um and alongside gwenessa and marigold it’s just been
33:31
a real treat actually it was kind of a very nice thing and also thanks to helen and um
33:36
and michael for all their behind the scenes help so uh i’m just gonna kind of i think i might
33:42
have selected too many things to talk about in this time but we’ll just kind of make our way through and see how it works and uh
33:49
um and kind of just go from there so i’ll give you a little bit of background um i called my talk erratic as you can
33:55
see and they’ll kind of become a bit more they’ll become evidence later um and so
34:02
so my name is roy kosi i’m a first generation canadian i was born in hamilton and i was raised by immigrant parents
34:08
who obviously parents who uh came to canada in the mid 70s and my cultural background is mauritian
34:16
which is the island of mauritius in the south uh sorry in the indian ocean and uh
34:25
sorry just wait for that i don’t know if you can hear that emergency vehicle and um so and uh my family is also part of the
34:31
indian diaspora so uh my first ancestors to arrive in mauritius were indentured laborers who
34:37
were swept up in the which is kind of part of the british empire right so that kind of
34:44
has an effects uh us kind of plays out in my practice in the kind of mythology
34:50
of how i understand my family history and so kind of what does this mean right like how does this all play out so
34:56
eventually we get to hamilton my parents have kids my sister and i and uh you know and we look brown but you know
35:02
we say roti with a hard french r right so instead of saying roti we say hoti is right like all everything’s kind
35:08
of frenchified that way my parents spoke creole in the house to each other we spoke french as a family
35:14
together and so that’s kind of like some of the differences um and uh and then also you know it was really
35:20
because there’s not really many mauritians that leave the island it was kind of just this enclave of the four of us my dad my mom my sister and i
35:26
kind of existed together but fortunately i also grew up in this apartment building in hamilton called camelot towers
35:33
and it was full of immigrant and immigrant children right so uh that was kind of amazing because
35:39
then you had people from everywhere right from west africa from argentina um
35:45
or else you know korean background persian background gujarati like it was
35:50
kind of everything so we got this really kind of international kind of uh upbringing actually even
35:56
despite the fact that we’re growing up in this very kind of white hamilton
36:01
kind of culture environment let’s say right so um that was kind of something interesting which led to
36:08
this very kind of wonderful um like developing this ability or an
36:16
agility with learning to get to know people who are different than you learning to
36:21
have conversations with people who don’t share the same understandings or beliefs as you and as a kid i never really saw that as
36:28
anything special but then i you know as you grow up and you meet more people who had very different upbringings
36:33
um you realize that that was actually quite a unique thing so anyway so that’s that’s me right um and that will kind of play in
36:40
as i give this presentation so i’m going to kind of go backwards in time a bit and uh uh and then kind of lead up to
36:47
the beginning so uh or to the present sorry uh so this first project is from 2009
36:53
and it’s uh called the clay cup series and it was a collaboration with my friend maggie and took place in 2009 um in vancouver
37:01
at century which is also known as the vancouver international center for contemporary asian art
37:06
and so for this project um basically we’re heading outdoors this is
37:12
a shot of maggie carrying shovels and we’re going to dig up natural clay deposits to bring back to the gallery so this is basically
37:18
what we ended up with and with that clay then we end up creating all these tiny little
37:23
clay cups so if you’ve ever been to um just go back have you ever been to india and you know had chai in those
37:31
clay cups at train stations then that’s really where i got this was on one of those trips but you know it’s now kind
37:37
of repurposed right it’s like making its way into hamilton or into vancouver um
37:42
and it’s being made between these two friends and so uh as people walk into the gallery space
37:48
you can see we’ve set up this uh little artist studio with the the clay there in the background and
37:54
a work desk and a kick wheel and people walk into the space and we’re asked we asked them to take a clay
38:00
cup and to join us in a drink whatever that is and um and then when they’re done to
38:05
smash the cup on the ground and so you can see all these shards are uh
38:11
left uh you know just kind of are all the broken cups basically so um so the whole
38:18
exhibition is really this uh it’s like a dirt like a balance between uh between the labor of producing new
