Introduction

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good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us for the sixth artist conversation organized as part of the programming to

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complement the exhibition of the 2020 governor general’s awards in visual and media arts currently installed at the art gallery

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of alberta my name is catherine croston and i’m the executive director and chief creator of the hea

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i would like to begin by acknowledging that we are hosting the exhibition and this webinar from treaty 6 territory

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and region 4 of the metis nation of alberta we acknowledge this as the traditional and ancestral home of the

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hiawak cree anishinabe soto nitsutapi blackfoot nakota sioux dene

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

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we recognize that this acknowledgement is just one small step in the work that we all need to do to address and reverse the ongoing impacts

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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 art media arts and fine craft in canada in

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2020 eight artists were honored for their exceptional careers and lifetime achievements the 2020 winners are deanna bowen dana

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claxton ruth cuthand michael fernandez jorge lozano-lorsa ken lum anatorma and zainab verti

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this afternoon we are very pleased to welcome jorge lozano-lorsa jorge luisa larsa is an artist and

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filmmaker born in colombia he has been painting and filming and making videos sound performance and

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installation works since he came to canada in 1971. he has made over 150 movies and videos

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works that live not in between but within cultures his restless visual inventions emerged

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from a period of super 8 activism and personal video interventions in the 1970s

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jorge’s fiction shorts have been screened at the toronto international film festival and at sundance and

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internationally in many other film festivals museums and galleries he has expanded his artistic practice as a

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facilitator of self-representation film and video workshops working with marginalized communities at risk

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in canada colombia panama peru and brazil as well as the organization of film

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festivals cultural activities and curatorial film projects jorge initiated the cross-borders film

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festival the alo cine latin film and media arts festival and converse salon a collaborative

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project supported by collective labor and a desire for community and the exchange of knowledge and care to

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generate critical ideas and create non-institutional ways of showing artists projects

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without public funding jorge’s contributions to the field are multiple he has managed to insert our racial

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discourse into the white experimental filmmaking canon of north america and europe he has brought together radical forms of

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radical content consistently finding new ways to include the lives of marginalized subjects

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rarely seen in artist movies he has refashioned the form of the political documentary

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documentary using expanded cinema and multiple screen sculptural installations

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jorge is currently working on several feature-length deliriums architectural installations and film

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fetish short forms in toronto where he lives this afternoon jorge is in conversation with paul wong

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paul long is a media maestro making art for site-specific spaces and screens of all sizes

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he is an award-winning artist and curator who is known for pioneering early visual and media art in canada

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founding several artists-run groups leading public arts policy and organizing events festivals

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conferences and public interventions since the 1970s writing publishing and teaching had been

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an important part of his practice with a career spanning four decades he has been an instrumental proponent of

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contemporary art paul wong has shown and produced projects throughout north america europe and asia

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and his works are in many public collections including those of the national guard of canada the museum of modern art

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the canada council art bank and the vancouver art gallery as well as numerous private collections

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he has also been the recipient of major several major commissions and grants in 1992

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paul long was awarded the bell cannon award in video art for outstanding contribution to the field he was the first recipient of the

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transforming art award from the asian heritage foundation in 2002 and the inaugural winner of the

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trailblazer expressions award in 2003. in 2005 paul wong received the governor

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general of canada’s award in visual and media arts himself for his lifetime achievement and in 2008 was awarded best canadian

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film or video at the toronto real asian international film festival

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before i turn things over to our very distinguished speakers just a few notes jorge and paul will speak for about 45

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minutes following which we will answer questions please enter your questions using the chat function

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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 awards

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as well as this exhibition and program please join me now in welcoming jorge lozano larsa

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and paul

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hello hello hori thank you captain alberta um um gallery of art for

Thank you

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that uh for having us um for inviting me and for hosting the um gg

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one exhibition um at your gallery um um

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jorge um thanks for inviting me to um present okay

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and um um i just want to acknowledge that i’m

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broadcasting live here from vancouver chinatown uh in the unseated territory of the

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squamous sailor truth and muscular peoples okay well thank you thank you catherine

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for the support and the putting together the installation and uh to helen to

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helen chang who has been helping us a lot in in producing this broadcasting all this interview and to

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you paul thank you very much for for for talking to me today because um they said we know we know each other

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without knowing each other basically and i in in and i have used this opportunity to

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to go back and look at your work in in in because the works that i’ve seen in the past of

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you have impacted me and i felt certain similarities and in

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in how you trace and retrace your own personal life in your work the your communities your history and

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and i do work in that level as well so so so it’s been a great opportunity

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for me to get to know you and to hope to continue knowing you better

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um thank you um um you know in in the description of of

Evolution as an artist

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this talk um you know you talk about um

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your evolution as an artist coming out of a diy practice which is evolved by inventing

