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[Music] [Applause]

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[Music] [Applause]

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[Applause] well here we are

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i wonder if we could start at the broadest beginnings which is to ask you

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to introduce yourself and your practice sure yeah thank you for sending those

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questions earlier too michelle so i had some time to just think about where i want to go with this

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um but just preface certain just to preface where i’m at in my

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feelings right now about everything is that i am because it’s been such an intense

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transition period it’s you know it’s it’s like i’m feeling quite vulnerable

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so i’m just i’m just like practicing in terms of how i might approach things

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from different angles and maybe not like like start from the beginning but maybe also start from the middle in

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all kinds of ways so um it’s it’s

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interesting to me because i just started this job a month and a half ago at agnes

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um and it’s the first time that i work in a university gallery setting although

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i was an academic for a very long portion of my life you know and i feel

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like this shift has is having is putting me in a position where i’m

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having to think a lot about um my relationship to the institution

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all over again differently because i was at a plug-in ica before that in winnipeg

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um which is a much smaller institutional structure um

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but to begin i think i always say that i never imagined that i would be a curator

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like as a profession or as a job it would never i would have never guessed in

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in the years that i’ve been doing this that i would end up doing it um in a way

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that is you know where i can feel comfortable and not worry about income and i think

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that’s like a really big part of the transition and the shift too um i’ve

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worked independently for very long and i think it really started with

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me being obsessed with film and cinema and actually wanda gave me kind of my

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first like speaking gig like as a as a student at trent university

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uh when she was uh programming for this um film festival in peterborough and she

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hadn’t speak to a program that included all these artists uh for a lack of weather for a lack of

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better word came from the middle east um and so i feel like um that is something i always think about

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is that film studies cinema and philosophy really got me to where i am

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today in terms of my curatorial uh practice and how i think about it um

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i also never wanted to be a professor when i did university it was also never

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something i wanted to like be or make a career out of so i think for me it was

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interesting because i started i did my degrees in film studies in my undergrad

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well cultural studies and then film studies in my master’s and then i did an interdisciplinary degree

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uh in a phd in humanities at concordia

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where i started to work in geography uh art history and cinema so then

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brought all those kind of three disciplines together in my in my writing and in my work as a researcher um but

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during my phd time is when i started to curate a lot independently uh again

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mostly like public programs mostly focused on film screenings discussions um thinking

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a lot about what the university what the gallery space can offer for as a gathering spot as a kind of like as a

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social uh um kind of way of of really engaging

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with uh what we do with what we learn and how we share those ideas and not just that but

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also what the art is doing in terms of how it’s affecting or impacting our way

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of thinking and our way of doing and our way of creating ethics around how we want to be in the world i was really

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interested and started to become very interested in how our artists through their art practice

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inspired that in us inspired us to think of how we can really engage the world differently

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and transform kind of each other and the world through how we

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create these relationships and so i felt really blessed to have a lot of opportunities

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to do that during my phd since i was funded and then also didn’t have to

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worry about money there but um i would uh yeah try to do a lot of um

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independent curating there in order to just start kind of moving away from academia

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as the place in which i wanted to be because it was uh

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you know it was not making me a happy person i also i think the moment that i was in

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school which was like five years ago now was when i when

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i i finished my post-doc um but when i was in school so it was like 10

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years of my life i started to realize just how different things um how quickly things were

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changing in terms of how the pressure of academia was putting on what it meant to be a writer or what it

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meant to be a researcher in the world and i started to feel like completely suffocated by it because i felt like that’s not how i wanted to write and

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it’s not how i wanted to think not within these like even though i was doing interdisciplinary work i felt like i was

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really being coerced into being disciplined which is what i did not want to do ever

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in my life and that’s not how i think and so it’s and that’s not where i want to be and i also think there’s huge

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issues with that i also throughout my entire academic education realized how

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all my professors um were white and that a lot of what i was doing while i was

