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good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us for the fourth artist conversation

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organized as part of the programming to complement the exhibition of the recipients of the 2020

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governor general’s awards in visual and media arts currently installed at the art gallery of alberta

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my name is catherine croston and i’m the executive director and chief curator of the hea i would like to begin by acknowledging

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that we are hosting the exhibition and this webinar from treaty 6 territory and region 4 of the metis nation of

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alberta we acknowledge this as the traditional ancestral home of the nihiowak

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cree anishinaabe soto mitsutapi blackfoot nakota sioux dene and meti

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peoples and acknowledge the many indigenous first nations and inuit peoples who make alberta their home today

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we recognize that this acknowledgement is just one small recognition of our work and the need to address and reverse the

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ongoing impacts of colonization the governor general’s award in visual and media arts is a lifetime achievement

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award that recognizes an artist’s career body of work and contribution to the visual arts media arts and fine craft in

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canada in 2020 eight artists were honored for their exceptional careers and lifetime

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achievements the 2020 winners are diana bowen dana claxton ruth cuthand michael fernandez jorge

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lozano lorsa ken lam anatorma and cena bertie this afternoon we are very pleased to

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welcome anatoma the recipient of the 2020 sadie bronfman award in fine craft

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anna torma is a visual artist working in textile she was born in hungary in 1952

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and graduated with a degree in textile art and design from the hungarian university of applied arts in 1979

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she has been an exhibiting artist since then and has produced mainly large scale hand-embroidered wall hangings and

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collages and has worked straw inspiration from folk art anatomical sketches

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gardens and graffiti methodically composing fantastic visual stories

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anna has exhibited her work internationally and is represented in many public private and corporate collections including the museum of arts

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and design in new york the art gallery of nova scotia and the beaver book art gallery she was a 2014 recipient of the

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lieutenant governor’s award for high achievement in the visual arts anna immigrated to canada in 1988 and

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has lived and worked in bandwagon new brunswick since 2002. this afternoon anna is in conversation

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with shawna thompson shauna thompson is currently curator at esker foundation in calgary

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she has supported solo projects and exhibitions working with many artists including katie oe

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nepsidu cablusiak vanessa brown capone kalanga jason dehaan and natorma among many

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others shauna is a current and founding member of calgary’s public art alliance a coalition of artists curators critics

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art professionals and students who advocate for the value and professionalism of public art in calgary

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prior to joining esker foundation thompson was the curatorial assistant at the walter phillips gallery at the banff center

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she has also worked with the justina m barnacy gallery now the art museum of the university of toronto

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y was at artist outlets and the art gallery of mississauga thompson holds a

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master’s degree in curatorial studies from the university of toronto and a master’s degree in english from the university of guelph

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before i turn things over to anna and shawna just a few notes and then shawna will speak for about 45

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minutes following which we will answer questions and please uh answer any questions you have in the chat

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function i would also like to take this opportunity to thank epcor who support aga online programming through their

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heart and soul fund and the canada council for the arts for their support of the governor general’s awards exhibition

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and this program please join me now in welcoming anna torma and shawna thompson

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hey anna hi it’s really good to see you again and

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bring you our working relationship and friends yes same off them so good to see your face i was

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hoping to uh run into you at one of these openings either at the textile museum or the aga but

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yeah obviously had other plans yes um well thank you catherine so much and

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um to helen as well for all of your uh patience and uh help with the technical side of all

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of this uh and the aga and thank you anna for inviting me to speak with you today

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um yeah my pleasure i guess there’s a little bit of context

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just for folks who don’t know um i mean we’ve known each other for a number of years

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uh we made an exhibition together at esker in 2018. um called book of abandoned details and

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before that i think the first time i saw your work in person was in it was 2015 you had a show at

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uh gallery robert pulan in montreal and um i just it was one of those

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moments i think as a as a curator that i’m always looking for where you know you walk into a show you don’t

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have any expectations i you know really was just kind of browsing around montreal and i encountered your work and was just

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completely thunderstruck by it and so impressed and

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uh seduced and interested in this um incredibly vivacious uh

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textile work um on the wall it was i mean just a cast of weird characters

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this this joy um you know this sort of seduction of wanting to touch these pieces that were