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your own worlds experimenting and creating your own languages and media art forms okay can you um

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give me some what’s that i i think that um that um

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let’s start from the beginning and i think i coincide very much with with your beginning um uh i i started to do what i do

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um uh using super 8 in um in the porter park

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and uh in super 8 it was very interesting because you will film and then the film will come two weeks

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later or three weeks later and you never knew if you were gonna get what you got and whatever you got it would become

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really amazing right most of the time it wasn’t like it was so you had to do whatever you wanted to do

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with images that you haven’t planned in some ways in another way so you began incorporating all these mistakes into

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your work um and and finding some like aesthetics in in in in this kind of a surprise and you

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know that you will get when you get when you get the films and with the porza pack uh um i i think that i i went through

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the same experience that you went through uh you know pack was a very relational tool you know like

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we could uh get together to other people also the the fact that you could see yourself in real time um

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it was very it was very very important as well because it brought a lot of works that had to do with self-reflection and and

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looking at yourself and and also this tool so all this technology had something that it was

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really interesting that it was all the glitch and all the you know all those states will there was electromagnetics right so

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so all these states will will the hedge will get dirty so so you will record and then you will get all

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these other images with with lines and the sound will just go really neat really beautiful

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you know feedback sounds so so so we i think artists began incorporating noise in in in mistakes into the work

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so so so uh that that is what i began with and

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and and it was a good tool for me because uh in some ways i began doing work

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because um when i came to canada um uh i could not find anybody i cannot in the

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media in the in the in the in the in the artist places or in the works that people will do

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i couldn’t find any recognition or people like me and and uh and then i always felt like

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well i’m a foreigner right so so i don’t i don’t belong here so these tools gave me the opportunity to

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create my own images in in some ways to say i exist here i am i think in this way i do

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things in this way this is my rhythm this is my you know this is since in my own term

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so i began creating my own languages my own systems and knowledge uh to doing that basically so so

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so so the work that i began to do or decided to do was a reaction to

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racial capitalism you know he and kind of being in being in civilized being there

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and people with an acknowledge you and so so has been a long struggle that is still doing right so so it has to do

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with with uh finding new ways of seeing new ways of making new ways of being in new

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ways of doing so um you know you came to canada at a very interesting time

Coming to Canada

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in the early 70s as a uh as a teenager and um you know what was

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like what was that like coming from colombia and how did you find your way

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to going to the ontario college of art and then obviously um in the late 70s

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um when your work begins you know you were already kind of ingrained with the hot bed of

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the queen street scene yeah because um because i when i came to canada i came to the island

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and the island in toronto island at the time uh uh was a play there was there was so

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like the last of the hippies basically and so there was a lot of viruses uh on the island those are young people

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uh photographers poets uh people who did artwork and and the victor coleman was on the island um uh

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john poet uh recognized by by william burroughs john jordan all those people that when they came to the to toronto

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they used to go to the island actually to to see victor right and victor also i think that is one of the founders of

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airspace so so so i began to know about airspace while i lived on the island i i didn’t

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speak english it took me about six seven or eight months to speak english right so but but i began going

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to to air space which it was the hub of uh experimental works and there was uh uh

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where all the rules were being broken at the china it was really exciting right i mean that’s when

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it was amazing so so there was a dance there was a performance you know like but

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performance was very very strong at that time uh lots of groups from like the the chicago art

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ensemble you know gas groups used to come to to to airspace stuff that i never seen in my life and i never imagined that it

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existed i began seeing it there and i began on trying to wanting to do

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the same thing because i i was i had my my super 8 camera and um i i had met a friend on the

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island who had a porsche park and had lended to me so i was trying to do things and i basically if you can’t do it i did my

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first super influence in in in 1971 and uh began doing since related to myself in

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some ways back to to self-presence self presence and self

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self uh building myself you know so that was very exciting so i mean

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i mean that’s pretty interesting and pretty privileged

Immigrant migrant themes

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to arrive as a new immigrant live on the counter culture of tomorrow

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islands and to be so quickly connected

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because you know um as you know most newcomers to this country uh are not

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that welcomed are not um certainly many don’t find the opportunities

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for creative self-expression now did you i know i know that you work

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a lot with immigrant migrant illegal immigration themes

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were you did you arrive here as a as a legal early legal i i i i

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i i i basically i was born counter culturally i’m a stiller uh you know um i i was in

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colombia i was involved in in in encounter culture activities you know political activities because there

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it was at those times also was very very very a kind convulsion right political

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political hope for change uh which which i don’t know exchange it or not uh you

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know but uh also i i am from from a very poor neighborhood in in colombia which i

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i’ve seen that it’s marked uh a lot of this how i do my work uh being growing up in a neighborhood that it was