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there was unlearning already what i was learning in the classroom or having to always do that independent work on the

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outside so that’s why also like curation and my own independent writing practice

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started to take form outside of academia because i was trying to create space for myself and

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for how i felt as a student and how i want and how i wanted to think and who i was inspired by and also who i was

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having conversations with which were artists and curators outside the academic scope of things

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so that’s how um that’s kind of just giving a little bit of

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like an overview for how i was at and then um i started to

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um i got my first job my first job at art metropol um and then um from there i went to

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plug-in as curator and then ended up at the agnes so yeah that’s been

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uh a journey since 2016 i think yeah

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amazing um given the the complexity

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of what you’ve just shared and um you know the

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how how obviously you’re bringing together so many different

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threads and ideas and disciplines in the work that you do

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i wonder you know what did what did you think when we invited you to participate in something called the feminist art

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field school yeah how does the term feminism relate to your thinking

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i was thinking about that a lot because of yeah it was a question too that was in your last email and

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i never describe my practice that way and i have to say and it’s not because of anything

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it’s because i just i always think of myself as palestinian first and that is very much connected to

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like everything i do any kind of um it’s like a liberatory mode of being where

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i’m just like i all i do is everything i do is because i’m always

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thinking about the liberation of my people so i that’s like totally internal

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and i don’t and even what i just even how i described it now is just so underwhelming in terms of just the

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bodily effect that i have like this the power i i feel inside me when i think

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about that is is beyond words and so i feel like

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so i wanted to think about this question actually really intentionally because i think the feminism or the feminist

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practice that um impacts my work is

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has a lot to do with the relationships that have been in my life so i can’t that is not separate from how

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i grow as a person who i consider mentors who i look up to who i admire who are close friends of

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mine who are just impact my life on in all of these

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ways because of the ways that we have these discussions which is that our practice and our and the way we live our

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life is just not separate there’s no separation it’s just a a dynamic that keeps

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propelling us toward what we want to think about when it comes to transformation and liberation

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so the what was the question in your email though how was it a feminist practice i

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is that what it was i think it was simpler than that what is what is feminism what is feminist yeah

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i think so i can’t talk about that without thinking about um

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the relationship that i have with norbeste phillip who has been in my life for the last five years who has impacted

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so much of what i do recently um

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i feel like i’ve learned so much from her writing and also just like being in her presence

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and listening to her like just just us even on the phone just talking

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about whatever it is that is happening in our lives i think is

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i feel like this the strength and power that she imbues and like

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gives out into the world through her writing and what she does is like beyond even the word feminist because

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it’s just it’s really it makes me feel like there is

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it really teaches me a lot about how to be very very confident in what i believe

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in as my values and to continue with them no matter how

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challenging that could be in the world yeah to continue

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believing that they will to continue believing in their power in

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the space and wherever i am so that i can make sure that it’s that i have strength

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to like keep going in the world and i feel like she’s someone who i look up to in that way because

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um there’s no compromise there’s no compromise in her work in her writing

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um and it’s like an incredible thing to just consistently be reminded of

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um um and and to yeah to just like to to be

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uh lucky enough to to have that kind of mentorship around me um

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is is what i think feminism is is having those types of

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intergenerational relationships that really impact the work that you do

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in a way that is uh holds you accountable but also gives you confidence in in

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what you believe in and and what you feel like is uh um

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key to making changes in in whatever spaces we are yeah

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um i think wanda is also another one for sure i learned a lot about her and her methodologies because

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she’s someone who i think of you know someone who’s working inside an institution like the hgo

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we did a talk together a few years ago and i remember her saying this i i can never forget it but she was just saying

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like what i want the museums to feel like for everybody is that

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feeling and that kind of atmosphere you create in around the kitchen table

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you know when you’re cooking a meal with your friends or family and you’re just talking and laughing and it’s that

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intimacy of those spaces uh have to have that take over in institutions

