Art
I was nominated by Patricia Deadman, curator of the Woodland Cultural Centre in Six Nations, for the New Generation Photography Award.
Established in 2017 by the National Gallery of Canada in collaboration with Scotiabank, the New Generation Photography Award celebrates young Canadians working in lens-based art.
To read more about the award visit the National Gallery of Canada’s website here.
The City of Ottawa is proud to honour the enduring legacy of Yousuf and Malak Karsh with a commemorative award to a professional photo/lens-based artist. Created in 2003 by Ottawa City Council, the Karsh Award recognizes the Karsh brothers for their immense contribution to our city's rich cultural heritage
Every four years, a $7,500 prize is presented to a midcareer/established local artist for their outstanding body of work and significant contribution to the artistic discipline in a photo/lens-based medium.
Over the subsequent three-year period, the laureate is also invited to hold an exhibition of his/her work at the Karsh-Masson Gallery, mentor within the local artistic community and participate in the Karsh Continuum exhibition.
To read more visit the City of Ottawa’s website here.
I’m very excited to announce that my work is now included in the Indigenous Photograph’s database among some amazing Indigenous photographers from around the world.
It has been one year since my dear friend ended his life. In the months following his passing, I did the only thing I know how to do - I made art.
This video and audio were entirely captured on my iphone, replacing my perfectionism with emotion, if only momentarily. I made this video as a way to sort through some of my feelings in the months following his passing.
Please take a look, if you'd like.
Feel free to ask me questions. We all seem to want to turn away when someone says the word suicide but that isn't helpful for any of us. I am open to sharing my personal experience, in any way that I can.
It is immensely important that we remember those who pass from suicide, no differently than it is important that we remember any others we have lost. The hardest part of my grieving journey was that people were afraid to talk about him. I found comfort in those who didn't turn away. I wanted to share his story. Sometimes the sad bits but also how amazing, funny, intelligent, warm and bright this individual is.
Yesterday would have been his 34th birthday, which hit me hard because my partner is the same age. I looked at him and thought about all of the life we have left to live together - to travel, to buy our first home, to watch his kids and my nieces and nephews grow up, to make art, to be with our friends... and I realized how unfair it is that he will not get to do this alongside us. It is unfair but yet it all makes sense. It doesn't get easier, missing someone, but we do learn to carry the weight of it, hopefully with more grace and love, as the years continue to pass by.
hold each other tight.
The 2019 poetry shortlist is here. Congrats to the nine poets whose submissions were selected by our esteemed judge, Pamela Mordecai!
Room's 2019 Poetry Contest: The Shortlist
“Courage” by Katie Hoogendam
“Dead spider frozen in ice are you dead.” by Kari Teicher
“The Giraffe-bone Knife Set” by Kate Rogers
“Knowing” by Shelby Lisk
“Narvaez Bay at Dusk” by Jan Fraser-Hevlin
“Progress” by Sara de Waal
“Saweyimikowisiwin / Cree ; the act of being favoured by the spirits” by Ashleigh Giffen
“the tea set” by Josephine LoRe
“Weaponry of Wives” by Callista Markotich
If you are curious to know which shortlisted poems are ultimately selected by our judge as the top three submissions, stay in touch; announcement will be made next week. While you're here, check out our 2019 Short Forms Contest which is closing later this month.
https://roommagazine.com/blog/poetry-contest-2019-shortlist
SALAM FROM NIAGARA FALLS takes up first- and second-generation Afghan and Iranian home-making in the context of ongoing settler colonialism on Turtle Island. Family photographs taken at Niagara Falls are a staple in many migrant and refugee homes, often evoking newfound relationships to belonging in Canada. Artists refute the nostalgia associated with Canada as “a nation of immigrants,” drawing from and digitally manipulating archives to share experiences with migration, displacement, and settlement. Curated by Mitra Fakhrashrafi.
Shelby Lisk (Shelby Lisk Photography) is an artist, writer and photographer, born and raised in Belleville, close to her roots of Kenhtè:ke (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory). Shelby's work responds to the colonial history of landscape painting, land ownership, and more broadly the forms of knowledge that are more easily taken for granted as truth. In drawing from her poetry and photo-based practice, Shelby will extend a discussion on colonial landscapes, nostalgia and the possibilities of imagining multitudes of perspectives, stories, and histories. Talk will be in English but Q&A period is open to questions in English, Farsi + Dari. Free tea + refreshments on site.