38:25
cups and the destructions of the fruit of that labor so what’s left is really just this gesture and because it’s a gesture
38:32
between two friends uh you know it’s really a gesture of friendship that’s kind of
38:37
portrayed as this gift for humanity and so these are our gifts right like they’re they’re it’s really immaterial
38:43
actually that kind of idea so the friendship and so that kind of you know that count comes out of
38:49
for me at least that’s important because of how i grew up right like i didn’t have relatives around me um i just had uh
38:55
those friends that i cobbled together uh immigrants or not who were um our children of immigrants or not who
39:02
were uh you know became our family because it was just like i said the four of us
39:08
in uh in hamilton right and so uh it kind of the other beautiful thing
39:13
about this project is kind of talking about friendship and finding this kind of belonging with this family
39:19
is that another beautiful thing that happens or for me it was beautiful was um ultimately when people are taking
39:25
a sip from these cups they’re actually they’re putting their lips to the earth so they’re kissing the earth every time they take a sip right and so that’s also
39:33
this kind of like you know you see it in movies and stuff like that or tv shows like people like they’re like so happy to be back home
39:39
they dropped their news and kissed the ground so you know there’s like a little bit of that in there which i thought was kind of
39:45
funny um anyway so this next project is also from 2009 so you know we’re i’m talking about some
39:50
old stuff here um and uh it’s called uh mountain club feasts and so
39:56
mountain club is a collective that was formed with me and two friends it was myself maggie and ian and lasted basically that
40:03
summer but basically the idea of um the idea of feasts of mountain club
40:10
feast is to create a platform for people to gather and uh i built this uh
40:16
picnic table it’s like one long picnic picnic table it’s 37 feet long and it’s just an opportunity for people
40:22
to gather right and so we we made food we brought food we brought desserts and we kind of allowed this kind of
40:29
beautiful gesture to um to be available
40:35
for people to gather and that kind of again kind of comes back to that um how i put that
40:43
that influence of immigrants that i have had of like my parents generation
40:49
and how and their immigrant friends and then their kids and how we would always gather and it would always be kind of like this
40:56
not an imposition on each other but you know my mom would tell stories of how you know sometimes two carloads full
41:02
of people would just show up um and like new immigrant friends they made and they would just have to host
41:07
them and how wonderful it was like there was so much camaraderie and so much joy and it was such a fun kind of wonderful time and um and as
41:15
a kid i remember those two and you’re just like okay this is great i just have a bunch of new friends like it’s play time and you know that was kind of my
41:22
family again like i’m talking about so this these kind of ideas kind of keep
41:27
slipping in which is trying to generate your own community your own friendship and so
41:32
in a way these people who gathered are a temporary kind of community let’s say right so
41:39
um yeah and here’s just a couple more shots of the gathering i should get more on top
41:45
of clicking the slides so uh this next project is
41:51
called erratic it’s from 2015 and we kind of shift gears here right so now i’m kind of
41:57
leaving behind these actions and um just existing solo basically right so this was like
42:02
during my master’s program so um and so erratic is actually named
42:09
after the stones that are carried by glaciers during the last ice age and as those
42:15
glaciers travel across the landscape they end up depositing uh these stones
42:21
just randomly throughout right and and also as the glaciers are traversing the landscape they’re
42:27
altering the landscape entirely right so uh when you alter the landscape you alter the culture as well because you
42:33
create new foreign fauna and um and and you’re leaving behind these
42:38
like like these aliens these stones are called aliens they’re called erratics are so erratic is the name of
42:44
those stones i don’t know if i made that clear but um yeah they’re these alien stones and so um
42:50
that kind of was this beautiful uh kind of um
42:55
analogy i could say for my family history of that diaspora right of just uh like my my ancestors getting swept up
43:02
by the british empire as indentured laborers and then ending up in um in mauritius
43:08
and being fully severed ties thai’s fully separated from india like we don’t even really know where they came from
43:14
and so uh they just had to create a whole new culture a whole new um uh
43:22
home actually right and so and then and then oddly enough that’s what my parents grow up with right and
