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good evening everyone and thank you for joining us for this first artist conversation we

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are organizing to complement an exhibition of the winners of the 2020 governor general’s awards in visual and

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media arts that is currently installed at the art gallery of alberta my name is catherine croston and i’m the

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executive director and chief curator at the aga i would like to begin by acknowledging

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that we are hosting the exhibition and this webinar from treaty 6 territory the traditional land of diverse

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indigenous peoples including the cree mr tapi blackfoot nakota sioux iroquois denae

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ojibwe

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we also acknowledge all of the indigenous and inuit peoples who make alberta their home today

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this acknowledgement is just a small step along the path toward reconciliation and we acknowledge the critical work

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that must continue to be done to address the impacts of colonization

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canada’s governor general’s award in visual and media arts is a lifetime achievement award that

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recognizes an artist’s career their body of work and contribution to the visual arts media arts and fine

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craft through the sadie bronfman award in kent in canada this year eight artists are being

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honored in recognition of their exceptional careers and remarkable contributions to the visual arts media

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arts and fine craft the 2020 winners are diana bowen dana claxton

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ruth cuthand michael fernandez jorge lozano lorsa ken lum anatorma and zainab fergie

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who was recognized for her outstanding contribution to the profession zainab vergie is a trailblazer for her

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generation she is an accomplished artist writer critic cultural bureaucrat

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cultural diplomat and a public intellectual she is currently the executive director

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of the ontario association of art galleries now called galleries ontario ontario

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galleries in toronto born in kenya and educated in the uk

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she arrived in canada in the early 1970s and studied business administration and economics at simon fraser university

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zainab began her career in the arts soon after she engaged with the third cinema the tactical video movement uk’s british

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black arts post bandung decolonization and the women’s labor movement in british columbia

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in 1989 she co-founded and co-directed invisible colors an international woman

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of color and third world women’s film and video festival and symposium

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zanem was the executive director at the western front in vancouver in the 1990s

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in 1993 her work on the british columbia arts board led to the formation of the british columbia arts council

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she then worked at the canada council for the arts and the department of canadian heritage in ottawa after which she was appointed the

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inaugural director of the culture division for the city of mississauga zainab is a multi-disciplinary artist

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whose work has been shown at major venues including the venice finale the portland institute of contemporary arts

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the salted dark contemporane the best normandy and the museum of modern art in new york

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she is presently exhibiting at the art gallery of alberta as well as at embassy cultural house in london ontario

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her work will be shown at center a in vancouver in june of 2021 and her work exists in public and

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private collections zainab is a political writer and a speaker engaging national and

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international audiences on issues of cultural diplomacy pluralism and racial equity she will

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deliver a keynote on cultural diplomacy at the paul mellon center for studies in british art in london

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in 2021 she recently co-authored an open letter to the prime minister of canada

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on behalf of 75 000 artists and is currently involved in the national campaign on

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basic income zainib is a passionate and persuasive champion of the art

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and its central role in society she lives by her conviction that art is public good

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with over four decades of expertise in cultural policy and cultural diplomacy she has contributed to international and

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national policies and legislation pertaining to the cultural sector including united nations instruments

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such as the status of the artist and cultural diversity zainab vergie is a laureate of the 2020

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governor general’s awards for outstanding contribution in the visual and media arts tonight

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zainib is in conversation with niranjan raja niranjan raja is faculty at the school

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of interactive art and technology at simon fraser university he co-curated malaysia’s first

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electronic art show and co-founded er asean the first regional portal for

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electronic art in southeast in southeast asia niranjan’s web artwork

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the failure of marcel duchamp fetish event oh fetish even sorry holidays is

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recognized as the first internet artwork in southeast asia his contribution to new media was

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acknowledged in a two-man retrospective titled relocations at isaiah singapore in 2008. near and john’s

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autobiographical photo performative coboy project cowboy project has been exhibited in

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kuala lumpur lisbon tokyo bangkok and black rock city and at the singapore biennale in 2016.

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nerin john immigrated to canada with his family in 2002. he met zainab in 2004 while convening

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the conference old and new forums a post-traditional technography of world media arts

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for the new forms festival in vancouver zainab was a senior program officer for media arts representing the canada

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council in matters concerning this event niren john recently published an essay

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on zainib’s contributions to the arts titled zainab verti from signifier to signify

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for the other places reflections on media arts in canada anthology edited by deanna bowen narendra

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nominated zainib for the 2020 governor general’s award for outstanding contribution in the visual and media

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arts and before i turn things over to zainab and near and john just a few notes please answer any questions that you

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have in the chat and we will answer them at the end of the conversation and i would also like to take this opportunity

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to recognize and thank epcor who support aga online programming through their heart and soul fund

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please join me in welcoming zainab verti and aaron john raja

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thank you catherine so much and hello zainab hello

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it’s so great to be here with you um to congratulate you

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and to celebrate this wonderful award and to say how proud i am

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for having nominated you um yes and and to thank those who helped me

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do it uh particularly uh stefan saint laurent who who proposed together with me the first

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time we did this and narendra pasker who’s been behind the whole

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uh project the backbone of the proposal you know the with the paperwork the nitty-gritty

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and to durga raja for having taken this wonderful photograph that is in fact a part of the cowboy project a series

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that is upcoming congratulations zena thank you so much i also just

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want to just begin by thanking um of course the art gallery of alberta uh the canada council catherine uh

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crostin and and her amazing team that uh got the work done in you know

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installing and having this programming happening and of course to you

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um niranjan my nominator and to all of those um

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i guess you’ll help me you know get to this place

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so so we’ll um we’ll get moving um with this conversation xena

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by um just just just getting into the theoretical framework that i i propose

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not just for this conversation but but to appraise your life’s work and your contribution to the

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arts um in canada particularly but perhaps even broader than that

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and you know to do that i’d like to say you know go back to our own starting place

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um the new forms festival where we met and you were in your capacity in you

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know the the the administration of the arts and i was in mine in a kind of curatorial i was the

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convener for the conference the theme was post-traditional media and

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you know i think there is a relevance to this conversation um the idea that that modernism and