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were so vivid and um you know really kind of so densely populated with

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this visual vocabulary that sort of carries through your work which is so so interesting and also just

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the intense amount of labor that obviously went into all of those pieces so it was a really

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exciting moment just to see that work and um and then to start to you know build a relationship with you in

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subsequent years and have the show come together and now this so [Laughter]

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yes yes so when we talked about how to kind of

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move through this this talk um we’re gonna start i think with the most sort of recent works and shows that

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you’ve been working on lately and i’ve kind of

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organized the images and there may be too many images to go through but i’ve kind of organized them alongside these thematic groupings um more or less

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that you and sarah clinton who is the curatorial director at the textile museum of canada came up with

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um in your show um permanent danger so yes

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the title um so we’ll kind of move through some of these images and and talk about these works in these kind

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of somewhat loose thematic groupings but i’m sure we’ll bounce back and forth um among different work

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so i thought maybe we would start here at this grouping of work which is from permanent

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danger at the textile museum um and it includes

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probably my favorite piece of yours on on the right uh which is also titled

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permanent danger and then these uh subsequent pieces that are that are over to the left

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um and to kind of start out talking about your work um as the title card proceeding i said

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storytelling you’ve described yourself as a storyteller and um and also a quote spiritual keeper

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of memories which i really i love that in relation to your practice and we’ll come back to that idea

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of memory as well later on but i wondered if we could start off by by talking a little bit about permanent

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danger in relation to the idea of storytelling in your work yes yes thank you shauna so i

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don’t know about that i might begin but probably i will

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begin how how can i end up with with this group of

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works and have prepared myself to make a big exhibition in toronto because

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if if the the opportunity is calling and if here it’s a big one then

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then you will examine your possibilities or

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or what did you do before and what is your recent status and

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and how can you build those exhibition or those group of work which is stays

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with you for two long years because you you just mentioned my work is quite time

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consuming and i really need to sit one or two or many in

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in a in a number of hours to complete well with with something

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and what will be the meaning of this exhibition and what will be the odds to

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to my storytelling or textile designing or artist practice and

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uh and the the phase when when we just decided and

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and begin to fetch the museum space and and what would be the starting point for

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for this whole whole um working progress with with uh sarah clinton

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that was the first point when i decided okay i i should take as a start

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uh the the permanent danger which was already already piece and enjoyed back and forth

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and exhibited already two places the it was a design vienna

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in burlington once and after that the esker foundation gave me a

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fantastic beautiful display the one room was it’s his own and it was beautiful and

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very air-like and really poetic hang and i thought these pieces is

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really deserve something which can be a little bit

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add-ons or or just just to to open this this whole world but what

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be digging into life with this with the peace and i was lucky because

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when i just thought what should be the role of the modern storytelling in this

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society in this era and so so this recent days in canada

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wha what should i say and what what the people

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would say if they you know they they they say the wooden

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fairy tale story or or whatever and i thought it would be really nice to

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face with those pieces what was always my favorite and i always wanted

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to see in real and uh sheila hugh mckee

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foundation gave me a um research wants to go to to

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france and see around what’s what’s the scenario in textiles

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in in france and it was on invaluable it was it was such a such a

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good timing and such a such a beautiful travel because my focus

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was the textile and the gardens and the anthropology

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and these three things came together in a perfect way because i went to

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the most modern textile museum i think in the world it was over soon

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and they showed the old and new and very contemporary way how they

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textile itself manifest in a museum settings and

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and the learnings and and even the how do you fake things in in tapestry

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so so those really really unique putty points when when you really want to

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um achieve the toughestly like view but it’s kind of fake

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but it’s you know very uncertain aesthetics so so and those gave me an excitement

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and uh and uh very meaningful things in in traverse and

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and in leon not just the the silk museum by the confluences the the most beautiful

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museum in anthropology in recent years and i saw hard i was so happy to see the

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confluences museum because because the anthropology gives us not just

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the artistic approach of life or or human studies but in

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in our very moderate how the development of the human race and human brain and the art

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so it’s fuse everything together what i really like as an approach because if if

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i if i tell stories it’s always embedded into culture and embedded

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in time and a special place you know this is always larger than the