43:28
that becomes their culture and then they bring that to hamilton and then we grow up my sister and i
43:34
in with that in the house so that becomes our culture so now we get all this removal right and so you really kind of start losing this
43:41
sense of um your origin that anchor that you find so many people who have like generations in
43:47
one place they really have that rootedness right so um so anyways just to i i should go
43:53
through what this project is about so um what we’re looking at here is a seven inch record um that i produced for this
44:01
project and i also produced this wood bat so it’s just like a regular wood bat
44:06
that i turned on lathe um and with the bat i would go outside um and i would just pick up a rocks and
44:13
i would hit those rocks and um and so the project on one level is about displacements because i am
44:19
displacing those rocks with this bat and this image here is actually one of the locations where i was hitting rocks
44:26
and and that’s my bat on an erratic right so and this is in left bridge um and so
44:34
um so yes so there is this aspect of displacement but then also there’s all
44:41
um there’s through the action of hitting the rocks with the bat you create this
44:46
very loud sound which ends up kind of carrying across the landscape and then echoing back to you and so
44:52
you create this call and response actually right so you’re this solitary lonely figure in the landscape hitting
44:57
these rocks you know feeling so untethered because you know your family history is so so uh kind of complex let’s say
45:06
and then so unclear and then you also have you know i’m i’m in southern alberta all of a sudden uh and so you feel very
45:14
kind of unrooted as again as i was saying and so this idea of like finding yourself in
45:19
the landscape that con response through this action became a really important thing and um and so uh
45:28
and so yeah from with that audio uh i then created that seven-inch record
45:33
and then i also produced this record this folded poster that was included inside the record jacket and so
45:40
you have the album front and back and you can say it says recorded in uh
45:47
recorded on location at cottonwood park and a couple other places and um yeah and so then
45:54
um kind of going back to the idea of the sound you have this beautiful kind of
46:02
sense of um i guess well actually sorry i’ll go back for a second so
46:07
with that echo you end up kind of you kind of creating this almost sonar that kind of comes
46:13
back to you right like that sound traveling across the landscape is picking up every little bit of information and it’s also picking up you the hitter
46:20
me right and so and then when that call comes back to you it’s bringing that information back and so even
46:26
subconsciously it’s this kind of beautiful um kind of identifying with
46:33
identifying yourself within a place which um for people with my kind of family
46:38
history becomes because it’s so lacking it becomes this important
46:44
thing to try to grasp and i find that personally some people either dive right into it trying to like root themselves
46:50
like very much with their own family and kind of sitting down roots that way and other people have just gone
46:57
completely the opposite and they come they exist that were completely unrooted life i guess you could say um
47:03
and so the other thing about this project is that uh the act of hitting rocks was also a reflection of that erratic
47:09
and entropic displacement right so as i kind of mentioned before so
47:15
um yeah you can see like various ways that this work or sorry that my background is
47:21
coming into um it’s not so much it’s not necessarily that i’m trying to make work about being
47:28
mauritian or that i’m not making work about being like having south asian roots or history
47:35
right but it’s really about the experience of growing up first generation in canada um with the
47:41
cultural background that my parents brought with them to hamilton and then kind of all that
47:48
blending that ends up happening right and um and like i mentioned before with that
47:54
um early age right you have this kind of real internationalism right you’re really meeting a lot of
47:59
um other other immigrants from various countries and so you kind of
48:05
build this kind of um i don’t know i guess you could say love for humanity or something like that
48:11
right so this brings me to my last project which is uh the newest project that i’ve been
48:17
working or that i made um this is from 2020 uh this is shown at the aga which is curated and it’s
48:23
created by lindsey sharman and it’s called the king is dead and so uh it’s a slipcast porcelain
48:30
that’s like on these wood slats and everything and um and the idea for erratic was that uh
48:39
it’s basically it’s about witnessing a shift right so the baby boomers are ending as a generation
48:44
as a majority voting block and so it’s about putting into perspective the prior
