Curatorial

 
 

Current/Upcoming:

 

Kingston Canadian Film Festival 2024, Local Shorts

LOCAL SHORTS: LET’S GET LOCAL

Friday, March 1
Baby Grand
9:30 pm 

LET’S GET LOCAL embraces filmmakers who all share a deep, personal connection to our beautiful city. Several of the films feature local crew and creatives (actors, musicians and artists) and many films are shot in Kingston or the surrounding area. In short, they are all seriously local.  



Empty Nest
Director: Chris Deacon

After dropping their kids off at camp, a married couple tries to rekindle their romance 

Age of Consent
Directors:Katherine Gauthier and Ben Sanders

When Héloise, an elderly woman in the early stages of Alzheimers, is the victim of a shocking intrusion, her grown daughter is left with the impossible task of distinguishing true events from the confusion of her illness.

 

Winsom
Director: Braden Dragomir

Winsom Winsom’s work exists at the confluence of spirituality and creativity. This film traces Winsom’s journey as a multidisciplinary artist, mentor and spiritualist.


Bird Hostage
Director: Lauren Andrews

A petsitting job goes awry when Lauren discovers that the bird she is watching can speak, and tells her that he is being held hostage.

 

The Scrapped
Director: Suzanne Lacey

A university student rethinks a social media post after falling asleep beside a prison wall.

 

A Song For William Bird
Director: Jacob Wiebe

At the end of the 19th century a hunted killer on an errand of revenge is forced to reconcile with the truth of his nature.

 

LOCAL SHORTS: THE LOCAL MOTION

Sunday, March 3
Baby Grand
10:00 am

For the past 24 years, the Kingston Canadian Film Festival has featured standalone programs for local filmmakers, highlighting the various communities and individuals from our community. The local shorts program, THE LOCAL MOTION, continues to acknowledge, celebrate, and highlight our talented locals in motion.


Undying
Director: Alain Ross

Jen, in her fifties, retreats to her cabin by the lake where she writes to her daughter Ella. As she thinks about her husband Jack, the past and present seem to blend together. She becomes more and more aware of the thin line between life and death, and wonders whether their love is eternal. 

 

My Conversation With Elle
Director: Nicholas Patrick Afchain

Kay, a disenchanted zilennial seeks the meaning of a recurring dream through its retelling to best friend Elle.

 

City Thots
Director: Carly Williams

Laura and Marika are a pair of hot messes trying to make it in Toronto where rent is high, but their morale is higher.

 

Lonely Country
Director: James Perry

In 1950’s rural Ontario, a closeted gay man is forced to confront his loneliness and desire when he picks up a handsome young hitchhiker.

 

Healer
Director: Mackenzie Leigh

A young woman grapples with the untimely death of her sister, seeking solace in an imagined reality where they grew up together.

 

I Keep Bumping into Candy Maldonado
Director: Luke Black

After a chance meeting with his childhood hero, a man’s euphoria over the encounter turns into an existential crisis as he continues bumping into the former major league baseball player everywhere he goes.

 

“Collection Count + Care” with Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, General Idea, and Marcia Herscovitz

Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2022

Mentoship: Alicia Boutilier

count + Care

With Count + Care, we lovingly turn our attention to the collection. Over 17,000 works of art and culture are housed at Agnes. And in June, we begin to pack that collection in preparation for the building of Agnes Reimagined, our new future-oriented facility. As we pack, we take stock, and consider what it means to care for and be accountable to a public collection. Curated works in twos and threes hold space, or “take the stage,” for biweekly intervals, as we say goodbye to them temporarily. In the process, we bring stewardship forward to the gallery from back of house.

Count + Care seeks relationships within and conversations across the collection at Agnes and acts as a revolving access point through which to reflect on legacies of collecting, of holding but also homing.  These works find themselves here through various means, whether a purchase, donation or transfer, tracing histories of artistic practice and curatorial priorities. Through inventory, Count + Care looks at what has been collected at Agnes and infers what should be collected in addition. The project not only revisits the well-known but also reveals the under-recognized in Agnes’s collection, those who may not yet have had an opportunity to speak through or about their collectivity. What stories do they tell? Come hear what the collection has to say.

Shortlisted for 2020 GOG Award: Innovation in a Collections Based Exhibition
Collections Count + Care
Alicia Boutilier (Lead Curator), Emelie Chhangur, Sebastian De Line, Sunny Kerr, Qanita Lilla, Elyse Longair, Carleigh Milburn, Kirsty Roberston, Suzanne van de Meerendonk, Curators
Alicia Boutilier, Vincent Perez, Emelie Chhangur, Sebastia De Line, Sunny Kerr, Qanita Lilla, Elyse Longair, Carleigh Milburn, Kirsty Roberston, Suzanne van de Meerendonk, Exhibition Designers
Leah Cox, Exhibition Coordinator 
Mark Birksted, Ben Darrah, Scott Wallis, Installation Team
Barbara Astman, Eleanor Bond, Maud Darling, Erika DeFreitas, Sarindar Dhaliwal, General Idea, Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson, Marcia Herzcovitz, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, Tran T. Kim-Trang, Nobuo Kubota, David Milne, Allyson Mitchell, Monogrammist I. S., Norval Morrisseau / Miskwaabik Animikii, Kim Ondaatje, Isah Papialuk, Rembrandt van Rijn, Ted Rettig, Joyce Wieland, Artists Once Known, Artists
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2022