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special um personal approach to our fairytale you know

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i i always hoping at least hoping it says more from me

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and through my time here than just my absolute private life view

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and and this this travel gave me the comparison you know who am i

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and how they did beautiful toughest these are the past even at the middle ages why

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why is so beautiful and why is stays with us you know as an aesthetic art

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form as a as just a a piece of fragment or piece

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of tapestry or embroidery or so the story there it’s more sometimes or almost

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some almost always more um content because if you see the toughest

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is in anche the apocalypse top histories are about the bible and the

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interpretation of the bible but i don’t have bible

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i really need to invent my own bible what is important and what is

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interesting because the interesting part is always comes into play you know

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yeah i don’t want to be boring i really want to offer something something really

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interesting and um and and see it as i can

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so that that’s it’s a little bit longer this this because i really never had an

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opportunity to properly thank this foundation to

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to give me give because because of the the covers uh covet time just not allowed to speak

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publicly about this this marvelous trouble and even the gardens but probably the

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garden is coming later but the storytelling fault and and and

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those masterful pieces that i found in in honoree and in

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in paris at the clooney museum you know the yeah the unicorn toughest reason and

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many many more many many more and after that it was

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easier to to make some more some some sisters and brothers

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to to to this this piece which which is batman and danger well this is such a

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it’s such an interesting piece because it is as as people notice it’s suspended in

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space and so it becomes more than just a surface that you’ve worked on it becomes almost like a sculptural object that you

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can you know traverse around and um yeah because because i always

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you can enjoy it from from the front and from the back and the flip side

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gives you such more um interesting details and

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and give the whole things alive and you think you

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you you finished two piece in one time but but the effort is uh twice bigger

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because you need to control the the front and the back in in the same time oh that’s nice yes

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is really really exquisite and something really special here is the back oh my goodness yeah and

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the light lighting was so nice and well it just really highlights the the

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sort of textural the surface kind of play on this piece but i found it really interesting because

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there’s the front to kind of read in terms of you know maybe trying to piece together a narrative with these um

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characters that populate this very densely layered kind of garden and then on the

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on the back of course they’re reversed but it almost reminds me of um like a reverse kind of almost kind of

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solarized image and that kind of adds and and and the whole whole pieces and figures and and

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players are dissolving you know and i and it’s intentional because i really

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want wanted after a point i wanted to dissolve into into a surface everything because

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we are just somehow i said we are unified somehow in this world it’s unification

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of my my kind probably uh or the back is more than the front

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because the dark background or the back

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is a lot more swallowing you know the swallows the

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colors a lot more than the white surface a pinkish surface

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and and i was so excited to flip-flop flip-flop

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what’s happening on the other side when i woke up there on the floor right yeah it’s almost like a parallel

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kind of story yes and the end and it’s it’s in entertaining greatly so and and as i told you

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the the form and and the contours and uh and the prayers of these peace

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slowly dissolved and and i went far far far away what was my original

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design and it was but it was so seductive and so successful

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you know and then i went back to the original design and i thought hmm i

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spent a lot of time to to balance this and to to to make the

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figures good and i thought i really need to

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rethink and revitalize those figures and forms and give it the

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another life and that’s how i ended up with this uh

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almost black and white pieces which are reverse applique

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i cut out the the form and i stabilize the edges and it’s nothing more fancy stitch or or

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something it i went just the boon visualized nothing else you know it’s it’s not it’s

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not free it was it was just like a silly drawings as you you told before and i told before

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because because those syrian drawings are was was a quite interesting art forms at

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the previous era of art making or or but but kara walker

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is is a master of that as a modern artist and and i i found

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his works hers her work so so fantastic and engaging and i thought okay i

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and and even even others because these these cutouts are gain or a revival in these times

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and the techniques are there yeah it’s interesting again like taking this extremely dense

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surface dissolving it on the back side and then further kind of fragmenting it through the silhouette

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um it was again really interesting in a way to revisit these kind of characters and storytelling and and to hearken back to

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silhouetting i was i was thinking about that as you know um back in the 19th century

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it became a popular art form but often sort of practiced within the home by

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women as kind of an amateur sort of art making practice and

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also it became a way a very affordable way for people to sort