48:49
like trying to mark a moment in time saying that all that’s
48:56
um like all the work that the baby boomers
49:03
put in place which can sometimes feel so self satisfying self
49:10
self fulfilling self not fulfilling but um uh not really about building community
49:16
or building healthy structures or trying to prioritize health over economy you know uh now is a time to be able to
49:22
start to undo a lot of that and that’s kind of the importance of marking time right is that you can make
49:28
something graspable you can say that um that uh that
49:34
era is over let’s try to build something better and and again the reason or the way i see my
49:39
background fitting into this so i’m moving really fast in these images is is um is because of that background of
49:48
that agility of learning to get to know people from so many different cultures so many different histories and
49:54
uh and thinking well you know i honestly do think that we can do better we can kind of shore up our social structures
50:01
social infrastructures like healthcare and you know universe universal basic income
50:06
is like another way to go about that too because it’s not really about representation but i think it’s more about redistribution right like
50:13
redistribution of resources and of economic uh and wealth as well and um
50:22
and that i guess i’ll kind of wrap it up right here but um i would say that that is um again
50:30
a priority in my life because of the the background or the experiences that i
50:37
had growing up as a kid and that’s how they started playing into my work so um i’ll leave it there and
50:44
i will uh pass this on to catherine i guess is the next one to come back on and say thank you very much
50:51
again and it’s been wonderful to be a part of this so okay thank you
50:56
stay on roy don’t go okay hi everybody um i think at this point
51:02
what i’d like to do is invite marigold and guanesa to come back on
51:09
and then we’ll have a kind of moderated conversation and answer any of the questions that have come up in the chat hi everybody thank
51:16
you so much that was great it was a wonderful way to kind get an introduction to each of your work
51:23
i just wanted to start off as i mentioned in the introduction um may of course is asian heritage month
51:30
in canada and it’s a month intended to recognize the contributions of canadians of asian descent
51:35
and i think by extension is thus necessarily also about the diasporic experience
51:41
which i think is just as important to each of your practices as your heritage is and i think it’s also important for us
51:47
to note that the diasporic experience is often tied to histories of colonization
51:53
so and i know that has come up uh in conversations i think initially in marigold and
51:58
and with roy but the one thing i’m struck by is all of your works seem to be pushing
52:04
towards a rediscovery or trying to express histories in places that you have moved
52:10
away from or have been separated from you a loss and there’s also a sense of a loss or
52:16
uncertainty of origin uh and in some cases it comes up with a question of in
52:21
your quest vanessa where are these things from and and who made them and how did they come to be together
52:27
so i’m curious to know from each of you if whether you think your work isn’t an attempt to express a sense of
52:33
this uncertainty or whether you think it’s an attempt to find some uh solidity or to create uh some kind of
52:40
solid meaning in some way so that’s a open question for everybody
52:50
um personally i i maybe i’ll just jump in um i i feel that uh it’s really like
52:57
i well so one thing that this pandemic has really shown us is that there’s so many craps that people can fall
53:02
through so many aspects where you can just um be too precarious let’s say like
53:08
you’ve been exist precariously and then now there’s a lack of support all of a sudden and so
53:13
for me it really kind of comes back into that right it’s about it’s not necessarily about trying to shore that up to become
53:20
more secure for myself but about expressing but about understanding just how precarious
53:25
precarious can feel i guess i don’t know if that makes sense actually but um but then you’re like okay well what
53:32
are ways that we can go about fixing that and personally i i start seeing it as a living wage for everybody all that
53:38
kind of stuff right so right the message is constantly in there but um that’s me so i’ll kind of turn it over to anybody
53:44
else yeah i know i can add to that too um
53:50
that’s a great question and roy yeah i’m glad how you opened it up in that sense and
53:56
even it and just um and thinking about that precarity um and i was just also thinking about
54:03
even like the words and the ways in which both of you had brought it in your works like marigold
54:08
had said like the i wrote these down because it really resonated with the porousness and then the weave and then
54:15