Please join me for the opening of my first solo exhibition, at Modern Fuel in Kingston, Ont. The show will run from September 4 - October 20th, with the opening reception on September 14 from 6-8pm. The work in this show centres around my relationship to my maternal grandmother and to the land in Tyendinaga. As well as blood memory and family ties. Christine Negus' exhibition 'things you can't make maps out of..' will be showing at the same time
Below is from my artist statement for the show
Keró:roks tsi naho’ténhson sewake’nikonhrhèn:’en translates to I am gathering all of the things I had forgotten, in English. This show centres around my connection to the water and land of Tyendinaga and my maternal, Mohawk grandmother. Each piece in the show is a part of remembering. It’s like waking up from a long dream and finding who you’ve always been. The land, the water and my grandmother: each a piece of remembering.
I thought if I spent enough time with water I could access some of the knowledge it has of my ancestors and tell me secrets of the past: remember my great aunt paddling along it, back and forth on her back. Remember our ancestors landing here, remember my mom’s giggles as a child, held tightly in its waves. Remember canoes gently gliding, kissing its surface. I thought it could help me remember these things that I had forgotten but also I could remind her of how much we love and care for her. That we don’t just want to use her, we want to spend intimate moments talking quietly in the dark, breathing close to her, blowing cool air across her surface. I think of her simultaneously like I would my child and my aging grandmother. Rub her head when she’s afraid and listen to her wisdom and bring her tea in exchange for her stories. She is where we come from and where we're going.
video still from Akshótha, 2015
Water feels like my connection to the territory of Tyendinaga but also to my grandmother, great grandmother and great, great grandmother. It seems automatic to go to the water they lived on for answers but also, knowing that inside my mom when she was floating softly inside my grandmother, was a little piece that would form my body and spirit. Her essence has touched me. Both are true: my grandmother is my access to the land and community I call home and I feel those lands are my access to her, if I stop and listen. She has already shared all her knowledge with me. Now, I have to listen to remember. I am a part of an individual, familial but also a broader collective remembering happening for a lot of people right now. I am remembering all of the things that were once in my head
photo from You're not here series, 2016
In You’re not here, I am physically returning my body to the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory but, as I return to my community, so much more is returning. I am placing my grandmother back into the community she never fully got to be a part of. Displacement, uprooting, and relocation have strong connections to my feelings about land as a Mohawk woman. I grew up, and continue to live, on land that is not the original homeland of my ancestors. The land that is now the Tyendinaga reserve is land that continues to be constrained and controlled by the government. You’re not here evokes both the philosophy and practice of colonization and a specific feeling as a mixed-race woman, who often feels invisible while trying to figure out where I belong in a contemporary colonized society. It also evokes for me a longing for the lessons and stories from my maternal grandmother and ancestors that I never got to learn.
video still from Akshótha, 2015
In Akshótha, I create a fictionalized history of growing up with my grandmother. I call upon the matriarchs of my family: using photos of my mom, aunts, grandmother, great grandmother and myself, to stand in for one another. I also play with the idea of history and whose history is acknowledged as truth. Our history books in Canada omit so much of our country's history. I am taking space to rewrite my own history, a powerful and therapeutic undertaking.
video still from Akshótha, 2015
Time spent breathing with water, in relation to the other works, is an exploration of learning from the land because my grandmother was not here to teach me those lessons. Everyone picks a totem for loved ones who have passed away: a photo, a piece of clothing, something that person loved. For me, my grandmother’s totem is water and the land in Tyendinaga. The trees whisper her name, everything all around me holds a piece of her spirit. When I’m saying “keró:roks tsi naho’ténhson sewake’nikonhrhèn:’en”, I am acknowledging that all of the learning is not just for me but for my grandma, as well. We share DNA and so I share her experiences, characteristics and knowledge. Now I can learn and unlearn and remember for her.
print from Time spent breathing with water, silver gelatin print, 2018