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post-modernism were discourses that emanated from the west in the in the course of the 20th century

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and you know by the time we get past um three-quarters of the way there’s

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all this emergence from other parts of the world from diasporic communities

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within the first world and the discourse shifted without having a name you know

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it’s shifted towards broader perspectives and i propose to call that a post-traditional

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uh perspective and you know there’s there’s a discourse on what that is but i think what’s most important for our

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conversation is that this shift in the way we name the period the way i propose we look at this period

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has involved media so media comes in throughout human history

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as a disruptive and constructive force the printing press the telephone

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and the video camera television before that the internet so so at these junctions uh

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things change and um society changes the role of the artist changes

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the way art is managed in society the way it’s um administered in society changes just

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imagine the the culture that gave us the amazing chola bronzes you know medieval bronzes

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in south india how were those symbols created what was the infrastructure the the the the uh orthodoxy

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and the hegemony that gave us that as opposed to what we’re doing today right so in this context i’d like to

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propose um using delusion qatari’s notion of

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transversality the idea of a diagonal that cuts through parallel layers and

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vertical silos columns categories merging mixing and enabling change so technology

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is part of it the way we approach the situation is part of it

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and i suggest that your career epitomizes a transversal aesthetic a transmit

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transversal praxis a theory and practice a practice and um that a simple image

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to to to take with us through this conversation is that of the

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country gate the the english country gate i’ve looked at the internet to see what the gates are

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like in canada and they’re not as consistently you know

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structured having this diagonal and anybody who knows an english country gate will understand the diagonal and

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the and the parallels and so this this idea uh from palmer and panate of you know in

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trying to explain transversality they gave us this image of the garden gate so i’d like to put that

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before us and add one more one more thing that in my own approach

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to art since the mid 90s i’ve prioritized metaphysics after kumara’s

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army and social history after tj clark so the idea that art history and the

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actual aesthetic developments are not as important as as these other things abstraction of

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ideas and social and political considerations so having said that zainab i’d like to

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introduce the exhibition uh there’s six works um

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some are reconstructions of much older works some are new works created just in

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the course of the show some are recent works some are artworks some are artifacts documents

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of your wide and varied practice um throughout your career which includes

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making art and making policy for art and everything in between um one small note for the audience and

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for those who might view this uh this cast later this videocast later

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the artworks are integrated with audio and if you look at the media description

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you often find in the tag audio included so there are qr codes um in the descriptors that lead you to

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conversations the presentations and they’re actually to be considered as part of the artwork

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and it’s the first instance within that conversation right i can say aha there’s the transversal it’s neither not

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peace nor a a didactic piece it’s both at an angle right so this is this is the the the

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idea and uh you know having done this introduced the whole i want to move

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quickly into the very first piece and of course let zena have a chance to respond

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the first piece is titled amnesia it’s from 2019

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the medium is book and audio it is an installation piece or a sculptural

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piece it is already made in my estimation the mother of all uh canadian ready-made as it

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takes as its object the founding artifact the post-war document

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that has shaped the canadian arts um in the rest of the 20th century and i think

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is still having an impact here there are other works in the exhibition that refer to this document

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the messi report dana bowen’s work does so and in a sense the exhibition

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itself is an antithesis of the proposals and the trajectory of this document

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with all the artists being of color and the one person who isn’t works in craft so you know you get this

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sense that we’ve moved on from this document as foundational as it might be

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and before i hand off zaynab the founding of the canada council for the arts uh is premised on this document so i see

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it as a ready-made um that engages with the whole

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world of canadian arts and it’s in the middle of the space please give us your

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response yeah great thank you for that uh amazing foregrounding of our conversation and also

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of how you’ve read my work um so yeah i felt that you know this work with

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the with this with the massey uh report was um which is entitled amnesia

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it really kind of refers to that socio-political conditioning and the use of memory and you know we know that

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amnesia obviously refers to loss of memory and i felt that my intent was to place

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the actual document the physical copy of this report into the room

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because um i think it very much needs to be brought to the foreground and we need to

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re-examine and we need to revisit it and as you rightly said it it actually became

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um the foundational document that gave armature uh of what would become state-defined

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national culture in this country in canada and i think it very much still

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operates as a controlling text and dictates our present um because it still defines

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national culture in canada you know and and it was also um the the document and

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and the the process through which these institutions were founded such as the candidate council for the arts

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uh it expanded the national film board national archives and national gallery etc but it gave

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also um you know it gave birth to the idea of canadian content

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and in that it remains a controlling text and defines very much what is canadian culture to

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the exclusion of canadian art making and even canadian art experiences

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to some extent and so i think that it was really important for me to have this

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within the exhibition as as part of my work because um i

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think that and i’m going to refer to this again because it’s it’s also you know kind of speaks in the room uh

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as uh you know to other works within within the the works that i have within

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this exhibition so xena come in here um to develop this

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idea of uh well of art history really having said i’m not interested in it

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um you know stylistically uh the the the very part that

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i’m least interested in um what happened in the course of the 20th century with the with the west and with the

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modernist to postmodernist trajectory is that the art came off the wall it

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became you know a space it became a performance it became a process

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institutional critique became the subject or the medium in which artists worked um and it reached a

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certain point where really the next step the next the next meta you know perspective on it

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required stepping out would i propose requires stepping out of the making of art into the making

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of its very context you start building the space you know rosalind krause’s negative you know you start cutting the hole in

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the ground and you start looking at the space itself and then the spaces are founded on

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policy and and and implementations of policies and ideas so you get into the ideology of the state

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the nation and its relationship to art the role of art in the nation coming from developing countries coming

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from malaysia you know we have post 1969 riots we have the cultural congress and we have a founding document

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you know from that from the 70s on shaped relations and for better and worse you know both has

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has given shape so i would just like to say that you know from the transversality aspect

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you’ve merged the two making of the art stepping away from making art to working in

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government administration funding policy and now you’re coming back to make a work integrating uh the two

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and i just thought i’d say that and uh market

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thank you yeah it’s very much actually the way i’ve had to work or the way that i have worked um um