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um that it was um full of people from different different parts of the the the

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the the country there was a lot of afro afro-colombians indigenous people and all the mixtures that you can think of

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and this neighborhood is really interesting because architecturally for instance they people are poor so they are using they began starting to

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they begin building their own um their own houses from you know from serious from scratch

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with bricks then you can see the whole becoming process and every every culture everyone depending on where they come from they

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make the different houses different facets so it’s a very rich aesthetically uh besides uh

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they they also have a lot of different lots of different music in very small spaces uh different kinds of food

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and in in um so like different forms of knowledge to it you know so so so i those those really those places are

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very rich in in in in in creativity uh also there’s a lot of

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prostitution and a lot of uh a lot of the the prostitution houses

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were run by by transsexuals so the whole the whole mixture of all the combinations of everything you

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have to be very careful you you have to develop cognitive uh connective uh domains to to be able to navigate through through

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the dangers in those neighborhoods at the time uh uh you know violence or even even

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getting assaulted sexually by older boys right so you have to you have to smart up and create uh very creative solutions to

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to to do it in in in in the thing is that it was all these uh uh continuities and discontinuities

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since that were been becoming in parts uh unfinished narratives

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in illusion multiplicity and that’s that’s it’s in my work as well you know so

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so so i came with all that in mind and and and coming here to toronto and encountering all these uh

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different ways of thinking and doing which it was great for me because uh because um a lot of those works you

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could do on your own so i didn’t know i didn’t need a crew to do it right so it was a it was a very

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refreshing way of doing that you can and you can do it whatever you have and a lot of works with uh porchapaca

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you know i mean that was you just put it on your back and then you just go and film and you do things yeah

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so um let’s just stop there for a moment let’s just kind of go backwards because

Illegals

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we’ve just seen three pieces yeah what are we what are we looking at

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right now we’re looking at a word that is called illegal illegals and you asked me about illegals

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do you ask outside if i became illegal or not but this this is a work that this is a compilation of works that uh

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it’s a complete is it’s based on a um on the uh there’s four characters four

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illegal characters in the indie tape but they’re they are a compilation

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that i made of many illegal people that i met uh um in here in canada so i put them

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all together and worked with four people who had been illegal or knew what it was

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and were not and one was illegal so try to mix up all that all those stories into

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within their stories as well so so um the the issue illegality

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is very interesting because regardless that you become legal or illegal you have to do illegal things in

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the country right in order to survive because because when i came here to canada i had

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to i i worked in in many city jobs all the time in order to survive and to eat so so you

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had to do you have to find manners to to survive and and that has to do very much with

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illegality and and this is the uh experience of people who who are mostly latin

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and um reflects you know the problematics of being illegal in the country which is

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also has to do very much with with the strategies that people have created that people find to be illegal

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because it’s not all just a lot of these people are thinking people you know they they’re very smart

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but they’re in a situation that they have to change personalities it’s totally performance it too

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you know it is quite fascinating how illegal people survive

Watch My Back

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you know i don’t know i watched this this work um i mean you’re not showing any of the subjects who are worse um

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it’s this they’re talking throughout all of this and um um you know it made me completely

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forget about what it’s like to be an illegal an illegal migrant in this country and how

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complicated it is to navigate um the simplest things and to live um you know really off the

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grid and and and and and to live in fear

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um which takes me kind of back to the signature work um watch my back

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which is the four channel installation you have um at the ex as part of this exhibition

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that was the first chunk work that we saw and those are um

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not illegal subjects but they’re outsider subjects yeah you’ve seen you seem to be you know

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in this in their work illegal you don’t show their faces um

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and your four subjects that wake me up also don’t show their faces you want to talk a little bit about yeah

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i mean yeah a lot of a lot of illegality has to do to with

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with not being recognized and and with the watch my back is interesting because this is the

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this this this works i only done two works that come out of of my work doing

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workshops with youth um because i the workshops that i do i don’t go and do work for the community

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they do the work basically and that’s the idea of the workshops that they do they work um but

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i i’ve been with these people for a long time and i have stopped doing workshops with

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them they were already making videos when i approached them to do to do this work and i decided to do it because

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while i was doing the workshops and every time that i spoke to them um they told me that they had to wash

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their back that every time they talk they have to wash their back and and and and then i i i asked him

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listen i want to do something about you know watching your back and um and uh

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they just told me their stories and the stories are really simple it’s basically latin youth who come to toronto to the

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servers to the ghettos they they are they come from from from uh countries that

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the civil wars and um they land in those places and uh because they get together the

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police comes because there’s a lot against gangs and then if you are more than x number of people then you are accused of being

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again so they get taken to jail all the time they continue to get into jail and uh in

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uh and and and i was always i could never understand why you know that process of always

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ending up in jail and and also finding these people that were so smart and because the works that they did in the