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like something with the hu i think is is so key to how i think about also um as like

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a feminist practice is really breaking down those kinds of institutional walls that hold on to

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a specific type of um uh exclusion and and

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um you know it’s a coldness that i think is she’s breaking down in there too

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um i also think of denise farah da silva who i love so much i think her work is like

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so hard i have to read it over and over again every time it takes me like four

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hours to read one page but every time i’m just like she’s changing everything

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about like what philosophy is and how it has affected and impacted the way you

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think about everything from like like race to modernism to

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uh i can’t even like everything everything she’s just like tearing down those walls of like the

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thought that have just embedded themselves in the ways that uh settler colonial culture has created its um

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you know um motifs and motives yeah

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i love this ant i love this answer and the role call of

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mentors and interlocutors is totally extraordinary and one of the things that i’m

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so inspired by is the way in which this conversation can open up portals to

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other modes of reading and connection and investigation and as i was reading the

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extraordinary list of offerings that you sent us prior to the chat some

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of the writing yours and some of the writing by others i wrote down this philip quote the struggle is to reduce

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the gap between the experience and the expression of that experience [Music]

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and i just i just keep you know i think i circled it i came back and doodled on it like something that i just want to

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continue to think with and you know as i was doing that reading and thinking about our conversation with you i was

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thinking about you know language translation and curatorial practice

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as these actions problems yeah utterances and i

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wonder if you might think out loud with us about sort of the relationship between language and translation and curation wow right yeah because it came

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from that one piece um in canadian art yeah i mean that’s also something else i think about a lot

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because for me like curatorially i’m just always trying to figure out

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why i’m interested in because i’m not interested in the actual exhibition space like

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not interested in like creating an exhibition so for me it’s like that translation that happens from

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um having just built relationships with the artists that i work with so a lot of the time

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i don’t just work with people i don’t know it’s there there are people who have been in my life for many years

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we’ve had many conversations we’ve uh had exchanges of readings we’ve um been

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in each other’s lives just cooking hanging out you know for for years and years before

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i even get to a point where we’re just gonna do this work together and

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and so the translation of that into an exhibition space or into a gallery

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is so challenging to to like have that effect take place

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and so for me it’s just the most important thing that what’s happening in that moment is that

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whatever the artists like i’m there for the artists i’m just

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really there to take care of them to figure out what they want and need in terms of how they want things to happen

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in any kind of way and also to take care of the communities who are going to be

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um you know in who are going to be um living in the same place as these

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exhibitions what does that mean how do we uh like those two things are not

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separate for me so whenever an artist is thinking about an exhibition and we’re

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going to work together on one i’m also thinking about the community needs and what’s missing for them

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what would they want out of something like this do they want something you know that that that’s all coming together for me

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and that’s what ends up being in in presenting a situation in a gallery

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that’s also going to have this like massive public program i don’t even like to call

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it that because i’m like it’s just part of exhibition making anyway because it’s all about trying to figure out how we’re

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going to create spaces of exchange and like in which we come together to uh

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think about the questions that arise from the work together and to think about their effect together because

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the effect of the work i think is like doesn’t have language yet until that happens

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and that’s what’s most important to me it’s really like a social event it’s like i just want to have a party with

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the artists in their exhibition with the people who are you know

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uh who i wanna want to invite into this or who want to crash this you know i

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want them to crash it yeah

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um in in one of our earlier conversations i was um kind of admitting

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my frustration while i was in grad school but having to study critical theory and

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never having any clarity the professors never felt

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the need to like clarify why we were studying it or how it related to the real world and i

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i’m sort of getting the sense from from the readings that you shared from us and from your comments today that

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um even though uh what you’re sort of driving towards in your work is

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this space of exchange and conversation and people feeling comfortable around

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the the kitchen table um uh and i don’t want to

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leave this conversation somewhere that you don’t want it to go if i’ve misinterpreted this but here’s a line