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of carry a likeness of somebody with them you know pre-photography um you know

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you’d get a silhouette done of your loved one if they were going to be away from you and so again like this kind of conversation

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around narrative and memory keeping and how that kind of plays through your work and this is a progression of permanent

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danger so interesting that way yeah and and probably many people knows who follow my

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my my work that i am i have a really fun uh

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connection to to those makers who are undervalued or marginalized or

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or they are somehow on the periphery of the mainstream art making and i really

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strongly believe those are the people who should come more often into the big circle and

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fertilize this this ground what we have you know we we are art making and and workers who

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are taking care of the audience you know connect the audience and the artists and

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and and those people who are out of this circle they can offer a lot

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more more and more even indigenous people and and mentally handicapped people or

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even children are in this category because they sometimes they they are geniuses and and if you

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discover that and if you feel those vibrations to relation to to your your practice

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then it’s fantastically fruitful and enjoyable and i was lucky because

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i had at home two two geniuses i just stole

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and we don’t know know yet who’s who in in the group because they became

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artists and everybody is working independently and they enjoyed their their practice

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tremendously and it came from the parents you know how can we [Laughter]

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how can how how can we interact with each other without and interfere our

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our fertile thoughts in a in a in a wrong way so yeah

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give help and enjoyment and beauty not take off the independence and

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uh and the other characteristics

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i mean that’s such a great and again important part of your practice we’ll talk a little bit about um you working with your family a little

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bit later on but um speaking about uh fertilizing a landscape i thought we would

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we would segue into this kind of idea of the physical world and then celebration and order and chaos for two other kind

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of groupings of works uh at your textile museum show but uh you are

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currently on the cover i i i it came the biggest surprise in my

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life because i never thought it will happen and even even more interestingly not

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the the starting point for for this celebration was not my uh also

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birth my garden which is an underdog on many ways because i really need to

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to focus on my on my oath making because that’s my bread

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and and the the gardening is my hobby more than the hobby it’s in my heart but

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time is scarce you know and i really need to to think twice how many how much hour

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and and where to spend but uh it’s give me

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you know and the writing itself i had no experience to write in in other language

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in hungarian and and that was my first first publication in in in my second

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language in english and and they were they were fantastic the editors they helped me out

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tremendously and they were fine and and encouraging and

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i felt i accomplished something because i summarized my view about the garden

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about ecology and about my biology biological studies and everything you

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know somehow it’s it’s a good thing if you have a point in your life

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then you sit down and you think okay i did this i didn’t became as become a scientist or

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biologist but somehow the hobby is worth worthwhile to to keep and

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and uh yeah and it’s a philosophical not just physical

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you know gardening is this really really interesting uh settlement um first

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then i when i oh i don’t know just ask

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my daughter no i mean i just i thought the piece that you wrote for canadian

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art a garden diary was so beautiful and such a personal essay reflecting on your relationship

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to gardening as as a practice your relationship to the land you live on

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and your art making practice and you know you talked about carrying um your gardening practice with you from

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hungary when you came to canada um in the late 80s and how

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gardening and art making you know they’re so closely intertwined to you that i think you said quote at

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this point i would not know really which comes first which i think is such an interesting thing um and this

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this image up right now is the full piece from the cover yeah so could you talk a little bit

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about how you’re too practical yes yes because you you see many vet flora fauna and vegetation

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and you can observe the the flowers and the roses and the greenery is more a little bit

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more weird than the other other creatures here because the

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other creatures are the cultural players of my world body

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part but the flora is my own observations about my garden

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and i use it frequently all the time this is my everyday uh life to to leave with

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green stuff inside and out and and and i try it all the time and even

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if it became sometimes ornamental or fuse each other into the the animal life

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because at the middle the the snake and and the plant

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is became one you know and the colors are really not differentiated between the sometimes

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you know it’s you you can have a blue man and and and green green

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garlands and things and but talking about colors

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is again it’s so you need to decide what what will be

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the mood of the piece and then you will choose the colors because sometimes it has just a few colors and

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in a dark tone sometimes you want to suggest a spring time feeling and the spring is you know

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different than than than the than the heavy um

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toughest like things this is a silk piece with silk thread and covered many layers

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of very transparent silks and