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workshop are fabulous they’re excellent and they’re incredibly intelligent but they always end up in jail

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and then and the other thing for instance when i was working with them is that a lot of latin youth uh they don’t

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imagine doing post-secondary education for it’s not in the imaginary to think that they can go and do that

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and um so so so it is how racism works right i mean

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racism uh makes people feel smaller than they actually are you know in in in people internalizes

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that those those sub-human ways of judgements that that the the the

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society at large has with them in in they operate in a very innovative in in sometimes very

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constructed ways you know to survive and i always been fascinated by that and and i have a lot of affinity because as

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i said i am from a poor neighborhood right and i know a lot of a lot of that stuff and i i know how

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people think in that way so so i i am very uh i can’t relate with them very well uh

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i it’s almost like a it’s part of me talking to as well

Racism

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i mean there’s there’s the the one young woman who’s the subject i’m sorry

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i’ve just forgotten her name but um you know she speaks about how she

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avoided the gangs how she was an honor student you know she you know she really tried

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to not be a part of um that and in the end you know she’s

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picked up in a housing project and put in jail and gets kind of a reawakening yeah

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what she has tried to do she has been stereotyped she has been

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racially profiled geographically economically by class and by color and by culture exactly by

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everything and also there is a law there is a law that we don’t know like when when the police goes into a house

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they raid those houses and uh they and they find that uh your brother or your sister

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has guns or has drugs then most likely you will be taken to jail

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with your brother and most likely your family will get kicked out of the house

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uh so so so it’s a very problematic sense it’s like you know like a lot of uh um everyone

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gets playing for it right which is uh once more how racism operates so it is

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it’s not a matter of individual it’s a matter of a whole bunch of people that are put in one place and they are less than human

Aesthetics

25:05

so aesthetically you know you don’t make

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conventional television you don’t make conventional cinema and

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you don’t make uh you know you know conventional documentaries

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talk about your aesthetic form yeah the aesthetics is it’s basically the there’s there’s a way

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that i work um i mean it’s very gritty this stuff

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i mean it’s content and form yeah it’s pretty gritty yeah it is um

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okay like for instance this this one that we’re looking at it right it is it is made of um um

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certain interviews that i did that i do with the people and lots of other images

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that i that i go that i go to

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and i’m so like

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what i want to do so therefore you have a whole bunch of fragmented

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maybe non-related images that are constructing a narrative and that somehow creates a kind of

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aesthetics that that that that in some ways sometimes i feel

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that the work is making me in in the aesthetic decisions or the work in some

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ways are dictated to by by by by by those um

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uh how those images get together i i i think that for instance images images can come out of things

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right but they are not the thin in in in sometimes images and in in the scenes

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they conspire and create worlds that that that that that of their own

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you know they become like so they’re on and then i enter in conversation with this with these images

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and and but by aesthetically in some ways to organizing them in

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in in in a way that i find that is satisfying to me i don’t know how would

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it be for someone that is not used to see non-linear stories they may get confused

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about but i i try to it also is very emotional so i try to create all these paths for people to

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follow and and and to identify with uh with uh with what is going on so so in

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some ways the words also are a portrait of the city right uh the visual culture of a city uh

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so so the aesthetics in some ways is is is born out of the work itself and i

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don’t have a plan every work solidity tastes his own aesthetics and i think that you

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do the same thing too i mean i i’ve seen a lot of work you know we are so like nomadic in some ways you

28:03

know aesthetically nomadic uh symbiotic thing i don’t know um you know i mean

Life

28:12

i mean you know i wish i could be as loose as you

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in yet it’s very controlled i mean i wish i could be messier

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um i’m i’m i’m i think it takes courage to slam things

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up against each other that’s shaky that’s out of focus that’s um um

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not um because we’re always dealing with this idea of you know the perfect frame the perfect time the perfect one

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and and then that’s you know yeah i’ve also

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but um it’s it’s very anti-aesthetic

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but but paul it’s it’s i i could say that uh when i talk about my life how i live

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my life um it’s very similar to or or it’s almost the way that i do

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work um my work is my my life is very nomadic i i i i think very fragmented and i put this

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together because because um i never been able to to to to to stay in one place

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in some ways right conceptually and even physically and even if i’m physically in

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one place it is it is always in a rocky space i’m

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very uncertain i live through uncertainty right i mean i never been able to

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to be settled as a person like the same with being an

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immigrant i think that is important to understand is that you you are a you are you being an ignorant it’s not

29:57

being in different cultures but cultures being within you and in conscious being with you within

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you means that you are becoming something that you will not in in in and it’s a it’s it’s an ongoing

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process of becoming and and and i think that that that uh that it gives you my work is

