A week of performance art presented by the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) and the Department of Fine Arts. Look for the vintage Airstream trailer on campus between the Dana Porter Arts Library and Arts Lecture Hall.
Images (left to right): Golboo Amani, Public Reading, 2015. Photo: Manolo Lugo. Johanna Householder, Avian Symposium, 2017. Photo: Naomi Kennedy.
This Could Be The Place continues the trajectory of presenting challenging and contemplative performance art on campus using a vintage Airstream trailer as a staging area. Prior events hosted in 2014 and 2016, respectively addressed themes relating to precarity and borders. This third iteration responds to our sense of facing a state of emergency on a daily basis. Five artists have been invited to respond to this theme by addressing the notion of care as a form of restorative cultural labour. What kinds of aesthetic, social, and political practices can we enact to encourage and empower diverse communities to listen, exchange and cooperate in a media-saturated global context mired by environmental, political and cultural crisis? It is our belief that modest acts of care and compassion on a local level lead to positive outcomes that go some way towards enabling a better tomorrow. - Bojana Videkanic & Ivan Jurakic, co-curators
This Could Be The Place has been made possible with the generous support of the Region of Waterloo ARTS FUND. The event is a co-presentation of the University of Waterloo Art Gallery and UW Fine Arts, in cooperation with CAFKA.18: Recognize Everyone.
Performances:
Monday
June
4
-
noon
ABEDAR
KAMGARI
-
Untitled
Food has always been integral to my relationship with cultural identity. Diet, of course, can change based on a variety of factors, ranging from income and free time to climate, health and availability. Turmeric is a staple spice in my traditional cuisine, but one that I gradually stopped using after coming to Canada – for fear of its characteristic smell marking my body. In this experimental performance, I play with turmeric as a tool for claiming space for brown bodies in public space and within institutions. // Abedar Kamgari is an artist, independent curator, and arts worker based in Hamilton and Toronto.
Tuesday
June
5
-
noon
GOLBOO
AMANI
-
Public
Reading
Public Reading is a performance work that engages with audiences in an intimate shared experience. The artist travels through public space with a small library of collected books. Participants pick a book from the library for the artist to read out loud to them. // Golboo Amani is a multi-disciplinary artist best known for her performance and social practice works. She is based in Toronto.
Wednesday
June
6
-
noon
LISA
MYERS
-
Playing
Spoons
A sound interpretation using the two blueprint profiles of the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline. One blueprint from 1800s and the other an altered version, marking places without train stations and often left off maps. This performance with bass guitar and guitar will accompany an acknowledgement of the maps, and the very place of this artwork. // Lisa Myers is an independent curator and artist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration. She is a member of Beausoleil First Nation and is based in Port Severn and Toronto.
Thursday
June
7
-
noon
JOHANNA
HOUSEHOLDER
-
Holocene
Days
We live in uncertain times, so uncertain we don’t know what to call them: the Holocence, Anthropocene, Capitalocene, or Chthulucene? The conversation around the current epoch from a quasi-scientific perspective can assist humans in the critically needed repositioning of ourselves as only one of many animalia on the planet. In order to rethink our selves in relation to the land and its discontents, I propose listening for relationships while conceiving alternative futures and presents. // Johanna Householder works in video, performance art, and audio. She is the Chair of Cross-Disciplinary Art Practices at OCAD University and lives in Toronto.
Friday
June
8
-
noon
LALA
RAŠČIĆ
-
The
Damned
Dam
The Damned Dam is a storytelling performance set in 2027. Rooted in research of actual localities and events, this fantastical love story uses the iconography of disaster to open up issues of a transitional reality, the relationship between capitalism and corruption, between cause and effect, emancipation and justice, and escapism into fiction. The dam is at once metaphor for border and Bosnian epic poetry. // Lala Raščić is a multidisciplinary media and performance artist who divides her time between Sarajevo, Zagreb, and New Orleans.
Saturday
June
9
-
11:00
AM
SYMPOSIUM
University
of
Waterloo
Art
Gallery,
East
Campus
Hall
1239
11:00_Panel
Discussion
moderated
by
Bojana
Videkanic
•
Elwood
Jimmy,
Program
Coordinator,
Musagetes
Foundation,
Guelph
•
Sonja
Zlatanova,
Performance
artist,
board
member
La
Centrale,
Montreal
•
Katja
Praznik,
Assistant
Professor,
Arts
Management,
SUNY
Buffalo
•
Jasmina
Tumas,
Assistant
Professor,
Global
Gender
and
Sexuality
Studies,
SUNY
Buffalo
12:30_Lunch
Break +
Karaoke
Performance
by
Tess
Martens
13:30_This
Could
Be
The
Place
Artist
Roundtable
1
14:30_CAFKA.18
Artist
Roundtable
2