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the body of the work is just just one-sided

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but densely covered you know if you if we will compare this space with the

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abandoned eaters pieces you will you will see the big big differences

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later on because i used a very plain surface so so these are my storytelling

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pieces and these are densely staged it’s almost covered with stitch the

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whole surface and it gives you a ah a very

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very uh even even surface that i

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you know i’m also interested in just you know the the idea of working the earth in

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your garden and and that kind of process of you know how you actually learn about

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plants and the earth and where you are and um how the same kind of

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uh durational labor i guess with the materials that you have in your studio like it’s also a kind of coming to know those

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those materials as well and making decisions based on how you know the materials and

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how you know they’ll be together and how you know how easy or not easy they’ll be to work with it and

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it became a statement you know if you tend a garden then it’s it doesn’t mean

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you you love pretty things you tend the garden because you know

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it can be a food making process it it’s the the atmosphere can be

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benefited from that because we need oxygen and and even so it can be a life-saving

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option if you have a piece of land and in our situation what we

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don’t see you know right now but but it’s easily imaginable in with this development of

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of kovid and and everything’s you know you can imagine they will be a scarce situation

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with food with greens with everything and if you can do that it’s uh it’s more

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than just uh so so you need to you need to know your word

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where you are and and and what is the the nature surround you and why

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you need to keep the forest why you need to value the kitchen garden in some

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kind or you know or your own garden with with flowers and use it in your

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carpets for that sometimes you know just

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don’t cover well but i want to want to say but i try my best

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you’re doing it you’re doing great um i included these works in as well the

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pedagogical chart uh images again just kind of thinking about uh you know this idea of working through

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although this these works are almost um you know it’s this idea of

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trying to import impose some kind of order or some kind of uh way of coming to know or knowledge um

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on to sort of like chaotic yeah yeah the human humans itself you know

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i i talk a lot about the myths and legends and fairy tales and everything

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because it’s it’s your it’s your brain work and and your your brain

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uh child but you are a physical being you know you have skeletons you

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have you have well described inside

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and it’s it’s working it’s functioning so you are a functioning highly

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functioning being in the world which has parts like the auto

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for everything and uh and you can name it you can take care of it you can know

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it you know this is the the map of the the human physical existence

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and and they’ve worked on it for for for years hundreds and hundred and hundred

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years so i really fond of the the natural sciences as you see and and i really want to

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to make a picture or show the pictures yes we are highly

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transcendent and spiritual uh in in here in the earth but

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we have a robust physicalities you know which is which which contains sex

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pleasure making and pleasure seeking and skeletons and and death and life

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and love and beauty and everything you know so so humans are very complex creatures

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and i really like to portray that complexity with fit layers with with the natural

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world around us which is in danger of course and that’s why by the gardening and and

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so and and taking care of each other you know like like the the red frog man says

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in a i i learned something from that woman who was my really close

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relatives and get the stroke but

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and and she needed to re relearn from me that process but what she taught me

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earlier so it was it it was such a nice i’m going to skip ahead to that case

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yeah which is in the inheritance yeah yeah yeah it just came to my mind and it’s almost yeah this one yeah yes

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and and it was such a such a nice play and it was in not

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it was instinctional it i didn’t know what i’m doing with her when i did it you know to when when i

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encourage her to just do one more just one more and we will be at home and be

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received together again because he she wanted to

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give up the whole things because she realized it’s not the piece but what she

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she used to make and and i thought this is even more beautiful in this way

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you just should should continue to do and and she did that for me so just to

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send i guess just to step back for people who might not be familiar with this work there’s sort of a three-part

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installation directly on the wall here it’s called red fragments and um do you want to maybe walk through

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each kind of segment what i what i just explained that this

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is the the lower part uh which is a transylvanian red

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uh a perfect one the the beginning it’s a pillowcase what she did when she was a very young

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woman and she got a stroke the second one

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didn’t show much i but but after the third and uh and all

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those things came after her stroke and and and

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she didn’t he was able to use her brain uh properly but but she gained back

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her her speech and and her dexterity in a way but