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in my trajectory uh in in in working in culture and as an artist

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really because my interventions have been like like you’re suggesting perhaps

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so so i think i think um i think we can move on and i think we have a lot to say

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a lot to um discuss on the next item so i’m gonna we

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can come back to this because it’s important i think it’s it contextualizes everything else but let’s for now um move on

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to the piece that opens the exhibition itself not just your component but as

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you enter uh the exhibition space you meet uh zainab vergi’s status of the artist in led me on

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i think uh a new work for this exhibition if i’m correct and

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let me say this much

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the idea that the artist has a role in society you know is is understood in all cultures from the

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shaman to the you know it merges with different functions the priest and the artist the

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artist as opposed to the priest uh the artist as an independent uh

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you know marker of uh freedom and rebellion the romantic

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idea of the artist or now the artist who’s quietly uh subscribed and been assimilated to

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the new liberal complex you know shamelessly really today you know this is what this is this

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is the relationship this is the question of the status of the artist and this is what you

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refer us to using using the strategies of an earlier era you know conceptual

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art lawrence weiner and so on the text as a thing in itself however with a difference uh that it’s

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no longer reflexive you know it’s not joseph because it’s something else it’s post post post

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all of this and one thing that may may not uh may not uh strike the audience as

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as obvious because i i too missed it is that the phrase status of the artist

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in fact in fact refers to canadian law and canadian law that derives from

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a founding united nations recommendation about the unesco about the status of the

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artist named the status of the artist and adopted by unesco in 1980 as something to monitor

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and for nations to report on what are they doing with regard to the status

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of the artist seems to be a responsibility for the signatories for the member states and uh further that as we move on into

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the digital era the present era the netflix era um there there are further implications

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i won’t eat into your your spills enough but but this is the introduction

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for you to to yeah i i mean it’s great uh thank you it

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is the very opening of the entire exhibition and it’s it’s a bold statement um i think even really very much so

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um today because it’s directly connected with something that that i’ve been working with um over

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the last several months quite intently and intensely and it’s about the issues of

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labor actually you know the the letter to the prime minister’s about that uh on basic income but i’ve been saying

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repeatedly but today the world of labor looks a lot

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like the way art labor has looked for decades you know um the status of the artist

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it’s really about what does an artist do how much does it cost you know how much does being an artist actually cost

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and and the status is really the need to acknowledge the atypical way in which they work and

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and and their low and in and irregular income their international issues and you know

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an artist earns 43 percent less than general labor

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and rightly said you know this year marked the 40th anniversary of the status of the artist from that declaration made in unesco in

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belgrade um and and of course um this legislation

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attempts um really to place artists on an equal footing with other professionals in the labor

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market and to earn a more equitable share of the profits

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in the economy now um what i feel was really important in this is is

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what i’m invoking in all of this is the political economy and the crisis

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of the labor of artists um you know recently i i gave a keynote at a conference in ottawa the

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art preneur conference which was um put on by arts network ottawa and

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the the whole um the whole keynote was really highlighting how

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we’ve come to this idea of the death of the artist and the birth of the creative and the slide that that’s um you know

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been put up let me explain it just really quickly because um what what you’re seeing here is the

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transitioning role of artists and its political economy the first part is the the post-war period you can see

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the this process of institutionalization is occurring

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we talked about massey you know the institutions are being created and and this is where we start to turn

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the artist into professionals um um with this sort of attempt to make them part of the middle

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class and then the next period is really the onset of the establishment of neoliberalism you

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know in in simpler terms it’s it’s the market actually becomes the champion

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through free trade and culture has become becomes one of the commodities to be traded

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and it’s the globalization of the the market and the and lay and the place of labor in it

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right so we know that labor was outsourced and and what happens in art the same thing

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it becomes vienna be analyzed and festivalized

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and though i’m saying this in like one sort of simple statement or state or sentence

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uh this was not pros this process was simple and it really saw um many

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upheavals and then you come into the current which is really the way you see in the last two decades the

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i.t and and the market they join forces and it sort of becomes like the winner takes

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all model um and in a way that this kind of completes the cycle of the death of the

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artist and the birth of the creative uh and now this creative which we’re in

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right is is this platform economy with the market and i.t coming together

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and what we really see is the segmentation of work labor and jobs

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and we have to the process of professionalization and entrepreneurship um you know what we

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see is this political segmentation of how we act create and produce um

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and so um you know this is really what this what this was about because i think that

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uh is really important to show and understand because what i

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realized more more so than i ever have before is is the importance to understand the

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political economy we’ve been given an opportunity through this crisis of the health economy and the social crises

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to come out differently we cannot go back to what we were and and so i think this

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is really important right um that we we understand the political

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economy in which we operate as a sector and as artists that are now being pushed

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to become these creatives so zina to keep going on on this and to to

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to to review it a little bit because it’s it’s quite involved and and needs a little unpacking and to be

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honest in spite of various conversations i’m still working on uh getting the whole picture but but i

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have my own attack you know centered around like i’ve written in you know the biennale and the and and

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and the art fair you know the shift that has happened that culture uh

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how do we as artists move in the world right we we make our work

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we have ideas we have things we want to say we have reasons that our own personal political

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so many different ways to make art and not all of us think about the framing mechanisms yes when we get

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to the gallery we think of the walls and we say ah can you move that one you know and sometimes you can you know

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because the canada council has funded the gallery and they’ve got mobile walls so yes you know the whole thing is one

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system and what this chart is laying out is the nature of that work

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profession labor the nature of it vis-a-vis the framing

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mechanism so the ultimate framing mechanism is of course the political economy as a whole right

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and here we have the relationship of the different aspects of uh art policy let’s say and art reality

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to that frame so at first we have the first phase where the massey sets up the

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professionalization of the artist with all its faults all its exclusions

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which we have addressed in some extent this governor general’s award cycle shows the way we are addressing

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the failures of messi but nevertheless mercy created this space within canadian art between

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a kind of you know government intervention to to to protect the artist and a little

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bit of free space engagement with the market and so on and then we come to the 70s