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that i loved from your your text for many returns

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it’s hard to write when i don’t feel like it in truth i never do i feel bound to writing it’s a duty

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a palestinian one and you could have ended the sentence there but you go on to say a phontological one

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and i wonder if you could uh talk about um i mean that whole phrase but

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what you what you mean by um ontological one

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where that where that word comes from and how

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um that kind of reference um relates

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to this visual image that i get that so many people can relate to of like hating

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to write but feeling bound to do it um

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it’s like a beautiful like in between theory and real life that i

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am always looking for oh yeah

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i feel like when i use that word and in that particular moment too was

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because oh my god i this is gonna be like

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i don’t even know if this is please interject if i’m like not making any sense but they’re it’s so hard

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sometimes to talk about like process because i think we’re talking about that connection between like yeah real world

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real life like and then writing and doing this thing it’s like um

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for me it’s just so hard to put words to process that feels so

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um bodily so i think when i used that word i was like ah like well first i was just

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like i’m always bound to deadlines like this is like i just can’t and even

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institutionally thinking about deadlines you know like um like having to have everything um

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happen at a certain time because of certain things and i just like it’s the only way that gets me to write

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first of all but also it’s something that i just like dread and always

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um uh try to like really push against but in that particular moment i was like

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i was really feeling like there was something uh like it’s something always bigger

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than me so when i say it’s a palestinian one i i don’t ever feel like there’s like my writing or my curating like my

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practice just as a practitioner i just feel like that i am working for something that is like

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bigger than my own being an existence in this world and that’s like a huge

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responsibility so when i say duty and and how it’s connected to a

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logical one is because i’m like that is literally what i’m haunted by is that i

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can’t in that like i landed here and on someone else’s land

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because i couldn’t be on mine because my grandparents had to leave and that whole

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that whole like migration story or forced displacement and dispossession from land to

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is not separate from where i am here and there is a huge haunting there for

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me there is no way that i would lead a life here on these lands

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and thinking about where i come from and not have not make everything i do

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about how i’m going to bring uh language to that that’s a huge

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responsibility and i and i’m not i don’t want to shy for it doesn’t scare me but

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it’s it’s very powerful and it feels like i am pulled

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by it and that’s that’s because it’s like that’s what i want to be working toward is thinking a lot about how those

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conditions create like an a responsibility that leads us to

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an ethical way of forming how we want to be in the world and i

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i really hate using the word ethics but i also think it’s important because it’s always in uh creation it’s always in uh

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conversation with the environment we’re in and with the people we’re around and i feel like i

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learned that a lot from um the exhibition i co-curated with jennifer smith called sovereign

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intimacies when we were really discussing these relationships she’s like you know

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you i just realized i don’t know anything really that much about palestine and now that i’m getting to

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know you i like i need need to learn and we were talking about these

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exchanges that like that that’s what i’m doing here all the time too is now when i landed in the prairies that was new

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learning for me i had to learn all over again because i’m on a different territory i’m in a different land

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there’s a different history here too but that’s part of this bigger one and so we’re really thinking about these

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exchanges as being so detrimental to this

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you know how relationships are created and how through these relations these intimacies

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come out and that those are the ones that lead us toward how we want to engage together

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and be with each other and learn how to be with each other if we want to and also to create work from that that is

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going to inspire a different way of contextualization and uh and that

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interjects with what we already think we know and so that’s i don’t know if that makes sense i think

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that was that like the haunting went into that project

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i wonder if you might try on a conversational experiment with me

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insofar as i’m so compelled by your thinking out loud about ethics and the

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even while we problematize that word and the ways in which art and artists can

26:22

inspire ethics i think was part of your phrasing earlier on in our conversation

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and as someone who’s invested in cinema media who works most often in documentary space i think a lot about

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accountabilities and ethics and authorship and the relationship between those things and i’m also aware that we are building a