30:18

is also reflects that that state of of of not knowing and and a lot of the

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times when i finish my work i don’t know i a lot of times when i’m doing the work i

30:30

don’t know what i am doing um and a lot of the times when i finish i don’t know what i have done

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and it takes me a while to get back to the work and and see the work and began

30:42

understanding what i was doing but also because my work in some ways reflects my

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living process and i use my work as a tool to understand my own life and to understand the life that

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surrounds me and in because life is always changing then the work is always changing and every

30:59

word presents different questions about life about politics about society about the others about you know and and

31:07

it is also contestatory right it is it’s always questioning the politics

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um and and uh of the politics that frame you so the frame i break

The Frame

31:19

all the time the extension frame and the work in the frame and the frames in the

31:25

work as well i loved um the work that we just saw um so punk um

31:33

the the the black and white and the um the mesh mask of someone hiding hiding

31:40

their face um you know that’s um

31:46

different singles frame as this eight channel work um that that we’re

31:51

looking at right now do you want to talk about this work because this work i know that was done with in colombia yeah this work with yeah

32:00

and it’s the region that i am from which is very afro-colombian that’s why the presence

32:06

of black people in here and um and it’s because i work in in the neighborhoods that i work there there’s

32:12

a presence of laws like they’re from neighborhoods right they’re very very dangerous neighborhoods in some ways but they’re

32:18

really amazing almost like the one that i described that i grew up with so so you know culturally they are so

32:23

rich i mean i love going to those places because they got so much life you know and it’s

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like like so so um i i work with these guys um they’re not in

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here right now but you will see them and they’re in the tape uh for many years in

32:40

in the neighborhood uh doing workshops with them and they as a lot lots of them change redirected

32:47

their lives through to discovering that they they could actually produce meaningful works

32:53

because they did it and they showed it and people liked them and they did more so some of them began creating work

33:00

all the ones who who who who didn’t want to continue doing video

33:05

they redirected their life into more constructed things because all those kids um they can die at any time they don’t

33:12

they die very young right because there’s a lot of weapons there’s a lot of gangs there’s a lot i mean that’s the rules of the

33:18

all those those neighborhoods so so um after being with them for many years

33:24

working with them i decided to make my own documentary of their neighborhood and and also reflected with the situation in

33:30

colombia right at the beginning is is colombia right now but then we go into the neighborhood so i hire them

33:35

i hire them to to i explained what i wanted to do and they were excited so i hired some two of them to do some

33:44

camera work i i will do camera work in the neighborhood because i always do my own camera work but they somehow work that i couldn’t do

33:50

because i couldn’t get in those places uh some daniels since

33:55

there’s an interview with this uh young uh killer is a 17 year old kid that that is a is a

34:02

killer so i couldn’t go and interview him and i was afraid because he might kill me right you never know i mean anyway you look at

34:09

the work he’s a very impulsive guy so so i actually told my friend uh you feel me he’s your

34:16

so so he i left i left the camera to canada and um and he was um recording scenes

34:23

and recording guys sent me the material it was too dark he was moving too much the camera so i told him

34:29

so i will direct him and then he would redo them and basically i built parsley documentary in that way and uh

34:36

when i showed them to them um they really liked it but they say that they could do something better

Workshops

34:44

so it is a it is kind of a collective co-production in some ways on the right

34:51

direction and and with with people who who

34:56

at the point of doing this video they were already colleagues right they were not my not my students

35:02

you know they were working with me you know you know i think what one or two of the

35:08

subjects you know make meant makes mention that

35:13

these workshops changed their lives totally got them out of gangs and yeah

35:22

and in the in the turnout from the workshops that that i do and that we do because i work with alexandra gellis

35:29

so much of the workshops it’s it’s more than 70 actually that there is a turn because in

35:35

these neighborhoods when you go into these neighborhoods these people already know about film

35:40

because they’ve been recording things with they watch a lot of movies they they don’t they want to be actual they

35:46

got talent but they don’t know how to do it so when you go there it’s really easy you know it’s like a

35:52

like uh italian is already there and and that’s basically this cultural capsule that is

35:57

lost when when when when the system doesn’t invest in in in this in these neighborhoods i

36:04

mean there is is the reason we know i mean most of the great music and let’s just come from the

36:10

ghettos you know what i mean you know in in in in so so yeah you know i know that

Youth of today

36:18

you know when both of you and i started out you know doing this video art thing you

36:25

know you know doing this outsider thing um you know um our peers the community

36:32

um the television documentary film world of the academic world the art world

36:39

hated what we did i mean they put up with it my friends and family

36:47

were supportive but they didn’t really like it and a long time you know we kicked open

36:53

doors we got funding we got to show you know a little short

36:58

you know on some sidebar alternative festival or or a monitor set up in the museum