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you know the grant the grant model basically then we come to the 70s and we’re blasted out the water the world

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art markets take off and this is great for us in southeast asia you know we now can compete on the

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global stage people start seeing our work so it’s good but at the same time it’s part of the neoliberal

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hollowing out of uh of the social good if you like the public good which

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which we come to later and art becomes entangled in this the professionalization

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is being dismantled and it’s becoming part of a capitalist flow it’s less a lesser work like a salaryman

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job which is which it was in canada under the canada council and now it’s like you got to compete

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with the big beasts out there and you know got to get into the biennales and the biennales have to compete for the funding and the sponsors

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are the corporates and so on so the art starts shifting in terms of who it works for

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what it symbolizes uh in the meta level and then we come to the next phase which

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is to do with technology i believe and and you’ve said you didn’t mention it but you said it before uh tony blair being

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the uh the instigator of this notion of the creative the creative economy see at my school is

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the school of art and technology uh we work with the latest you know developments in ai

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and and uh big data and so on visualization and so on um and in a sense we’re producing

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creatives um not not artists as in simon fraser university we have a sister

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school school of contemporary arts to do that um but it does seem that you know in the age of netflix

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it’s the creatives who who who uh get a look in so i don’t know if that characterization

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uh is correct and also if it prompts you to to say more um yeah i mean yeah it is correct i mean

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i think you you lay out that as well so um yeah tony blair

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was the one who start who who kind of brings in this idea of the the creative like uh you know canada

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embraced richard florida at all levels of government right and it was very much about also this sort of one

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idea of bringing market and i t together and really displacing artists

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and and and pushing them aside for this sort of other other entity as it were i mean i want to

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think of a person like that but that’s literally what’s happened right uh and now um

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you know um and and the status of the artists the messy they’re not part of art education we you know they’re not

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em embedded in that um and and you know i think this this platform economy has

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has it’s really i think you know more evident now we’re seeing

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it right as as as as the people we were convinced davids writes about this

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that that um you know you had this new platform you know you could you could become

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you could do anything now because you had that that availability but but it’s silicon valley

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actually who has the control of that right i mean now what’s really going to be

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important is is is not the artist me and you know you

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is the people who can have access is that one percent that that can have access to the these

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platform equipment the whole way right yeah it is out the likes are

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inside the likes do you have how many influences follow you how many you know it’s the

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instagram it’s that it’s become the like uh platforms right that that have important and more and more we see the

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erosion uh of of space for for artists because it’s there’s not a

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critical space it’s a it’s a do you like space you know do you like me is it it’s like um so i think um

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yeah so so the the changes so so this gives me a good uh good segue to go on to the next uh topic

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to another point in time right another moment in media uh disruption you know

34:25

disruptions work both ways um i think if you go with uh with brext and radio

34:31

you know uh he was so so uh concerned with the use of radio for

34:38

propaganda as if it been taken over you know by by this is pre-war germany

34:44

and so the the radio medium and he writes about reclaiming it right so this is exactly

34:50

how people like like us or like me let’s speak for myself you know my my major engagement

34:57

in in art and media happens around the advent of the world wide web you know so at that moment howard

35:03

reingold the agora you know the idea that his wonderful space is opening up we can get past the big corporate media

35:10

and look what’s happened the corporate media got past us like they own the internet and it’s less open than television you know at

35:17

least you could get up and walk away from the television you can’t walk away from your phone right so they’re broadcasting to us

35:23

all the time now so it’s this recuperation of the broadcast by by capital right so um

35:31

invisible colors was a 1989 event a groundbreaking event that happened in vancouver uh zainab uh

35:39

as a co-founding director uh of this event uh is responsible and um

35:46

i guess you know the few things i want to say before handing over to you are it seems to be a conflation

35:53

of various forces right so the the the the the

36:01

nominal idea is women right and and the issues of women of color the

36:07

next idea is layered on and yet it was only possible because

36:12

of media once again this idea of the post traditional media my approach anyway the

36:18

the the idea that a technology arrived i think it was in 69 um the 67 the sony porter pack came in

36:26

and you know it sort of slowly seeped into the modes of production of different areas

36:32

starting at the fringes you know by 1973 we’ve got vito akanchi’s theme song which i think is

36:38

like the classic articulation of of media in the visual arts um

36:45

but media is a thing in itself you know there’s the world of cinema there’s the world of television it’s much broader than the art world as

36:52

we discussed before um this new mo this moment allowed

37:00

people who are excluded from production to get into production and this event brought them all in so i

37:07

wonder if you could tell us um about this from your perspective particularly if you can start

37:12

sort of digging into your own experience you know as we close we will move on we i’d like to push this towards

37:18

yourself and your life and your work as it emerged yeah so

37:24

um yeah so let me just um so what the image that that everyone is seeing today is

37:31

and what’s in the exhibition is actually a bus shelter poster

37:37

from the event from 1989 and the image is actually a painting by

37:44

nora patrick she’s an argentinian woman and i just you know we had a huge connection

37:50

with latin american um uh people’s this is in vancouver

37:56

there was a huge presence in vancouver um women were at the forefront of the struggle globally

38:01

and it was really coming out of those really heavy contestations after the chilean coup

38:07

you know with uh ayande being replaced with pinochet and there were solidarity campaigns um

38:14

was a main engagement across all artist communities um the w where where i worked at the

38:20

time uh women in focus had a had a gallery and they were showing latin american

38:26

work such as women art in the periphery note the word periphery

38:32

we’re all immersed right in the in sort of the literature of american you know latin america um kissinger was

38:39

there the you know books like the open veins of latin america the ten minds of bolivia co-op radio all across there was this

38:46

kind of real engagement with latin american um community and i wanted to put that

38:52

out there because um the image was from nora’s work

38:58

um a few things i want to say um and i’m going to start tying in

39:04

my personal here but because people have asked me this like why you why vancouver um so what is the impetus

39:12

really behind this in a way this is very much linked niranjan

39:18

to the fact that i am from the third world i was born in the mao mao freedom

39:25

movement fighting for independence against the british empire i grew up in the color bra

39:31

you know it was a really heavily racialized context you know i have i have so many personal

39:39

stories about growing up in this era you know um but the color bar you know

39:44

was really that we lived in segregation people think it just happened in south africa uh or you know but it happened where i

39:51

lived where i was born um so we lived in segregated discrimination

39:57

and you know as as etienne bodybar speaks about bordering we were actually boarded right between

40:03

white toilets and non-white toilets um and from our beautiful

40:09

you know art deco home designed by an italian architect we would look out across the lawn to the

40:16

forbidden impala club swimming pool into social club for whites only

40:22

and i guess i can say that as a child um i knew this was not right

40:29

you feel it right and there were so many incidents

40:35

anyway um but these have been um i guess the heavy influences in my life

40:41

and this has given me the impetus to make change and i think the making of invisible

40:47

colors is very much this site of activation right um it was an amazing event 1989.