26:41

field school where people are coming from a variety of different disciplines and interests some of whom may be very

26:48

new to encountering art in public and i was wondering if

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you might be able to tell us about a time where you encountered work

26:58

that made you think about ethics or ethically or the role of art in

27:03

a production of a new ethical way yeah

27:08

yeah totally wow yeah an artist’s work

27:16

okay before that i do want to say though if before i get to the work i want to just preface by saying that

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i also um learned deeply this is a separate

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separate from my like art life my writing maybe not my writing life but my

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art life in some ways but that i at some point you know

27:39

when i started to think a lot about um how to

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think and this was because of uh reading el wiseman’s book on the architecture of occupation uh he’s in

27:51

his you know the israeli architect who’s you know now part of forensic architecture and they do all that incredible work but

27:57

i was like how do i because i started teaching also around that time this was like 10 years ago and

28:04

i was like how do i think about um uh

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you know making palestine like a global issue because it intuitively i knew it was intuitively i wasn’t even was you

28:17

grow up in these situations you know this is not just about like

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um you know an identity thing right this is about a bigger situation in which

28:28

uh is connected to these other um um

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you know very violent modes of like occupations and colonialism and

28:39

imperialism so i was thinking a lot about how am i gonna make this actually really prevalent in the canadian context

28:45

um that it goes beyond just settler colonialism as we understand it here in

28:50

so-called canada but it’s like so i started to think a lot about prisons and i was like again intuitively

28:57

i was like i i knew intuitively i was like really believed in prison abolition and like

29:04

had not really done like all the work and reading about it so when i think of i just want to say when i think about

29:10

ethics and accountability i also think about what prison abolition from way back pre-2020

29:17

[Laughter] way back all the work that was done for

29:23

a very long time by all these incredible black feminists

29:28

critical resistance ruth gilmore all these incredible people who are just

29:35

writing so much about how we’re going to think about prison abolition as like separate from any kind

29:41

of uh state-sanctioned violence or state-sanctioned kind of systems and so that to me was like

29:48

really also a driving force in terms of making me think about what are my values how do like in in like a very kind of

29:56

like pragmatic way and i was like how do i think about accountability in these other ways and it was always very much

30:03

about so i really delved in i was like you know i started i joined a collective where we were doing visits inside and i

30:10

was with that collective for seven years because i was like there’s no way there’s so little information about canadian prisons again this was like 10

30:16

years ago at that time and there was so much about u.s prison system so i was like there’s no way to know what’s going

30:22

on here without also making those connections so that was really important for me and important for me not just as

30:29

like someone who uh is wanting to be accountable in the world

30:34

but like also someone who wants to be a good teacher because i’m like you can’t like um or a caring teacher i should say

30:42

although i have heard i am a good teacher but i am a very caring teacher and so i was like i really want the students to

30:49

understand that what happens here um through these like through the prison

30:55

infrastructures is not separate from colonization and is not separate from what’s happening in palestine and

31:02

elsewhere because these these ways of these kinds of architectures the way

31:07

they’re engineered and then made global and imported and exported have a lot to

31:13

do with these [Music] bigger relationships that are taking

31:19

place um in such a look at what’s happening in in afghanistan for example so i just want to preface that by saying

31:25

that so it’s not usually that i look at it like specifically at an artist’s work that gives me that kind of pragmatic

31:31

perspective on on what it means to be accountable and ethical to my communities and my people and and it

31:38

starts with you know it starts with me and how i am with my community of people

31:44

but it’s it’s also has a lot to do with what i’ve learned so much from uh prison

31:49

abolition organizers writers people on the inside who i had relationships with

31:55

and um that for me gave me a lot of um perspective

32:00

again on how relationship building is so important for that you know it’s not the work itself

32:06

or it’s not the you know the work that is the outcome it’s not that

32:12

the artist’s work that becomes like what we put in an exhibition it’s more like the relationships we’re creating