37:05

underneath the stairs next to the bathroom you know something has shifted um you

37:12

know since this century there has been several generations who have grown up

37:19

around this form yes and now i find the youth of today get it

37:26

and love it there’s no more apology to say that this is art or not art they don’t care

37:33

yeah yeah it’s and it’s taken several generations several decades yeah have have a

37:40

audience yes you’re right and you know how you don’t know how easy is for these guys

37:46

to to to when we go into these places and show them experimental work they just picked it up

37:52

like that and to do it the same way you know it’s almost like it’s in there in their in their uh structure right and and it

37:59

has something to do with that that this our generation so the the screen generation right they they

38:07

think in multiple screens they think him in multiple parallels ways because that’s what that

38:13

you know we do right now so this guy is so beautiful showing off his

38:19

numerous bullet holes yeah seven seven times i mean yeah it is it is and

38:26

he’s a very beautiful guy these guys are really beautiful beautiful beautiful people beautiful people you

38:32

know just forced to live a life if you if you live in in those neighborhoods you have to learn how to defend yourself

38:37

you know and and uh i managed i managed to when i was growing up in my neighborhood

38:43

there was not that many guns there were there were they were they were knights you know and machetes and stuff like

38:48

that but but but i uh uh if i had been born in there israeli would be doing the same thing

38:53

that they are this guy here the black guy is one of the most talented ones he died in an accident two

38:58

years ago he was already teaching video he was already video at a schooling in

Equipment

39:06

cali so you so you have relationships

39:11

with your community yeah uh which develops into relationships with definitely

39:17

definitely yeah yeah a lot of the equipment that we don’t use in here we bring it to them

39:24

in uh to in colombia and and with the ones in here we lend them the equipment that we have

39:30

uh to do it and we i i still i still um i i

39:35

still uh i’m in contact with most of these people and we’re always in contact with these

39:41

people and we know their families and we and when i go to cali i can go into going to that neighborhood and and they will

39:47

protect me right because you have to go with people who know you know you just don’t go like that so they will protect me and people won’t

39:53

touch me and uh you know they know they know and i and i want to go back uh when i go back to cali i want to

39:59

re uh organizing screening uh screening again of all the works that they’ve done be to pay homage to the

40:07

person who who died in the accident and i want to do a a workshop i’m going to offer them a

40:12

workshop for one week for free um you know just i would bring everything and do it with six or seven

40:18

because i really want to go back in there um and and and i know that that changes

40:24

this has such a dynamic places culturally they’re incredible that these people are amazing dancers

40:30

singers you know but they live surrounded by by by by

40:36

you know inequity in in poverty which is uh we see creates violence so on you know

40:43

we’re just going to segue here speaking of inequities and i was very impressed on your resume that i just actually saw last

40:49

week you know very recently you went back and got your master’s degree in visual arts

40:55

and congratulations of dr lozano wow you know what asked you to get a

41:03

doctorate at this time in your life well i was i was i was accepted because of the work

41:08

and when i when i did when i went to do the master first that is two years because of the work i had not um i

41:15

finished i had one year university in colombia but i i it got taken over by the army and then i

41:21

ended up coming back coming here so i never finished anything and they didn’t go to school for uh well i

41:26

went to oca um uh six or seven years after after i was in here but then i was here when i

41:32

went to oca it was it was um it was very so like free school in some ways there was no

41:38

i mean most of the classes were done in the bar drinking beer with the teachers you know like and all of them were

41:43

alcoholics and we were chill so so it was just perfect having all this tissue that you just drink

41:49

at ten o’clock in the morning and talk about us so that was really good actually you know and so so

41:55

so i didn’t learn anything all what i learned is what i had to do on my own right um um but it was good to be in that

42:02

environment because i met a group of people like me uh rebecca gabriel susan makai uh dimitri martinoy that we

42:10

formed a group that began doing since in a different manner the general idea and the official

42:16

so uh um what is the time we’re doing right so we wouldn’t show that much with the

42:22

performance and stuff we were punkish you know like um i’d be more punk if anything i can

42:28

identify more with phone culture right uh um and um so so we

42:35

we created all the stuff and we were doing performances working individually and collectively

42:40

so that was really a great uh learning experience so then i when i went to university i

42:46

decided to okay there’s one reason why i go to university it’s because um it was it was a

42:52

possibility there’s more reasons but one is because they will they pay me they pay me to go

43:01

so what that means is that i would have i had a job to be able to have time to

43:08

read stuff and do things and and get paid and not having to worry about getting

43:14

work because all my life i’ve been trying to survive and it’s been very difficult right it hasn’t been easy um and the same

43:21

thing then i decided to do the phd basically that was the the economics of

43:26

it was the real reason i get paid to go and learn things and um but i am very much self self uh