40:54

over 100 films work from 28 countries film and video

40:59

um but it kind of really emerged amidst those contestations on nation building

41:05

the making of that global neoliberal order which we’ve just talked about in atlanta right

41:11

um and and i think that you know there was all that upheaval of the late 70s

41:16

and the 80s and it really foregrounded race and gender and the politics of cultural

41:22

difference and and we talked about all of this you know the changes that were occurring in the global order

41:29

in the political economy right and then you already mentioned this

41:35

the the emergence of videos in your media and we talked about the porter pack they were community television sent you know

41:42

rogers community television and and like you said at that time we were fighting broadcasting

41:48

right we were fighting television it wasn’t it wasn’t speaking about our stories um artist ron sanchez

41:54

started sharing their production resources and i think video really opens up that

42:00

accessibility it also challenged and expanded the ability for the artist

42:05

i think especially women who who really saw

42:12

a greater means to further feminist art movement also in this country is part of the second wave of feminism

42:18

you know in canada um but just to to come to one thing it’s it’s

42:24

interesting because you said this as well um i was recently posed this question

42:30

by we changed she’s a research student at ubc at the

42:37

moment and and she says you know despite often being referenced

42:45

as a seminal event for other practices and discourses in the 90s ivc hasn’t had

42:52

a ton of critical attention what does this mean what does this actually point to

42:58

and does this point to something missing in canada’s cultural self understanding

43:05

i think it’s very pertinent today as it was then and that is being posed again today so

43:11

here the struggle for um the perpetual struggle perpetual effort

43:19

is to be seen right so first you struggle even to get access to the resources to make stuff and to be seen

43:26

the massive mitigates against certain sectors indigenous and others uh getting

43:32

access then when you build the the the understanding and consensus get the access get the show get it done

43:38

have a success then you have to deal with the being seen in the discourse and who are doing who’s doing the

43:44

writing and who is able to navigate the spaces of production

43:50

at that level to create visibility so it’s an ongoing struggle as one

43:55

level of it is resolved we move on um to the next and in in just that note i’m going to not

44:00

let you say anymore because we have to move on to the the next slide um and i think you can

44:07

tie things up here oh yeah no problem a little bit um you’re right on because my response to

44:13

that is the messy report literally right like like and and you know earlier i’d been

44:19

in an interview with john cole 1991 i’m talking about you know i underlined i underlined the

44:25

need to decolonize our minds right this is like from then right so um anyway

44:32

yeah so then we will we must come you know before question time we only have a few minutes so so this is um

44:39

uh through the soles of my mother’s feet 1997 a four channel

44:46

times two eight screen uh video a projection a video video installation i beg your

44:52

pardon at the burnaby jamaat kana or house of worship for the the ismaili

44:59

community yeah the mosque the mosque your your community so the art world comes to the the the

45:07

life world of zainab virgi and all the negotiations that have to take place uh the transgressions that

45:13

have to be uh addressed or avoided the taboos that uh may have moderated or modulated the

45:20

work um the uh idea here being

45:25

that uh that that this is an expression of of uh

45:32

yourself in canada and your people in a sense your family can you tell us more

45:41

yeah i’ll study really quickly um so yeah it wasn’t it was you know curated by the burnaby

45:46

art gallery and this the site was the mosque or the smiley it’s not the smiley center actually in

45:51

burnaby bc um and um i just want to mention um the making of it a little bit because

46:00

um kate craig of the western front traveled with me from canada all the way to india and

46:06

kenya and uganda to shoot the work and and it was a it was an amazing experience for us because

46:13

obviously it was the first time she was getting an insight into really who i was and and what my

46:19

background was and and what was driving me in a way that she wouldn’t have been able to otherwise uh and and you know there was

46:27

others that were really instrumental in making this work but um

46:34

i think that i just want to just tie it back to a little bit what we’re saying and then i’m going to make it a

46:41

little bit more about what you’re seeing on the image um so

46:46

you know i i need to say this because the end of the 80s

46:52

we saw a cultural turn in many disciplines and especially anthropology and by the

46:57

mid 90s art was seeing an ethnographic turn in response to globalization

47:02

we’re back in that space again right and in this context there were so many disciplines uh disciplines of

47:09

architecture let’s say were sites of contestations against globalization the alga khan award for architecture was

47:15

really significant in this intervention right because it started to foreground the vernacular

47:21

and and this was at the cusp of global modernism and the reason i wanted to say this is that

47:28

the vernacular is the leap motif of my work through the souls of my mother’s feet

47:35

right um you know in the original installation it was constructed uh on the principle of the octagon which

47:42

is the motif of the mosque it’s it’s dedicated um to my mother

47:48

and the women in the community and it really tracks the migration of our community from india to africa to the

47:54

western world the the working title was nomadic architecture because i was um in this instance i i

48:02

was saying that architecture refers not only to the built structures

48:07

but also to how a community interacts with the cultural social and natural worlds and this work

48:14

was never understood very much like invisible colors right but it preempts actually hal foster’s

48:21

essay uh on artists as ethnographer right um it wasn’t uh understood at the time

48:28

right they were people weren’t able to read it so um but the this is

48:36

that that we have up here you can see the images of the feet right um and and so i’m also asked about