32:18

around us and what that does yeah [Music]

32:26

i didn’t answer your question oh it’s spectacular i was just

32:31

just giving michelle time to unmute yeah it’s a great answer okay i appreciate it very much thank you

32:39

when um when we do media training uh at the museum um

32:45

we’re told that if we’re asked a question we don’t like to just answer the question we wish we were asked

32:51

[Laughter] i right that

32:58

wow and um uh i mean

33:03

we’re asking you a lot of questions about the the writings that you shared with us and

33:10

maybe we didn’t we didn’t intend to go on for so long because we we don’t want to like hash it all out so that the

33:16

students don’t have to read anything

33:22

but um you know i’m so interested in in what you just said about um

33:28

you know uh um palestine being a global issue that

33:34

everybody should should care about and certainly when i was reading the texts

33:41

that you shared with us um especially um the the phillips text

33:48

which speaks so sort of eloquently and insightfully about

33:54

um histories of slavery um

34:00

i was just you know kind of overwhelmed by

34:06

these parallel narratives of um uh the colonial project and

34:14

and how how we are all connected

34:19

um through through these legacies these histories that that we

34:26

embody and um i wonder um you know practically

34:33

how how you move um from this space of the text of

34:41

of art like what i guess what i’m asking is what am i supposed to do now you know

34:48

you’ve you’ve made the message clear what should i do

34:57

michelle you’re already doing it

35:02

i just read this incredible interview with you in canadian art actually i used it in my interview at agnes

35:11

as inspiration on how to think about collections that was so amazing to see that you know

35:18

i was really inspired a lot by how you thought of access there

35:24

and i think this is this i think so many of us are already doing it in wherever we are

35:29

this is what i mean it’s like um we start from here you know and move

35:35

outward and it’s just how we’re taking care of things in the in the power positions that we have and the

35:40

privileged positions that we have you talked about access i was thinking so much about

35:46

how i think about institutions too and it was that you know it’s

35:52

they’re a resource they’re a building with people with money

35:58

and lots of technology lots of equipment lots of staff power lots of like all

36:06

these other things that i’m just like wow look at what we have but like just like at our arm’s reach and how are we

36:13

what are we gonna do that for me i’m like how do we bring that out to the people

36:19

who really like want to use this you know who really

36:25

could use it and how are we gonna and that would be how we change things in terms of also breaking down those walls

36:32

because i really unlike it’s just like an abundance it’s like an abundance of of of so much that that needs to be just

36:40

like funneled outward you know and not contained within

36:46

and i feel like and then the other thing i think about is just there’s like this emphasis on like the institution like

36:53

having a voice like as if it’s like a bit dissociative it’s really weird because i’m like

36:59

there are people in the institution the institution is the people and like it’s we’re inside it and it’s as if there’s

37:06

something that i don’t understand that like pivot from what

37:12

what we have power and control over and then this thing called like the

37:18

institution because this is for me like like it’s like a

37:24

it’s like a real like relationship that’s consistently happening and so i think it’s really up

37:30

to us from within to think about how much we can do from and i know it

37:38

comes with limitations but still i feel like those can be really challenged sometimes you know and from where we are and to

37:46

push up against that um it’s really hard i think because i also

37:51

have emily as like at the helm of this

37:57

the situation and she’s also very inspiring in that way with her whole concept of in reach or methodology it’s

38:03

not a concept it’s a methodology as a practice um you know really thinking about the

38:09

you know institution as something that can be really um

38:14

um yeah changed from within and bring it out as well and i think that’s something

38:20

it’s like to be aligned again to be working with people who

38:25

where values are aligned uh give so much power to trying to transform those spaces for the artists that

38:33

i care about and and and uh want to be with forever

38:39

and bring them in and need going out there to you know and then also being out there in the communities that i feel