um and this idea of an exchange also in roy and your work too so i i feel like
54:21
for myself it’s um there are moments where i want to i think make things solidify but in a way i feel
54:29
like that i can’t and in a way that i think the strength and the agency is almost like
54:35
both of the images that you that you’ve presented of um how do we create not only an image but
54:42
an actual like roy like how you talk about in terms of like the the actual way of living through it
54:49
of something that um that has to be flexible like i think if anything the things
54:54
i feel like i’ve learned especially in the then what’s going on with with covid and the pandemic is is um
55:01
things can’t be like solid there has to be a way in which things are are flexible and i think both of you
55:08
and and this is something i’m trying to think through in in the way with our backgrounds and the way we’re trying to navigate the
55:14
difficulties of of who we are as something that could be made a strength but not
55:21
one that is like i don’t know the word of like yeah like of something concrete is so
55:27
um difficult um anyways i’ll stop there
55:34
um yeah that’s a great question i think for me when i’m making my work it’s not so much about making anything
55:40
solid for me it’s more about maybe
55:45
um becoming comfortable and creating reassurances with
55:52
the uncertainty and the sort of fluidity of it all
55:57
and that embracing some of that nuance embracing the like unsolidity can actually be
56:05
a source of strength and um can be something that can be celebrated
56:12
that can be a vulnerability or a weakness
56:19
and that you know it sort of gives an opening to rebuild
56:26
an opening to repair to reconsider so i think all of that
56:33
are just maybe opportunities to reconfigure for yourself and for like a
56:40
greater community how uh how you want to think of things and uh
56:45
yeah recreate imagine um actually like i’m sorry i have this
56:53
quote that i came across uh before i was like when i was working on this instance but it kind of relates
56:58
to what both of you guys and marigold are kind of mentioning and to your question as well
57:03
but i’m just going to read the quote it’s really short but it’s what is the stress of diversity can it
57:09
be overcome so that more people can feel welcome and thrive in these environments of little diversity and that is that kind of
57:16
precarity in a sense right like if you like the more you try to once you open up create a more diverse culture
57:23
you then you invariably do end up closing it to a different group of people it’s like it’s all it’s there’s this
57:30
like the way society is structured there’s always going to be someone at the bottom end it’s really hard not to at this in this
57:36
structure and so these are kind of questions i think that we’re all kind of approaching or talking about is is then how do those
57:45
um how can we have diversity at a core let’s say
57:50
rather than as like as this um that then restructures how we deal with each other
57:55
our government structures our health and educational structures so that it’s not about inclusion anymore
58:02
because it’s just it is what it is now right and um and then from there you
58:09
um i don’t know well i guess yeah anyways i just wanted to share that quote like how can you
58:15
welcome people and thrive in these environments a little diversity right so i’m interested brian that concept of
58:22
diversity with respect to actually all of the all three of your work because i think if you think back
58:28
marigold spoke about fragmentation and vanessa spoke about the concept of the
58:33
hmong girl and you spoke about the erratic and i think that those to me speak not just of diversity
58:40
but kind of elements of hybridization and maybe hybridization as a kind of base state makes more sense for us in
58:46
the world than one of kind of certainty or uniformity or something like that so
58:51
i just wondered maybe if you want to speak a little bit about ideas of hybridization or of that
58:57
idea of um diversity within within one thing i suppose as how that
59:03
manifests in your work
59:09
i think maybe i’ll i’ll start with that um you know the way that i i use
59:16
folklore in my work to talk about multiplicity of self is a way of speaking about that
59:22
hybridity is that you know being able to embrace um
59:27
multiple versions of yourself and and being able to hold different tensions at the same time
59:34
and having that be something that is empowering rather than something that is debilitating um and i think that
59:43
you know as a poc often times
59:48
we do so much labor we’re constantly code switching depending on our environment and i find
59:56
that when i was initially creating my work that that was what was in my thoughts was
1:00:02
that i feel i have to be such a multiple person and it’s not one way or another it’s not
1:00:08
necessarily good or bad it’s not a binary thing it’s a it’s a thing in the world that we live in and