48:42

the title right through the soles of my mother’s feet actually it’s an expression in the quran

48:48

and it implies that the way to heaven is through the souls of the mother’s feet right and feet are really important

48:54

signifiers for us right touching your feet kissing a feet etc um so um yeah and and it starts with

49:03

the story of feet actually me looking at my feet reminds me of my mother’s feet and and

49:08

and so on the story goes and ends up in this in this amazing work um but anyway i

49:15

know you have a good story about feet yes i do but i think i’ll save my story i’ll save my story but

49:21

but what i will do though i will take some time to um make my point which is and

49:27

and it relates to your point about visibility too and and that is that we need theoretical

49:34

mechanisms framings discuss framing discourses to be able to see so

49:41

you need the spotlight with which to see the work that’s already been done and here you know i’d like to

49:46

to plug my own post-traditional theory because what you’re saying exactly embodies that that the fact that it was

49:53

not visible within the modernist discourse post-modern discourse is just the return of the repressed but i’m saying listen

50:00

tradition never went away you know and modernism is just another tradition and post is

50:05

is not even worth mentioning you know we are living in a world of multiples

50:10

multitudes diversity and we need framing mechanisms that incorporate and

50:15

and enable us to see so to save time uh zainab because people i’m sure have

50:22

questions or at least catherine will have some i will just give a quick synopsis and ask you for a comment of

50:28

um the next two works which are actually shown shown in one one place in one

50:34

piece so this is two words art is a public good um and

50:39

art is life is work there are new words text based works uh similar to status of the

50:46

artist and you know these really strike a chord with me because a lot of my practice has been to do with um understanding

50:53

this you know metaphysical uh paradigm ananda kumarasamy the idea that modernism is

50:59

displacing a traditional worldview in which you know art was vocation so every man was a special kind

51:07

of artist you know there’s no such thing as a special kind of man being an artist so the potter the the calligrapher we’re

51:14

all artists you know even the mother at home rearing the kids we’re all doing our

51:19

artistry in our work and so this is the diagonal as well this is the transversal again

51:26

art and life and work and it critiques the political economy at the tip of at one end

51:32

and at the other end you know it’s at home in the mother’s feet with at the mother’s feet it’s the whole of life together and art

51:38

is a public good and i’ll finish with this and let you have the last word is actually a political statement it’s a

51:45

critique of the art market of the way in which we we have privatized the art production you know

51:53

the biennales the fairs and we have removed hollowed out the spaces in which

51:58

art is allowed to reveal its aspect as a shared public good

52:05

yeah exactly i i think you’ve summed it up you know um really this is that art is being

52:10

instrumentalized under the new liberal logic and and i’ve said this earlier we talked about you know um the

52:18

festivalization and you know right now literally you know for every ill in society there’s a

52:24

hammer of art right art will fix it it’ll it’ll it’ll alleviate everything but

52:29

it’s not we know that that’s not the case um because but it’s been made into that and

52:36

for his life his work is art it’s it’s a con it’s

52:42

that continuum right it’s and it’s part of that fluxus ethos so i see that we we are we probably

52:48

should move on to the questions but yeah i think you yourself sum that up thank you thank you

52:54

zena thank you catherine we’re ready for you

53:07

i think catherine has to be allowed back in because of the screens we had to

53:12

push her out so i think we may be taking a moment and maybe until catherine comes back on um i

53:19

will continue a little bit about this sort of oh the arc

53:26

i guess um of zaynab’s production and if you take a take a note at what’s

53:33

behind her her zed that zainab said completely

53:39

reflects or echoes the diagonal of the transversal

53:46

it’s no coincidence it’s written [Laughter]

53:51

there you go that fits with your uh your um work as well i think right yeah notions

53:58

that you know in the traditional world view that some things are preordained some things are in the stars you know

54:04

it’s a little bit of difference from the rational hi catherine hi

54:09

how are you good good thank you so much um i something’s very strange happened

54:15

when i tried to come back into the room i got kicked out completely and so now i’ve signed back on and i’ve

54:21

lost the chat but i have to tell you that before i left there were no specific

54:27

questions in the chat there were several congratulations to you zainab and several people

54:33

commenting supporting some of the topics of conversation that you’re having so we didn’t have a specific question

54:40

um i am very intrigued by near and dear story of feet i don’t know so i might

54:47

provoke you to give to share that with us sure um so there are quite a few stories of

54:56

the feet and and the first thing is when zayna told me that her feet were like her mother’s i thought oh my god you know that’s the

55:02

thought i’ve had myself my feet are like my mother’s one of my daughters has this little toe

55:08

um that’s that’s more like my mother’s in fact my grandmother it begins with my

55:14

grandmother so the idea of lineage and tradition and you know things being

55:19

handed down um but the story is actually the importance of feet the significance

55:24

of feet in traditional culture and uh i was at a at a at a conference in which

55:32

in in in the 90s in which i think this is the story they never meant

55:37

but in in with opinion who’s you know one of the the leading figures in bringing the art

55:43

of asia southeast asia to the world stage um really

55:49

we have to credit him for bringing you know awareness of southeast as i’m a malaysian so southeast asia

55:55

he’s from thailand and you know the thais are very modern and very traditional at the same time

56:00

and he was on a panel you know and i can’t name the others of hand but there were leading figures curated um

56:08

dealing in in los angeles conference he’s dealing with ideas of of this

56:15

biennale movement this globalization and they were creating this unifying discourse

56:20

about uh world art and apinan was the leader of this and part of this and they were congratulating each other and it

56:26

bothered me a little so i you know kind of half instinctively took off my shoe right shoe and my sock and i put my foot

56:34

up on the chair in front of me i was in the second row right and i showed my foot somehow knowing that it

56:41

would do something i didn’t know what and apinan hit the roof

56:47

and really got offended and of course he’s a thai you know he’s

56:53

a thai so within this veneer of modern discourse of uh

56:59

you know we have other people functioning with completely different values um and this is something that you know

57:06

we need the transversal to highlight and it’s not just you know people from asia it’s all kinds of