 

Video by: Jay Middaugh
English transcript
French Transcript


“Collection Count + Care” with Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, General Idea, and Marcia Herscovitz

Collage is often an under-researched and under-recognized medium in a collection. It relies upon understanding of the images and materials being used, with the ability to see beyond the realities and meanings of the “original.” It also invites us to recognize relationships made possible through reimagining already existing images. General Idea, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, and Marcia Herscovitz all use simplified and powerful methods in their collages, combining two or three fragments to enact change and ignite imaginations.

Each collage, in their own particular way, focuses on energized thresholds filled with untapped potential, the spaces between, the push and pull that exist on, to borrow General Idea’s term, the borderline. General Idea’s borderline hovers between the public and the institution. Ibghy and Lemmens’s collages playfully considers internal and external ways of seeing.  For surrealist Herscovitz—in her photocollage contribution to the 1968 artist portfolio S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop)—imagination forms a space between our conscious and subconscious. As we look forward to radical transformations with Agnes Reimagined, these works encourage us to critically and creativity re-examine the potentials that exists in Agnes’s fervent borderlines, holding both our pasts and futures .

Curated by Elyse Longair under the mentorship of Alicia Boutilier, as part of a practicum course in the graduate program of Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies, Queen’s University.

Rihab Essayh: of longing and songbirds
union Gallery, 2022
Curatorial Assistant
Mentorship: Morgan Wedderspoon &
Abby Nowakowski

OF LONGING AND SONGBIRDS

Rihab Essayh

Main Space
October 4 – December 10, 2022
Workshop: October 1, 12–2pm
Open Preview: October 1, 2022, 2-3:30pm
Curatorial Assistant: Elyse Longair

Rihab Essayh’s solo exhibition of longing and songbirds offers a space of refuge through its immersive large-scale sculptural installation and sound recordings. Viewers are invited to inhabit the exhibition: resting on stone-shaped cushions within a floating tent structure dappled with blushes of colour, or looking into a reflective pond while listening to birdsong and poetry. Conceived during the pandemic, this contemplative installation extends Essayh’s self-care outward into a new community.

Rihab Essayh is an interdisciplinary artist building worlds and large-scale installations. Her recent tactile and immersive environments emerge from her efforts to support the conditions for “radical softness” – an idea that suggests that showing emotions and vulnerability is a political gesture in a society that prioritizes intellect and indifference. Based on principles of empathy, belonging, and care, Essayh is interested in the human state in a digital age when part of our identity and social encounter reside online, particularly important in the context of the pandemic and its drastic social and emotional impacts. In terms of technical expertise, Rihab is deepening her knowledge of materials to move her practice forward. She seeks to foster a feeling of ambivalence in the viewer, with the interest of blending personal, analytical and universal attributes. Essayh uses lightness and delicacy that is the cumulative effect of the constructed landscape to speak to her vision of a soft futurism; an imagined future, a hopeful new space that is de-centering, intersectional, inclusive, and radically soft.

In this exhibition, of longing and songbirds, an ethereal floating tent “الغسق لجوقة العصافير عند الغسق (Longing for a choir of sparrows at dusk),” is spray-painted with the colours of the sunrise she experienced in her new home in Guelph, Ontario, and accompanied by a sound recording of birds heard in the early mornings. Made when the artist felt most isolated and in need of comfort, the tent became a place where she could feel secure, find rest, and land softly.

RIHAB ESSAYH

Rihab Essayh is a Canadian-Moroccan interdisciplinary artist whose large-scale, immersive installations create spaces of slowing down and softening. Her research considers issues of isolation and disconnection in the digital age, imagining futurities of soft-strength and social reconnection by proposing a heightened attunement to colour, costume, tactility and sound. She obtained her BFA at Concordia University in Montreal in 2017 and her MFA at the University of Guelph in 2022. Essayh has exhibited work at Conseil des Art de Montréal, La centrale Powerhouse, Fofa Gallery, Never Apart, Art Souterrain festival, The plumb and the Art Gallery of Guelph.

 

Regarding Wealth, contributing curator, Legacy Gallery, Victoria BC, Michael Williams Collection, 2010
Mentorship: Dr. Carolyn Butler-Palmer

February 24  – June 10, 2010

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

This was an exhibition concerning the intersections between art and homelessness. This exhibition was part of an ongoing series of projects and class seminars featuring artwork from the University of Victoria’s Michael Williams Collection led by Dr. Carolyn Butler-Palmer who occupies the Williams Legacy Chair.

What does wealth mean to you?