1:00:14
that we are constantly evolving through and it’s not anything that
1:00:21
i fault myself for um and that i find disingenuous i find it’s a survival
1:00:29
and it’s a way of being um and it will change you know i feel like holding multiple
1:00:35
tensions holding multiple um multiplicity in oneself is is an important act
1:00:43
for me and it’s an act of resilience it’s also an act of protest um
1:00:50
and i think it’s just important you know for me to remember that
1:00:58
you know and i can build on that too um i mean i think for me too it’s also yeah
1:01:04
the idea is like the the the holding together the multiplicity it’s a great um way of thinking about it
1:01:11
too and i guess for me i really thought it i think for me hybridization has changed
1:01:17
in the idea of like living in those tensions like instead of before i think if we look at
1:01:23
like the way for me anyways the things have involved it was you know the the belief of having things fit
1:01:30
together like they no longer can i think that model for me has like broken it’s it’s about those fissures but now
1:01:37
like how do how do you build a net of difference um like thinking about not a
1:01:44
um not only a coexistence but to be able to realize that those parts that are different will be in
1:01:51
tension and it’s difficult and it’s not going to be um
1:01:57
harmonious but but that but they they need to coexist so there’s that tension point in it um yeah
1:02:06
so the multi the multi-nodal yeah um yeah so i as
1:02:14
you as catherine has mentioned like yeah so with the reference of the erratics in my work right it’s really kind of
1:02:19
talking to this like the this like the history of indentured labor right
1:02:24
and there’s something so um unequal in that where you can just kind of take somebody and displace them and
1:02:32
then tell them to work there and then just kind of keep them in servitude for such a almost almost indefinite amount of time
1:02:38
right it’s like you know like the contract keeps getting prolonged right but um
1:02:43
but um so for me this kind of um yeah i guess like this idea of the
1:02:50
hybridity or the diversity is um and how that plays into that history
1:02:56
is um is that personally i find that it’s very difficult or
1:03:01
it’s as a society it’s extremely challenging to try to include everybody at the same
1:03:09
level let’s say right it’s like there’s it’s there’s always even like when you think about
1:03:14
uh like a capitalization rate which is like trying to get people to perform at their at their best
1:03:19
is what that means um it can’t do that for everybody there’s always there’s always going to be somebody who ends up
1:03:25
not quite getting that benefit and so um and so it always comes back to
1:03:31
this for me how can you make people less precarious which is like your last your last question as well right and so
1:03:37
um and so it it comes back into the structure of our of our government of our
1:03:42
institutions and um and how we prioritize like again right
1:03:48
like we’ve been learning over the last year that we can’t just prioritize economy we actually have to prioritize
1:03:54
health of citizenship right and and so that becomes how you start to tackle
1:04:01
hybridity and diversity you just make everybody able to um
1:04:06
support themselves to take care of themselves to feel some kind of sense of belonging through not having to struggle harder
1:04:13
than the next person let’s say right i mean obviously this is always going to be these challenges that are unique to each
1:04:19
set of people but that kind of is how it comes back to it for me and again this is
1:04:24
partially or in part has to do with that history of indentured labor and you know you’re just like oh they could just be snatched
1:04:30
up and not really snatched but you know i mean like it’s not it’s not a fair deal it’s not a fair
1:04:36
shake right and so you know that structure that i mean that still exists
1:04:41
in our i mean that’s the minimum wage job in some ways you know what i mean like it still is present in our society now and so
1:04:48
um how can we how can you know maybe hybridity hybridity and
1:04:54
diversity looks different moving forward than what has as our generation as we know it
1:05:00
presently right um but i think it starts with the structures that we implement like the redistribution
1:05:07
i should say uh i think i’m just going to ask maybe
1:05:14
one more question i think we have a bit of time i think that the what i’m finding fascinating as well is you know particularly right when
1:05:21
you’re talking about the history of indentured labor and and that that’s impact on your family
1:05:27
history um and in the work that you are all making there’s different senses of history that are arising or different
1:05:33
senses of memory of you know of of um you know i think marigold you talked about sensorial memory
1:05:40
and we also spoke and you know the the memory that comes from from smell and that kind of memory we