57:11

angles all you know there’s an intersectionality to this problem and the ability to remove the cloud of

57:17

knowing if you like you know what we think we know and to look at it in different ways is what i think is

57:24

evident in zainab’s work and and what’s more important is that not only does she

57:30

show us how to look at it she actually does the action of you know going into the institution

57:36

and working this you know actually bringing it back from the institutional perspective so so

57:41

that this is i think that’s the story anyhow oh there’s lots of people saying thank

57:47

you oh look at ah that’s a wonderful exhibition and and opinon is my friend by

57:54

the way since then we’ve we we’ve he was very gracious afterwards though we’ve never discussed the meaning

58:00

of the the gesture now whatever he’s been very kind

58:08

so thank you very much we still have no questions in our chat room i did have i was thinking though zayn

58:14

when you were talking about invisible colors and i know it’s something that i remember from the late 80s um and talking about

58:21

you know how that manifested itself back then and what we’re experiencing now and how

58:28

something like that seems to be even more necessary for or as necessary now perhaps as it was back

58:35

then so just talking about that you know this is 30 years 31 years ago and how do you see the context now

58:43

versus then being the same or different

58:52

sorry i had my my my cuff um i think the context is the same i just

58:58

don’t think that the ability to do something like that is there i don’t think we’d be able to

59:05

put on another invisible colors type of of event i think the world is the

59:12

context is the same but the the the the the multiracial solidarities that

59:20

were created in the making of that event that amazing event is broken it’s not there

59:27

this this invisible colors really brought together indigenous people from all over the

59:33

world okay it brought together women of color this kind of in the united states

59:42

and britain but it brought women from third world women from all over the world and and each one

59:49

with its own relationship to the to the its nation state it’s very different now but those multiracial solidarities were

59:56

broken are broken now they don’t exist right and and i think it was also really

1:00:02

created you know there was sort of three things that happened with invisible colors right uh it it foregrounded like the histories

1:00:09

of struggle of women of color and third world filmmakers i think it really brought you know to

1:00:15

the forefront the kind of issues of race to second wave feminism um and and and those multiracial

1:00:22

solidarities were created and i think it really created like this new alignment

1:00:28

and that engagement um in that emergent global politics of third cinema

1:00:35

you know uh from a global perspective in this book colors was the first

1:00:43

gender-based solidarity event for women of color that responded to the attempts made in

1:00:51

the meetings following the third world filmmakers uh meeting in 1973 in all jewish and it

1:00:56

was all men all of those meetings were all men until this until this event uh we have

1:01:04

two questions one from donna is why is the solidarity not there now

1:01:12

the solidarity has been has been broken um in in all kinds of ways because um

1:01:19

i i think it’s um it’s um uh you know um

1:01:26

i kind of speak to this in my interview with rosemary heather and canadian art but but what what we’ve done is become more

1:01:34

at least in this country i think we there’s like a um a a tripartite

1:01:42

that’s occurred for example right and the segmentation so we’re not speaking to each other

1:01:47

anymore even the terminology right we we like bipod that’s broken right it’s black indigenous

1:01:54

people of color we don’t talk about so much it’s it’s like it’s become a very um

1:02:00

uh different kind of solidarity we don’t come together in the same ways right the the

1:02:08

what even though even back then in kenora indigenous people were were aligned with third world right

1:02:14

there were indigenous people from canada going to tanzania to see what was being done there it’s

1:02:19

all gone it’s finished that’s that’s not there anymore uh the powers that be won’t allow it

1:02:26

right it’s divide and rule i have a question from alice um

1:02:32

she says i would love to ask zaneb how you’ve been able to be sustained a sustainable force as a supportive role

1:02:39

model for members of the bipock community in the struggle for equity and inclusion in the arts and cultural sector

1:02:45

do you focus on specific pillars issues groups and thank you so much for oh and thank

1:02:51

you so much for doing so much i’m sorry can you i didn’t catch all of

1:02:57

that sorry a little bit i’m sorry i would love to ask a nib how you’ve been able to be a sustainable

1:03:04

force as a supportive role model for members of the bipock community

1:03:10

in the struggle for equity and inclusion in the arts and cultural sector do you focus on specific pillars issues

1:03:17

groups and thank you yeah that’s such a great question thank

1:03:22

you you know um i think i’ve always from a very early age

1:03:28

um being acutely aware of the political economy or the politics

1:03:35

of place because it had affected us so much you know you heard my story around

1:03:43

and when you know uh the mama growing up in in um in kenya during those times and

1:03:50

so the terms of the politics is and and that economy that’s always been

1:03:56

something that um i’ve held on to and tried to understand and work from that

1:04:01

from that space um so even right now i saw in covid what was the opportunity

1:04:07

you know for artists right basic income being one of them um and kind of understanding that this

1:04:13

place of labor right uh and and so even like the status of the artist i think it’s really um um

1:04:21

i i’ve been thinking about diversity and inclusion a lot i i’ve given a little um

1:04:28

talk at business for the arts on this about how problematic this terminology

1:04:34

is and where it comes from and how it breaks us apart actually instead of bringing us together

1:04:40

right so i think kind of diversity in inclusion is is a workforce

1:04:48

yeah i was just saying it’s workforce terminology but it’s not about solidarity

1:04:53

so on a related note uh vojana says they know you’ve recently spoken quite a bit on the issue of diversity in art

1:05:00

institutions and the problems of diversity and equity as a capitalist western model

1:05:05

of responding to issues of racism and sexism and art can you elaborate on this and is there a

1:05:10

connection of diversity to lack of labor rights in the arts [Music]

1:05:18

okay uh just yeah give me a moment

1:05:23

sorry uh give me a moment that’s uh quite a quite a bit there so i

1:05:30

i have been speaking quite a bit on this um obviously because i’m i’m working very

1:05:36

much in these issues uh constantly in my work and also as an art service organization

1:05:44

where we see that even since the the onset of covert um

1:05:50

you know everybody rushed to put out statements right and if you ask organizations what’s their

1:05:56

top most priority they’ll say diversity and inclusion um but what does that actually mean