For many, wealth is financial prosperity and an abundance of material possessions. For some, it is being surrounded by friends, family and a caring community. We invite you to rethink the idea of wealth through an exploration of artworks selected from the Michael Williams Collection. The paintings chosen reflect various concepts of wealth – having it, losing it, and sharing it.
 

Regarding Wealth intends to engage visitors in a discussion about the shifting economies of wealth in our community. We want to highlight points of interconnection and break down the simple oppositions of “us and them” and “have and have not”. As part of a larger project in conjunction with the University of Victoria we hope to encourage education and dialogue through the use of our digital phone line, chalkboards and student-created Research Portfolios.

As you walk through the gallery, consider the various perspectives of wealth that these paintings offer. Speak to the individuals around you. Respond to other’s comments. Recognize the layers of wealth we share as a community.

Visit the HA 495/595 Regarding Wealth  website

Contributors: Dr. Carolyn Butler-Palmer, Williams Legacy Chair in Modern and Contemporary Arts of the Pacific Northwest

History in Art Students who enriched this project: Eric Anderson, Magdalyn Asimaskis, Julia R.M. Baker Veronica Best, Jennifer Cador, Won Chang, Sara Chekley, Gareth Clayton, Miranda Clement, Jaime Lynn Clifton, Emma Conner, Odessa Corletto, Heather Crowley, Melba Dalsin, Heather Dixon, Kim Drabyk, Susan Hawkins, Laura Hayward, Julia Hulbert, Elaina Keppler, Emma Knight, Stephanie Korn, Toby Lawrence, Sarah Lee, Katie Lemmon, Elyse Longair, Marnie Mandell, Mathew McKay, Kaitlyn Patience, Kathleen Prince, Andrea Porritt, Cassidy Richardson, Jysicca Richardson, Connie Quaedvlieg, Mike Quan, Aleta Salmon, Nancy Schnarr, Katy Scoones, Julia Simpson, Thomas Sluchinski, Leah Taylor, Filiz Tutuncu, Holly Unsworth, Christine Woychesko and India Young.

Research Assistants: Mebla Dalsin, Kaitlyn Patience, and Tusa Shea

Special Thanks to: Sarah J. Blackstone, Dean of Fine Arts, Catherine Harding, Department Chair, History in Art, Kate Hutchins, Legacy Art Gallery & Café, Martin Segger, Maltwood Gallery Director, Caroline Riedel, Maltwood Curator of Collections, Christine Woychesko, Manager, Legacy Gallery & Café, and Caitlin Cuthbert , Jenina Ceglarz, CEO Swans Hotel, Cindy Vance Maltwood Exhibition Team: Emma Conner, Caitlin Cuthbert, Kate Dahlgren, Mark Hovey, Karen Merrifield, Cam Northover, Nick Poppell, Heather Stone, Leah Taylor

"Regarding Wealth Exhibit- Audio" - Conversation Cafe', March 7, 2010

"Exhibit Shines Light on Victoria Art" - Times Colonist, April 14, 2010
"Art Show Analyzes Intersection of Art and Homelessness" - Nexus Newspaper, March 21, 2010
"Regarding Wealth Exhibit" - A Channel, March, 2010

 

Access Art, contributing curator, Access Health Centre: Health Clinic, Victoria BC, Michael Williams Collection, 2010-2011
Mentorship: Dr. Carolyn Butler-Palmer, Williams Legacy Chair in Modern and Contemporary Arts of the Pacific Northwest at The University of Victoria

Beginning with the preliminary list of images, we identified works of art for the health clinic. Our process involved multiple conversations in a team consisting of Cool Aid Health Service’s facility staff, university students, and Legacy Chair. We at the university learned much about images in a health care setting. For example, we found that nurses and doctors often decorate exam rooms with instructional posters such as acupuncture charts not because they especially like them, but because these are the images they have to work with. We also learned that they would prefer to avoid representations of the human body in art in this setting, as a means to help their clients move beyond their bodily afflictions.

Once the images were selected, students used a 3D computer software program to design a preliminary installation plan. They identified a lead image, Roy Tomlinson’s A Dove within a Hawk is Flying (c. 2000), to communicate the transformative process of the clinic’s mission. They also created a didactic panel about work scheduled for installation that was created by Courtney Milne, who turned to making art as a way to help him in his struggle with diabetes.

Installation plans for each of the clinic venues were further refined as the UVAC installation team and Legacy Chair hung the works of art after the close of the semester. Some modifications were made at this time, to accommodate chairs, traffic patterns, and lighting. The plan was modified one last time about a week later, after one image was found to be “too pink” by some members of the staff, and as other art was found to be in the way, too near to examination tables.

As we worked on the plan for the health clinic, we also developed “Connect the Blocks” (2011), a companion exhibit for the Legacy Gallery. Our goal was an exhibit that called attention our collaborative design practice. The exhibit consisted of squares of paper that we asked our visitors to write or draw on and then hang in our gallery, on a 3 metre x 5 metre Velcro covered rectangle. More than 500 contributions were hung, including some from Cool Aid staff members and patients, and over the course of three weeks, the relationships between images were renegotiated numerous times, re-curated spontaneously by gallery visitors.