Mitra, Srimoyee et Devine, Bonnie et Rodney, Lee et Darroch, Michael. Border Cultures. Windsor, Ont.: Art Gallery of Windsor; London, England: Black Dog Publishing, 2015.

Border Talks

A round table on Art, Agency and Homelands

March 9, 2016 - 6 PM to 7:30 PM

We are pleased to present a round table moderated by Dr. Alice Ming Wai Jim, the recipient of the 2015 Artexte prize. This round table discussion will bring together curator Srimoyee Mitra and artists Patrick Beaulieu and Leila Sujir, who will discuss notions of national boundaries with multiple and diverse narratives and experiences of border contexts around the three-part exhibition Border Cultures.

In 2013, the Art Gallery of Windsor launched Border Cultures, a series of exhibitions to deepen our understanding of what is means to be a border city in the twenty-first century. Located in the southernmost part of Canada across the river from the US, Windsor is an important place for the arrival and departure for Indigenous, settler and migrant communities. This three-part exhibition was conceptualized as a research platform, bringing together regional, national and international artists to examine the complex and shifting notions of national boundaries. ForBorder Cultures: Part One (homes, land), 2013, artists explored ideas of home, exile, citizenship and nationhood in our globalized world. In Border Cultures: Part Two (work, labour), in 2014, fifteen artists examined the in-between space of the borderlands, where free-flowing capital and the uneasy movements of the stratified work force encounter one another. The final iteration of the series, Border Cultures: Part Three (security, surveillance), brought together twenty artists to examine the impact of heightened militarization along national boundaries that has intensified deportations, detentions and mechanisms of surveillance. Artists were the key agents here as their work moved from the symbolic materiality of the border to a psychological and intimate space of despair, hope and desire.

Join us for a lively discussion on the meaningful and relevant themes of Border Cultures. The publication will be available for purchase at the reception following the discussion.
Price: 30,00$ (cash only please)

 

Srimoyee Mitra is a curator and writer. She has worked as the Art Writer for publications in India such as Time Out Mumbai and Art India Magazine. From 2008-2011 she was the Programming Coordinator of SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre) in Toronto, where curatorial projects included Crossing Lines: An Intercultural Dialogue at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery, Brantford. Mitra has participated in conferences lectures across Canada, most recent ones include “Sensing Borders (Daniels Faculty University of Toronto, Master of Visual Arts, Proseminar Speakers Series, December 3, 2015), “Home on Border lands”, (The University of Arizona School of Art, Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series, November 12, 2014) and Critical Dialogues in Curatorial and Art Practices (Ontario Arts Council, March 2013). In 2015, she edited a multi-authored book,Border Cultures, co-published by the Art Gallery of Windsor and Black Dog Publishing, and her writing can be found in journals such as Scapegoat Journal, Fuse and C Magazine. She is currently the Curator of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Windsor. Her most recent exhibition Wafaa Bilal: 168: 01 has been featured by the media nationally and internationally and is currently on view until April 10, 2016 in Windsor, Ontario.

Alice Ming Wai Jim is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Art History at Concordia University, Montreal. She is co-editor of the scholarly journal, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (Brill). Her main areas of research are in media arts, networked art practices, ethnocultural and global art histories, and curatorial studies, with a focus on contemporary Asian art and Asian Canadian art from a transnational perspective. She was recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Faculty of Fine arts in 2014.