1:06:02

right um what how how is that changing structural racism or the

1:06:08

structural barriers how is that actually uh addressing

1:06:13

the real change that needs to be made at all levels of institutions

1:06:19

and within communities in in in kind of breaking the barriers which

1:06:24

is which is what we want to break so i think that we’ve we’ve um

1:06:31

appropriated a language those words and think that they mean something

1:06:38

right but they don’t mean what we think they mean right diversity

1:06:45

and inclusion is really a productivity tool it had it had nothing to do with systemic racism it really came

1:06:51

out of actually a workforce 2000 report uh that that that was part of this

1:06:58

globalization of labor where where we needed to diversify labor and

1:07:03

and it had really to do with with with um increasing productivity rather than

1:07:09

dealing with the systemic issues and and that’s why i feel it’s really important that we talk about these

1:07:15

things i mean we we’ve heard so much about the future of work right what does that actually mean what would

1:07:23

it mean for our cultural institutions do how will we actually make those changes

1:07:29

catherine can i come in a little yes yes so so um i really really like is that

1:07:36

was that dana claxton that that that question no that was someone named bojana okay no

1:07:41

the no the previous one the uh the second question uh alice

1:07:46

alice clex dennis did didn’t you say dana no no no no no

1:07:52

okay so anyway the idea that the question that i’m referring to is

1:07:57

the one that that asked why the solidarity is broken

1:08:03

if it is that question right so um the idea there i think is that

1:08:11

um there’s no la there are no lasting solidarities this is so evident in politics

1:08:16

um but it’s also evident in life you know we have divorces and marriages and blended families you know

1:08:22

there’s no such thing as a as a permanent allegiance and so again the diagonal sorry to keep

1:08:29

uh telling that idea but the the thing is to keep noting the changes in the

1:08:36

verticals and the horizontal so you have the power structure which is always stacked

1:08:41

you know look at hindu culture indian culture the caste system is that it stacks so well that you can’t

1:08:48

shift it regardless of the most progressive constitution and legislation for reorganization um

1:08:54

you can’t shift the stack because it’s centuries old right and so that and then you have the verticals

1:09:00

which are let’s say the the ontologies you know the the the categories we talked about black white

1:09:06

yellow or brown or indigenous you know whatever women transgender whatever you want to do we are playing with language

1:09:13

i think zainab mentions language so you you can’t avoid it because the whether you’re a constructivist or a

1:09:20

realist you know language is is functional in the definition of creating things

1:09:25

so it’s always about negotiating and moving so the the allegiances have to reform around new things

1:09:31

and here i’d like to say that zainab you’ve hit the nerve with your present activism around work because this unites

1:09:39

everybody right this is a this is a this is unites at least artists let’s say all of us you

1:09:46

know we we if this is the main issue which it is which we haven’t recognized over the course of your map

1:09:52

right it’s slowly been happening clearly been happening but we’ve gone on with our careers maybe now’s the moment post covet as you

1:09:59

say in your article in the georgia strait that we now look at that allegiance and worry a little bit less

1:10:05

about the others they’re all relevant and they’re all contested you know

1:10:10

um but but so the movement to to create allegiance is also diagonal

1:10:17

yeah and and this is really tying in what i’ve already said during the our conversation um

1:10:24

is this whole like um you know this move from work labor to jobs right

1:10:32

dni is all about that this jobs it’s about it’s about workforce

1:10:38

it’s not about work it’s not about artists i i thought about something writing a book eleven years to

1:10:46

make you know the great canadian novel it’s not it’s not a musician you know uh trying to this is this is

1:10:53

all about jobs the dni is all about that and you know yeah and in many ways so

1:11:00

it’s diversity right it’s about accounting a lot of it is about accounting um the numbers you know like you got four

1:11:07

brown ones and three white ones and you know a couple of yellows right i mean this is what you’re doing

1:11:12

you won’t use the words because they’re rude but you’re doing it in your statistics to get your funding for next time around

1:11:18

so it’s all part of the same political uh economic administration of art and

1:11:24

and uh as a whole um the excuse me i better plug in my power

1:11:30

because at the end of the day it’s the juice that counts um so at uh

1:11:38

at uh you know at the end of the day you know we we’ve got

1:11:43

to keep the eye on the ball which is exactly what zainab has been doing

1:11:48

for decades you know that what’s the next important issue it’s not the same it’s

1:11:54

not the same as it was in invisible colours we’re somewhere else uh one of our audience members just

1:12:01

posted a link to basic in income and the arts campaign so for those who can have a look at them

1:12:12

i think we’ve exceeded our time um but everything has been so fascinating

1:12:17

and i know that um we’ve kept our audience members really engaged over the last hour so

1:12:22

thank you so much and um i want to thank uh niranjan for moderating and hosting this conversation

1:12:29

with zainab and of course nina thank you so much for everything that you do for your work in the exhibition for all

1:12:36

the work that you’ve done for many many decades uh to support artists and cultural workers in canada

1:12:41

so thank you it’s an honor to have been working with you over the last uh several months on this exhibition and

1:12:48

unfortunately the aga is closed to the public uh until january 11th due to alberta health

1:12:55

restrictions but uh we will be opening the exhibition again which opens uh is open until

1:13:00

february 14th so we do have a virtual walkthrough online if people want to

1:13:05

kind of take a walk through the exhibition uh and also we will be hosting a second artist conversation uh with

1:13:13

governor general laureate michael fernandez uh in conversation with rayquasi

1:13:18

on january 11th so um everybody is sending so many thanks to

1:13:24

you zainab and niranjan for your conversation tonight through the chat so thank you and um i wish everybody a very

1:13:32

happy holiday season you too and thanks to everyone for being part of the conversation with us

1:13:38

niranjan always always a pleasure thank you thank you everyone thanks to the audience thanks

1:13:45

zainab and catherine and helen thank you thank you

1:13:51

oh helen has been our facilitator online facilitator so thank you everybody and again

1:13:57

everybody have a very safe and healthy holiday season you too

1:14:03

thank you okay bye bye [Music]

1:14:09

bye

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