39:02

never never came back too sorry and and we we used to laugh

39:08

on it because because it’s it was such a such a beautiful effort what you

39:14

did and and you said that she never she wasn’t ever working from a

39:20

pattern but it was it was sort of just yeah it was in in her that’s that’s why

39:26

that’s why i was so devastating for her just to realize her brain

39:32

it doesn’t work anymore in that way but it’s used to and uh and you know this is facing this

39:40

fox it’s i think it’s for everyone is really really uh shocking right and and

39:48

we are not saved from that feeling because we all will we’re aging if

39:56

we are lucky enough to to be here for a few a little bit more so

40:03

and then up and the right corner the big piece is is my

40:11

similar feeling when i came to canada i i

40:18

cut off all the all the old embroidery pillowcases

40:25

and and and things that i brought from hungary because i thought

40:30

here we need a quilt pattern and how is it work as a queer

40:36

so my identity of the european south and the north american staff is collided

40:44

in this red and beige piece and and that was the result i don’t know and and

40:52

and another part which is is

40:58

is gives you a free interpretation of everything but it’s just a explosion or or cohesion

41:07

i don’t know so so this is a position between between cultures and and

41:14

many segments and fragments and and pieces about life about that and

41:21

you know it’s just just a troll like you you put it to the wall but

41:29

it’s no order it’s a symbolize some kind of

41:34

different cows chaos chaotic things then i threw used and my

41:42

my relative produced fit with the brain damage brain

41:49

so and the word itself produce the chaos you know right it’s i mean it’s a

41:57

beautiful example of this um you know many things that are at play in your practice in terms of

42:03

different ways of collaborating with family members of of taking fragments of old work or

42:10

found pieces of textile and kind of bringing them together and preserving them in some way or or or

42:16

reconfiguring tradition in some way which you know you do see kind of occurring over and over again

42:23

um in a really interesting way i’ve added this piece in a carpet of many

42:29

hands which also speaks really strongly to your collecting practice and um you know where you’re

42:36

really just kind of pulling together these these fragments of textile work that you

42:41

come across in your life and holding on to them and then i guess finding a purpose for them but i’m i’m

42:46

really curious about you know what compels you to collect something or

42:52

what makes you want to hold on to something i i you know i just i just i i am so much fun of texas

43:01

you know i just this is the best platform to be for me because i can i can say

43:08

so so many things with this language but first i inherited after that i learned

43:14

and but mostly i practice for a long long long time

43:20

and i know it’s the best and i i have gravitation to certain aesthetics

43:26

which are as i told sometimes is

43:32

outsider or kit or or those things but those

43:39

housewives made to to beautify their environment and and i thought okay

43:46

why don’t we fuse everything together and even including my work and

43:52

and my role here will be as a director or

43:59

or the curator or whatever and i i

44:06

threw everything together and stabilize it you know and uh with the humor with the

44:13

did everything what you can what you can find in life and it’s a it’s uh like to sing in a cure

44:20

you say it has no areas and no no big big things but everything

44:27

is blended in into into a final

44:33

piece so so the blending was the important not the

44:38

not the main point you know and you don’t know the origin of the certain pieces and you don’t need

44:45

to because it’s it’s beautiful on its own right everything

44:51

and then shifting into this this series of works uh abandoned details which is again this

44:58

sort of collecting of um of bits and pieces and bringing them together but in a very different kind of way where

45:04

they’re not there aren’t kind of brought together as a sort of kind of cohesive

45:10

whole they’re they’re kept kind of discreet they’re not kind of layered on top of one another and i wonder i mean you reference this this body of

45:17

work yeah i i i really like to test something about this because

45:23

probably i never did and i just thought through you know what was the motivation

45:29

behind it and and uh and it came to my mind when i was

45:35

at the office and saw the the excavation of this this stone age layers

45:44

and they built a museum and and and the ex com are the fountain pieces

45:51

they’re uh arranged beautifully in a in a showcase you know in a beautiful

45:57

cases and dramatically grouping the time wise grouping so so the

46:03

groupings can be in many ways you know and that in dot display it was it was

46:12

so beautiful for me and it became a kind of goal to to make something with

46:19

that in a in a very pristine surface just the pieces and show the individual

46:27

pieces in a good showcase but i had uh no opportunity to make

46:35

these beautiful frames you know and the frames are really the the part of of that that