38:46

like is so integral to thinking for me i don’t separate i really feel

38:51

like we can make art very uh

38:57

um how do i say this we can really as like curators and my responsibility here i

39:02

feel like there’s like a responsibility to to make it feel like um

39:09

anyone can have access to it but that people already understand it and it’s like my job to make sure that it’s just

39:17

that they’re getting what they need out of it you know and i don’t and i don’t want to ever assume that nobody gets art

39:23

or that um i don’t even even when people say well like i don’t know about art i don’t know if i get it i’m like i think

39:29

like you do trust me and it’s like a challenge to be like i’ll show you how because you already are thinking it you

39:34

know and you’re already doing it in your life probably and like you’re we’re already like um

39:41

thinking about these things together and it’s just a matter of like activating that like that space and conditioning an

39:48

environment in which we can all be speaking together about it in in and

39:53

bringing that difference together that’s why i love it is that we are all different we all come from these different backgrounds but then there can

40:00

be a situation where then we’re just learning so much from each other and to create spaces like that is so

40:06

it’s like so important for me especially in places like when i was in winnipeg and then in

40:13

kingston these spaces aren’t thought of a lot right there’s like such a like a i don’t know

40:19

um yeah i mean michelle also yeah in victoria or regina right it’s just it’s

40:25

been like these centers like toronto montreal vancouver but it’s like there are all these other places that are

40:31

doing so much and already these like communities that are out there that i’m just like is so

40:36

important to engage with and so important to start making relationships with because they add so much to the

40:43

conversation and change it change it

40:50

i mean i think that is the most glorious of of a send-off in some ways i would love

40:58

to keep chatting but there’s something really quite extraordinary there too about the relationship between what you just

41:03

said and the steadfast commitment that a public

41:08

program is not separate from an exhibition that we’re not you know having educational moments around

41:14

something that isn’t already otherwise educational and i know that your new position at the agnes is

41:21

technically branded as educational correct and is about a kind of relationship to programming

41:27

and i wonder what do you think about education as a concept in these contexts

41:32

yeah yeah i mean for me

41:39

education i don’t like when i think of that i’m just i’m really

41:45

in a situation where i’m just um a facilitator like i’m not i’m

41:52

learning and also facilitating you know and i think it’s in terms of trying to

41:59

think about programs and that way i’m like i want to bring i want to be in conversation with all

42:05

the young people i want to know what they want i want to know what they need i want to know

42:11

what they hate about art what they love about art if they give a about art if they don’t that’s cool i just want to

42:18

know how i can be in conversation with them in order to make that space

42:24

a good one for them like a space where they’re like i want to just come here and hang out i want to know that i can

42:30

just come by and say hi to nasrin if i want to i want to know that i can just come by and hang out by the front steps

42:37

or just like be in the gallery space and just like whatever do whatever but it’s like

42:43

that’s the kind of image i have of like education public programming it’s more just like creating like a a kind of hub

42:51

in which people feel like they can just come and talk do their thing hang out

42:58

and then we collaborate and then we think together on something and that eventually the programming would come

43:03

out of those conversations you know and it’s it’s really like a it’s an interaction it’s an exchange it’s like a

43:10

it’s a collaboration yeah and so i just think of my position in that regard as like facilitating that making trying to

43:17

figure out how to make that kind of space come alive yeah

43:26

you’ve um you’ve already spoken so eloquently about um

43:31

how you think about institutions so i don’t want to belabor the the um

43:37

question that um we typically ask next

43:42

uh which is about what is the role of um institutions in

43:49

in making more just futures i think that

43:55

we understand enough about your practice uh now to to sort of

44:01

merge our last two questions and i’m going to ask you know what’s what’s next

44:07

for you and how are you going to use the institution that you’re now in to make

44:13

more just futures everyone well

44:19

i feel like when you walk around kingston and the impression that many people have

44:25

is that it’s very white and i think it’s not i think it’s not and i think i’m like