43:33

self learned i i i you know so i i did maintain a level in independence

43:38

at to to do what i wanted to do and they allowed me to do it because i would respond you know i

43:44

i i put sense in there so so that was uh that was the reason but what it was

43:51

really good is that i discovered uh for having all that time and being related to academia

43:58

i began reading a lot of people philosophers that i never read before

44:04

and discovered that a lot of theories that i have thought and thought these people were talking about myself

44:11

through experience because my my my existence is practice right is is in the practice

44:17

and so i had developed theories of of knowing through my own practices and theories of

44:22

aesthetics or living or whatever and i would discover that so i got really interested in and that

44:28

is brought me to an incredible knowledge of new thoughts a lot of uh

44:36

black black writers feminists who are contemporary who who you know a lot of uh feminists

44:43

from from latin america philosophers so so it’s been really actually um a

44:48

really good experience to have done it the problem is that i’m an employee in in in in um in um and one of the problems

44:56

that i’m unemployed is and if i’m talking too long i’m going to be very sure with this because this is this is the enunciation

45:03

that i’m gonna make what is happening right now with black and white matters it’s really amazing it’s great

45:08

uh that institutions right now are starting to to to offer jobs to black people i think that is

45:14

great what i question is that you had done it a long time ago because we knew that the problem was

45:20

there all the time there was a there was a lack of representation of people of color uh at all levels in universities so so

45:26

now they are doing it i think that is great but uh they have to go beyond recognition

45:32

it has to be a re re restructuring and redistribution you know and it also

45:38

it has to contemplate the the hiring of people of color uh other cultures as well because

45:46

because that’s the only way that those universities are gonna eventually pay back to what they haven’t

45:52

done for many years and they knew all the time that was like that but i recognize the value and and i’m really happy

45:58

because black thought is really rich it’s perhaps the most interesting

46:03

philosophies that i’m reading right now is uh is is uh black writers and for

46:08

instance this person that i’m writing right now sylvia great

46:14

you know incredible and and and she will bring you through the whole connections of of blackstar and my bamboo and anyway

46:21

but that’s that’s that’s the i’m talking like that because i went to to the and i’ve been discovering all

46:29

this but that but uh yeah so um i’m just looking at the time here um

Pandemic

46:36

just come kind of wrapping up you know how has um and the covet 19

46:44

pandemic you know impacted you directly as a working artist

46:49

and um because you know you said you traveled a lot to festivals a lot to colombia and other

46:56

places a lot where you live um making work so yeah the pandemic is

47:04

quite interesting because in some way has been an x-ray for uh for seeing um you know the

47:11

the problems that we have as a society and and where they come from and and

47:17

basically it’s racial capitalism i mean and and we know that we can we can we can imagine the end of the world but we

47:23

cannot imagine the end of capitalism right but the the pandemic also is helping me

47:28

to to to create something that i call safe spaces or free spaces

47:34

and the free spaces are are those spaces that that you inhabit in a constructed manner

47:42

um especially when you are under the house for jail right in prison in

47:48

your own house so you have to be very inventive not to go crazy and the the the

47:56

manner that i already solving is through those what i call um free spaces that that that’s what art

48:02

does basically art creates free spaces so so it’s really work that i do once more

48:07

my artwork is the tool of resistance right resistance to to to whatever precision to myself to

48:15

to my own framing myself and what’s going on in colombia in

Colombia

48:23

colombia is the same thing colombia colombia is a country that is very hard to to to

48:28

to talk about it because it’s so complex politically um in in in in any changes constantly

48:36

but um all countries are going there it’s just that uh uh people there because of uh because

48:43

they’re poorer countries uh people have to face the pandemic in a different way so they go out a lot

48:49

and they resolve the loss of them they don’t have health uh health protection you know and they have

48:55

to do it at home uh they will die they always i know what reports

49:01

people dying basically poor people dying right in fact one of the things that the pandemic has has shown us is that some people most

49:08

dying so other people should not die and who must die with mostly poor people right in the states

49:15

latino people black people in here too right who’s in jail latino people black people

49:21

you know so those are these possible people and that’s what the pandemic has

49:26

in some ways uh shown this disparity

49:33

in in in in in in in because it’s a mono-humanist culture you

49:39

know so so it’s only only one kind of people are human

49:44

the other ones are not so what are you what are you making

Train

49:50

right now right now making a film that is in a train

49:56

that i began right before the pandemic and it all happens in a train and

50:03

it is um it’s yeah it’s just a train trip that where you

50:09

recreate it it’s a winter train trip from montreal to toronto and the landscape is incredible it’s all white it’s just

50:15

but then i am using um superimposition on the windows you gotta use to bring back

50:21

lots of issues and bringing people uh uh um it is it is really i like it i like it’s

