You Are Here: Art and Place in the Anthropocene
Zoom launch - 17 November, 12:00 – 1:00pm
A virtual roundtable presented by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art in association with GEOG 466 Geomedia and the Geoweb
Detail, You Are Here * Vous êtes ici catalogue cover design by Stephanie Reynolds, featuring a detail of Iceland: Earth and Sky artwork by Kathleen Vaughan. (Photo: Kathleen Vaughan)
Sébastien Caquard, Natasha S. Reid, Johanne Sloan and Kathleen Vaughan in Conversation
Our interdisciplinary roundtable explores the possibilities and perils of artists’ work with place, now, in this moment of environmental and social crises sometimes called the Anthropocene. Drawing on geography/cartography, art history, museology and gallery display, art practice and public pedagogies, we together consider the aesthetics, ethics, politics and practicalities of making art now. We discuss mapping as method and visual trope, as well as histories of representation and exhibition.
Our conversation extends the ideas embodied in the exhibition You Are Here * Vous êtes ici by Kathleen Vaughan at the McClure Gallery, Westmount (6-28 March, 2020), an installation of walking (and, in one case, talking) textile maps that consider the political ecologies and personal experiences of green spaces in Montreal, Toronto, Blönduós/Iceland and Søndre Green/Norway. The accompanying catalogue features essays by the roundtable’s four speakers:
• Sébastien Caquard (Geography, Concordia University), whose research lies at the intersection of mapping, technologies and the humanities.
• Natasha S. Reid (McClure Gallery | Visual Arts Centre), currently exploring narrative research in community art education settings and social justice art gallery education.
• Johanne Sloan (Art History, Concordia University), recently focussed on the work of artist/filmmaker Joyce Wieland, the visual culture of Montreal and landscape aesthetics.
• Kathleen Vaughan (Art Education, Concordia University), who develops studio- and community-based projects that engage social and environmental issues, drawing on oral history practices and contemporary art tactics.
Moderated by Tracy Valcourt, whose doctoral research investigates perception of landscape from an aerial perspective.
The You are Here * Vous êtes ici catalogue will be available for sale.
For more on the exhibition and other associated events, please see https://www.visualartscentre.ca/mcclure-gallery/exhibitions/kathleen-vaughan/