1:05:46
also talked about you know family history in them and the memory of family uh as well as
1:05:51
kind of history and memory that’s embedded in these objects when essa that you’ve been working with that are you know
1:05:56
centuries and centuries old so i guess for me there’s a really fascinating uh kind of play between history and
1:06:04
memory in all of your work as well i don’t know if that’s a statement or a
1:06:11
question but
1:06:16
oh go ahead marigold i’m just turning my audio on um yeah just to quickly add to that
1:06:23
um for sure when i think about you know my own personal lived experience which
1:06:28
is the jumping off point for my work um it tackles bigger issues um where i’m investigating
1:06:36
and learning for myself the history of my culture the history of the philippines as a
1:06:42
colonized nation and it’s you know identity that has formed over time and evolved over time
1:06:50
through you know violence and through non-consent and so
1:06:57
you know my work tackles um these very big uh and important concepts
1:07:04
through distilling it into looking at the folklore that’s come out of that and
1:07:10
you know the out of colonial violence and and how folklore is used as a way to
1:07:17
create order in oneself and to give meaning in an understandable way to sort of pass it down for for good or
1:07:24
for for better for worse um and how we kind of survive through
1:07:30
those moments um through that that history that is so inherent and you know the philippines is
1:07:35
a super rich history of colonial violence over
1:07:43
hundreds of years um and and understanding what that had done um to
1:07:50
indigenous populations in that archipelago so i feel like looking at
1:07:57
you know my own lived experience which is like you know microcosm and then the macrocosm of
1:08:03
where it comes from and how that informs my identity and forms sort of like a a way of understanding
1:08:10
um uh people of my of similar histories and also within similar regions it’s just a way
1:08:17
of of learning and connecting and and then also like being critical of it and understanding where to go from there
1:08:23
you know like not just learning it and and i’m learning it day by day but then what to do with it and where to
1:08:29
go with that and how that will inform your choices going forward in in your contemporary
1:08:35
society today miracle i’m gonna ask um a question there was one question from the audience
1:08:41
that i think was addressed specifically to you and i think it ties very much back to what you’re saying at the moment and the question was there’s a kind of
1:08:48
cool juxtaposition between vibrant life and fluid decay is death intended to be
1:08:54
part of the motif in your work and i think the question then comes back to me about the
1:09:00
how does that question of death perhaps relate to the the connection to colonial violence
1:09:06
yeah for sure and i think cycles are really important for me to consider in my work so if we’re thinking about like
1:09:11
death and life and rebirth i take those as like very conceptual ways of looking at
1:09:17
my work and not just literal ways of looking at my work so of course you know when we think
1:09:23
about the folklore that and and if people are interested they can they can um maybe get in touch with me
1:09:29
or look at the work of uh that i do in detail but folklore that i specifically deal with
1:09:36
deals with um violence of of like pillars of society you know
1:09:41
there’s a lot of death that’s involved in that but out of the death comes the resilience and kind of like a re
1:09:46
recreation of of like a new sense of self or a new kind of society
1:09:51
i’m not saying that like the colonial society that comes out of it but like the you know the different um
1:09:59
the pillars of indigenous society like the babylon the shamans who were persecuted under colonial rule
1:10:06
and then uh became you know sort of like marginalized but very powerful people
1:10:12
that still survived through through that death and destruction uh to carry on to today
1:10:18
um and so yeah i feel like there’s always going to be that that bit
1:10:24
of um that cyclicality that i address if you want to call it like you know um
1:10:32
death and birth or creation and destruction but yeah i feel like and it just ties into i
1:10:38
just saw on the chat glenn had said something about the tamarind being a bit both bitter and sweet and i think that that
1:10:44
really relates to for sure the colonial experience of what had happened in in uh in my
1:10:51
heritage in my country great roy or aquinas i don’t know if you want to
1:10:58
answer my previous question or if if you lost track of it or whether you want to say anything
1:11:03
uh as kind of closing remarks but
1:11:09
well do you want to go vanessa and i’ll or um go in order
1:11:18
you have good things to say i had it over here yeah um well i guess i guess i would
1:11:24
