Emerging Art Writers Program 5 - Futures

The Emerging Art Writers Program (EAWP) is an art writing program organized through the Illingworth Kerr Gallery (IKG).

EAWP is a non-credit series of writing workshops, led by two Faculty mentors. Current AUArts students in any year, or program of study are encouraged to apply with up to 8 being selected to participate in the program. Students will be guided throughout the program by mentors and their peers in the development of a text. By the end of the program, each of the participants produces a final piece of writing to be published in a printed catalogue, distributed across Canada by CMagazine.

FUTURES

Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.

-Ursula Le Guin

In a time of climate, economic crisis, and increasing political polarization, we need urgent action to create better futures. Art and artists play an essential role in envisioning futures and often ask us to consider (and reckon with) their possibilities. Together, we will explore the future as a lens to respond critically to a subject. Change, sustainability, technology, relationship-building, ecology, knowledge sharing, and community are possible topics to explore within this theme.

Christina Battle and Skawennati are artists who resist and challenge the extractivist, capitalist, colonial logics that shape our present. Their work shows us that forward-facing futures can mean turning to the past to understand how histories are reflected in our present and how past and present technologies can be adapted to build resilience and collective power.

Learn more about EAWP 1 , EAWP 2, EAWP 3, EAWP 4

image credit: Christina Battle, connecting thru grasses. Image courtesy of the artist

FACULTY MENTORS

Alana Bartol (she/they) comes from a long line of water witches. Their site-responsive artworks explore divination and dreaming as ways of understanding across places, species, and bodies. Through collaborative and individual works, Bartol examines our relationships with the Earth, the elements, and what are colonially known as natural resources. In 2019 and 2021, they were long-listed for Canada’s Sobey Art Award. Of Danish, German, English, and Scottish ancestry, Bartol is a white settler currently based in Treaty 7 Territory in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, Alberta), where they teach at AUArts.

Troy Patenaude, PhD (he/him), is a scholar, curator, land-based educator, and ACMG hiking guide who has spent his life exploring the intersection between nature, arts, culture, and social change. He is from the Georgian Bay Métis Community around the upper Great Lakes and has lived most of his life in Blackfoot and Ktunaxa territories. He has guided and helped facilitate cross-cultural sharing and educational programs with Indigenous and non-Indigenous people for over 20 years and currently manages Cross River Education & Retreat Centre in the Canadian Rockies. Troy teaches settler-colonial studies and decolonization courses at the Alberta University of the Arts and has research interests in Indigenous Studies, Cultural Studies, Narrative Studies, Canadian Art History, Ecopsychology, Human Ecology, and Land-based Education. In his personal time, he enjoys Métis finger weaving, flint knapping, playing the guitar, and getting lost in conversation around a campfire, especially one he has built without matches.

PARTICIPANTS

Morgan Black
Morgan Calenso
Mantis Huynh
Alex Jaco
Birdy Loughlin
Juli Song
Mieke Uhryniuk-Smith

PURCHASE

To purchase a copy of Futures please visit the IKG office or AUArts Bookstore. Payments can be made in person at the IKG bookstore or at this link (please put in comments: "Emerging Art Writers Publication 5"). Please email ikg@auarts.ca for more information.

Publication designed by Emily Fleck

Image credit: Matthew Springer