44:32

i know it’s not and i gotta figure that out because i’m like this is actually

44:37

like where the even just geographically if you look at a map just where the university is is like wow next to this

44:43

like super fancy neighborhood right by the waterfront so it’s just like geographically i’m i’m really grappling

44:50

with like how is this going to happen you know in terms of bringing the universe bringing the gallery out into community bring the

44:57

community also into the gallery and i’m just for me that’s the next step i’m like

45:04

it’s so like day to day i’m like slowly just wanting to make connections with

45:09

people here um who i think like i did also in winnipeg i

45:15

think i talked to so many amazing incredible young black hawk artists

45:20

i love young artists they’re so smart they’re so on it i

45:27

couldn’t even have asked for better company when i was there and better community because we just we got super

45:33

close i just met with them like every week we had parties we did studio visits

45:39

we talked about everything they cared about we i wanted to know and that’s what i want to do here i just want to

45:45

connect with people here with the young bipod students and the artists we’re just like

45:50

like craving for something to happen and i want to you know like

45:56

make that happen for them if it if it can at agnes you know and i want to know what they’re doing what they’re working

46:01

on and if it’s like if there’s any kind of you know possibility for collaboration and and

46:08

that for me it’s so important to just start with building relationships

46:14

and those take time and like building trust takes time and

46:20

i think that’s just like it’s like a different time frame it’s like actually just being like this is how it’s going

46:26

to be something might not happen for like a year because i’ll just need to do this for a while yeah until i figure out

46:33

until i figure out like who my community is here and how we’re going to change things up at those front doors

46:40

yeah yeah thank you so much for spending this time

46:46

with us deeply appreciate your insights and and perspective and you know i’ve been furiously taking

46:52

notes and you know there was something you said about making spaces feel good and wanting the gallery or the space of

46:59

your program to be somewhere where people want to hang out and i really resonate deeply and and and hope that

47:05

that is part of the many things we’re trying to do with this field school space is open up doors and windows and

47:11

and say like come hang out and what can happen when we’re all hanging out here together so i appreciate you yeah oh

47:17

thank you so much for this invitation i hope i didn’t speak too generally about things sometimes i tend to do that

47:26

because it’s so hard it feels so like abstract and it’s not it’s just so bodily

47:32

spectacular fantastic it was fantastic i’m not somebody who like typically spends a lot of time looking back or

47:39

longing for the past but i wish that there was some way that i could sort of

47:45

invert time and be a student at queen right now instead of having been there 30 years

47:53

ago when i like went into the agnes twice and

47:58

um the only place i could find to hang out was film house i don’t even know if film

48:05

house still exists but it was oh are you trying to look it up film house okay did you also know that michelle pearson

48:11

clark was here was a student in queens i did not know that

48:18

yeah in the 90s i wondered were you guys there together no i would have been there before her

48:25

i think i’m a little i’m i know i’m a little older than michelle pierce and clark okay okay yeah

48:32

yeah she was talking about being in the african and caribbean student group which still exists now yeah yeah exists

48:39

yeah that’s where i met that’s where i first met um

48:46

gigi besanta oh amazing and i were at at queen’s together

48:54

i love that there are so many people who went here i

48:59

know not to talk about it too much [Laughter]

49:06

well i’m plotting i’m plotting for your visit i’m sure emily’s planning for your visit [Laughter]

49:15

bring you out here to do something that would be fantastic

49:20

great okay well we will keep you posted um

49:26

literally and otherwise the modules will live online hopefully for a long time and so we’ll definitely link you up and

49:32

um thank you again thank you so much thank you for inviting me i really appreciate

49:38

it it’s always so helpful for me to talk about what i do so i really appreciate this time and

49:45

thank you for thinking of me i’m actually so honored and hum like i’m just like i’m so shy i can’t even

49:50

believe that i was one of like in with all those other incredible amazing

49:57

artists and curators so i thank you i don’t have any more words

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