just say that um so i mean i’ll just kind of just a refresh but
1:11:30
i mean it’s kind of like the question was about the history like how the history plays into yeah and so um for me it’s
1:11:36
like um i’ve had this kind of like let’s say like this own personal mythology about
1:11:42
my family history which is that they’re it was hard to track down you couldn’t trace it back so there wasn’t really
1:11:48
this like kiss it was like again this it comes back to this unrootedness right and so personally
1:11:55
a lot of the history that i or that i work with are just almost personal stories like
1:12:01
personal experiences that i’ve had as a child or stories that i heard my mom taught me and so it really
1:12:06
that has so i mean um yeah so it kind of
1:12:13
it’s there was almost for a while there there was almost nothing for me to carry right like i really identified with that
1:12:20
saying a rolling stone gathers no moss like i think basically up until my 30s like that was how i lived my life
1:12:27
and then eventually i was just like you know like there’s actually this there’s um i was thinking that she was
1:12:32
funny he was thinking about this book uh unbearable lightness of being by milan kundera and um and what that means right and um
1:12:40
the unbearable lightness of like not having that responsibility not having that weight to carry which is
1:12:45
uh responsibility and and and with that comes belonging actually right and so
1:12:50
um and so that kind of was the shift where then that’s where i started trying to
1:12:56
explore that it’s not it’s funny it’s like when i think about it now it’s almost
1:13:01
like an anxiety right it’s like you’re exploring this like this being unanchored through these projects and that
1:13:07
and that starts to create um starts to unravel this history let’s say
1:13:13
right to make it more tangible um but it’s funny though recently uh
1:13:19
like um this last year um i was in medicine hat and i was like in my apartment building
1:13:25
and uh i was just like is this is this my life my neighbors were being like super loud
1:13:30
they’re probably like just partying a lot because the pandemic was just starting and there’s like way too much
1:13:36
solitude let’s say right and um i was just kind of in this zone i was like i feel so disconnected from like who i
1:13:45
was as a kid like now i’m just like unmoored in medicine hat in this really weird apartment building and uh i
1:13:52
was just like okay uh you know i know i’m going to hamilton and so then uh for a few months before i come out
1:13:57
here to halifax and so i was like okay like let’s just start like you read in my bio my intro all right let’s just start uh
1:14:04
learning some of these dishes for my mom and and let’s start rebuilding that kind of that cultural um
1:14:13
uh like let’s make that culture tangible again for myself so that now becomes something that i can carry with me
1:14:18
wherever i go right and so that was actually it’s something that was extremely personally important but now i’m
1:14:24
starting to see just how much that’s in line with my practice right and again that kind of comes back this idea
1:14:31
of the histories that i carry are personal experiences and then now having this experience of
1:14:37
these cooking lessons with my mom was another way to carry that history let’s
1:14:42
say right so yeah thank you so vanessa
1:14:48
yeah no i’ll make a quick roy that was just great i don’t want to mess that um uh should have had you
1:14:54
close but yeah no i think just adding briefly it’s like everything’s sort of being said but it’s like
1:15:01
for me it’s also just having thinking about his jury in relationship to
1:15:06
futurity actually like it’s i think likewise like i i have no knowledge of my history um
1:15:13
just because of certain traumas um it just isn’t spoken of and i’m trying
1:15:19
to actually learn about it but but all i have to turn to are institutions like i think which is why
1:15:24
i’ve been drawn to the museum collection but the problems of that so thinking about history actually
1:15:30
in relationship to moving forward um so maybe i’ll end it there yeah
1:15:38
okay i think we have no more questions in the chat so i just want to
1:15:44
thank all three of you for spending this time with us and sharing your work but also a lot of i think
1:15:50
personal stories um about yourselves and your family so thank you very much for all of that
1:15:56
uh it’s been a great pleasure for me to have had this opportunity to host you and to share this kind of hour with you
1:16:03
so again thank you to marigold roy and vanessa um it’s been a wonderful afternoon
1:16:11
and i hope you have a pleasant evening or i think you’re going into night time now roy where you are
1:16:16
yeah pretty uh the sun setting the sun is up
1:16:22
thank you thank you so much to everybody this is so wonderful to hear your stories and everything okay thanks bye
1:16:32
bye you
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