50:27

fun it’s fun to do so so yeah i said it’s a train and it’s called train trains made movies

I Found Film

50:35

and now we’re watching um is there sound with this work yeah can we have a little sound with

50:41

this if it’s helen is helen our operator

50:46

there i know she’s listening because this was

50:52

one of your an earlier work and this is based on found sound and found um

50:59

appropriated sound and i found film yeah it’s a fun film that i that i that

51:05

i found just when i made it actually as soon as i found it i made that was two years ago i think and it

51:10

was i had it wrapped in i um in uh i shot a little bit in new york and some in toronto but then um well i

51:18

i have wrapped it in a in a in a flyer that i had picked up when i was in the lower east

51:24

when the loyalist was lower is that there were some junkies and and and you know really really down and

51:30

out um and i just stayed there and you had to go to destroy buildings to go into your floor

51:36

and it was all junkies and on the stairs and it was it was amazing you you know that cool is a little bit similar but um um

51:43

um i thought that wrapped in a in a in a flyer uh because uh

51:49

the the the puerto ricans in the united states have been kept oppressed forever right and living

51:55

in the poverty and they’ve been displacing them so so it’s a um has been the liberation

52:01

movements independent movements and i i love puerto rican people you know and i love salsa so um i found it in this flyer was talking

52:09

about free puerto rico and i that i had saved and then i wrapped the film and that and

52:14

i kept it and then i found it and also there was a cassette that uh cassette of sweet gain

52:20

which this weekend is about a little read right and and it’s about heroin too uh so so

52:27

for some reason it all connected and and tonight i i spliced the lurie song and created

52:34

the soundtrack and worked on the video and added a text telling the story of how young friends

52:42

of mine here in toronto because we will go to new york almost three or four times a

52:47

year uh uh and uh but uh the my friend john is here you know we’ll go to new york

52:53

because and and live there because he was uh uh um heroin was cheaper and and and

52:59

to get and and so i’m telling that story because when there was a lot of heroin

53:06

on queen street at the cameroon they used to sell it you know in in in in handsome

53:12

handsome ned a a country singer very beautiful man die of overdose so and and

53:18

just remembering those early 80s yeah

53:23

in this in this thing you know you know i would love to pair this work

Perfect Day

53:29

um with my work called perfect day which is also um um you know gritty

53:36

it’s biographical autobiographical but also uh you know uses the blue read song a

53:42

perfect day it’s also you know um around um those hardened um

53:51

times around the drug culture and life culture yeah but that’s i think it’d be very

53:57

interesting to uh um show those these two works as a package

54:02

anytime paul and and this is this is this is actually one example of when i talk about works

54:08

that made themselves right i mean i put those things together three those three elements

54:14

years ago and then because they work together and they all fit together to make it work it’s almost like you know

54:19

what i have to do is let me be made by the film but by the way by the encounter with us with those

54:26

elements and and i like that you know i i like losing control to when you were talking about

54:32

me being a disorgan i know what you want to use but yeah i is that it’s i i i i like to

54:39

lose control sometimes to the work that i do i i’m very much against uh the notion of um

54:45

of um of totality and you know totalities and illusion so so all the

54:51

words two are unfinished you know they are not go from native set they they they they

54:59

are the continuities and discontinuities like my life you know wow thank you

55:06

what perfect timing perfect jump thanks for having me here i am uh thank

55:12

you apparently uh we couldn’t get the sound going but jorge is that video on vimeo yeah yeah

55:20

i can send you i see that you guys have the link yeah we can put the link up with uh you

55:25

can you can publish it if people want to see it it’s a really neat little video and i

55:30

like seeing it the soundtrack is needed i love that and i love glory so so jorge um helen has posted the

55:39

video link in the chat so if anyone wants to see the video link it’s there but we’ll also post it let me post

55:45

uh repost this on our site because we’ll post the whole uh conversation today a lot of people

55:51

have been asking whether they can rewatch it so um we’ll be doing that as well so anyway i just want to thank both of you

55:57

so much this was so enjoyable uh jorge it’s so great to see uh

56:02

all of your work even in this kind of abbreviated non-audio formats that’s been lovely and also paul thank

56:09

you so much you’re having your insight and your ability to bring uh your own practice to

56:14

the questions that you’re asking jorge has been quite incredible so thank you so much

56:20

for those of you who want to see the exhibition unfortunately the aga is closed but there is a virtual

56:25

walkthrough on our website as well as all of the webinars that we’ve been doing with the

56:30

governor general awards winners this year so you can have a look at that and also installation shots so

56:37

i just once again want to thank everybody who attended today and also my sincere appreciation to both jorge

56:43

and paul for your contributions to this has been really wonderful thank you thank you very much but we didn’t talk

56:49

too fast hi thank you so much

57:11

you

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