46:43

thoughts you know it’s it’s makes makes us a display case not the frame

46:50

not the picture frame but uh but to be actually framed yeah yes it’s it’s

46:57

a it’s a this piece no not the frame in my eyes and

47:03

and uh before the the ascor exhibition it’s it’s never never come to me because it was it was

47:10

such a nice way to to collect all of those parts

47:17

and make it as a anthropological display let’s say that and all of these pieces

47:24

are most of them are are kind of um discarded or abandoned details from yeah previously or

47:32

or didn’t fit anywhere you know because of the color because of the forms and

47:38

it was really but but in every piece i really needed to find

47:45

some some main piece probably it’s the the motif behind it so

47:53

so it has a uh here it has a one main actor

47:58

and then the others are just making a row or make

48:05

making a color scheme so so it’s it was small instinct after

48:12

that when i decided it will be a series and it will be a showcase and and it

48:18

goes into the wall and and uh those elements what

48:24

what are doesn’t work in a in a in a storytelling uh

48:30

way with with densely covered surface right and and this is this is the this

48:37

is the you know the fact but how do you do that it so

48:42

it gives you the another question because you really need a different approach of the making if you are

48:50

complete this very loose and nicely you know organized things how do

48:57

you stabilize the whole things you know and you need to spend time with that how

49:03

do you achieve what you really want to do to the viewer to present

49:08

so yeah i mean arranging them there must be uh you know kind of looking for a logic

49:15

and and i find it so interesting like the way they’re ordered and i think we talked about this when we were installing them

49:21

it’s like you almost want to read them as if they are like a block of text or like a paragraph there’s sort of a logic of kind of going

49:27

left to right up and down which again is sort of interesting to think about the idea of storytelling and

49:34

texts and communicating information in these different ways uh in these kind of like fragmented or

49:39

abstracted ways and how your practice is kind of moved into this abstract yeah and and more is coming

49:46

because i really didn’t ask for the black and white side or or or version of these

49:55

these things so i really want to restrict myself just for two colors

50:00

and how can i make very interesting statements with that you know it’s always coming something

50:08

interesting into my way and then even you know i’ll probably

50:13

probably we can’t mention the the last thing with the with the wrappings because that’s that’s

50:19

my favorite things too yeah we’ll move forward i was so hungry to make some

50:26

collaboration with someone and the collaboration is can be

50:33

you know in with names with real people and then i found my collaborators with

50:39

this man who is my husband and and he’s a sculptor and he has so much different approach to

50:46

textile he he you know he if he does droppings he

50:52

does bullets or so so hard i i i am soft

50:58

and fine but he he does really uh strong objects

51:06

from textiles and and um

51:11

and these wrappings are somewhere to the squat and sheila he’s you know because the

51:18

the rough roughness and and the fineness somehow in between

51:23

but i always have inspirations from from other people who did mastery before me and it’s

51:31

it’s not restrict me but encourage me to to to to do try something like that if

51:39

your my feeling or our feeling goes in that way then then it’s fine it doesn’t really

51:45

matter it’s the originalities comes with the

51:51

flow you know that’s that was my experience and my experience and

51:56

and we are really happy to to work our our leftover clothing

52:02

leftover yarns and everything because i just discovered you know i i have

52:09

material for a lifetime i don’t want to throw it away and what

52:16

to do with it so these these things are probably many people know these feelings and what to do with

52:23

such many shoes or stuff right it’s interesting because when i

52:29

was seeing these these pieces these wrap pieces start to appear on your instagram i was just like

52:34

really interested and very curious about what you were doing and it seemed like such a departure but in so many ways it

52:40

isn’t if you’re you know again you’re sort of repurposing these these things that you have

52:45

in your in your life and and reworking them in some way and again collaborating with family which

52:51

you know you’ve done so so much with the imagery in your work so it is a kind of natural progression

52:57

um but so interesting yeah and and you need a very long spa okay working span

53:05

to complete something and this wrapping is is really really that that category

53:12

patience and and engagement and and really strongly believe

53:19

you do something with this futility for you but you always angry well i’m

53:28

really excited to see where that goes oh i’ve come back on because we have

53:33

some some questions from your uh viewing audience and a lot of them have to do with time

53:40

and temporality and labor so i think uh i’ll ask uh the simple question

53:46

first which is how many hours on average does it take you to complete one of your fully embroidered works the

53:54

large angle it’s absolutely valid by the density of the stitches and

53:59

and the the size of the of the piece um i can

54:06

see it’s uh let’s see the the main piece the permanent danger was

54:13

nine months i think something like that nine eight nine months and and i

54:19

would professionally let me tell you

54:26

how do you manage with all of that labor and time to be so prolific don’t do anything

54:33

else you have a workplace and you go for

54:39

eight hours a day and if if i spend my time eight hours a day in

54:46

my studio then i i go far with that yes because

54:51

am i’m lucky because i i don’t need to spend my time nine to five i can spend

54:58

in a nice day break and then work until 10 o’clock or whatever so the time is in my hand

55:06

so another question just came in are you stitching all in silk and do you dye your own thread i

55:13

do do dye my own thread and the yarn is stitch but many times

55:20

the beast is linen linen base silk threads but sometimes i

55:27

do still beads silked rats the the thread is sealed because that’s so

55:34

allows so many things it’s it’s the best material

55:39

and another question about how do you start and finish your day as a creator or and focus on creating

55:48

i i i’m fantastically lucky because i have a studio my own studio which is large not

55:56

not just the perimeter of the studio but the height the height is really it’s almost almost

56:03

uh two two level height of cotton grass ceiling and and you feel air around you

56:11

and if if you come from the bed you are find yourself in the studio

56:18

and you see what you did last night and say hello to your flowers and

56:25

greens and see out the window which is which is white and and the crows are

56:32

there and waiting for for the for the food from us

56:37

so everything is comes into my mind slowly then i i do my cleaning stuff around me

56:46

and then then breakfast and eat my heat my chair

56:54

first first see the you know the the evis and then have the end uh the morning mind is

57:02

so much better than the afternoon mind and eve evening mind that’s why i was

57:08

really lucky to too ugly to to have me here in this time

57:13

and the night i i am not very good so i i am so tired and and and this

57:21

uh talking session is new to me so i i am not very confident and and i

57:28

thought if it has if it has a way then then we should talk as early as possible

57:37

thank you i’m afraid that i may have cut you off though with your uh talk with shauna about what the

57:42

future of these wrapped works is going to be do you know are they just there no

57:48

yet we just we have a big big passion to to do some more and more and

57:55

uh how can we exhibit an order we we don’t know yet

58:03

but but it’s it’s it will be very interesting i think

58:09

yeah and it looks like there’s an accumulation of them behind you yeah right yeah yeah that’s that’s definitely

58:16

about accumulation and people posing and and do some interesting but you don’t have anything

58:23

else just just your leftover material time and and

58:31

very very heated place and and loving companionship so

58:39

nothing yeah lovely shawna do you have any final questions that you wanted to ask

58:45

anna before no i mean i my big question was about the wrap works and just where that

58:51

was going and um i think you’ve answered that beautifully so thank you

58:56

oh sorry i have to repeat that yes she dyes her own threads one of our one

59:07

anyway um i just want to say on behalf of the aga thank you so much for being here

59:13

thank you anna your work is spectacular at the gallery i wish everybody could have a chance to see it as you know

59:18

unfortunately alberta’s closed down we’re not fortunate to be living in um bayvirt which i think is probably

59:26

a better place to be than albert at the moment but um we do hope to reopen and share those works uh with the public again so thank

59:33

you very much they’re incredibly extraordinary and the detail that you see in these slides

59:38

um gives you a sense but it’s so much better to see the works in person so i do hope that that will be possible

59:44

and thank you shawna for your conversation today it’s been great and also for the work you do at the esker

59:49

which contributes a lot so anna very fitting governor general award winner thank you so much

59:55

and yeah thank you for having me really honored and happy

1:00:02

to see you and organize around my work everything so great and just before we go

1:00:09

i just want to tell our audience that our next governor general award-winning conversation will be next monday at 4 p.m mountain time with

1:00:17

ken lum in conversation with william wood so please join us uh next week and thank you again so much

1:00:23

thank you bye

1:00:32

that is it

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