Memorial Lecture Series

Tak Pham is a Vietnamese contemporary art curator and writer. He is currently curator at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Alberta, Treaty 7 territory. He was formerly associate curator at the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory. Pham holds an M.F.A. in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University and a B.A. Hons. From Carleton University.  

He has curated exhibitions and organized curatorial projects for the mackenzie Art Gallery, Contemporary Calgary, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Varley Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Nuit Blanche Toronto, among others. His writings and reviews have appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, ESPACE art actuel, esse arts + opinions, Galleries West, The Brooklyn Rail, artasiapacific and Hyperallergic. In 2023, Pham was awarded the Hnatyshyn Foundation-Fogo Island Arts Young Curator Residency. 

Diana Sherlock is a Canadian independent curator and visual arts writer. Since 2018 she has been a curatorial consultant with CMCK Public Art developing context-responsive public art plans and commissioning strategies. She has curated dozens of exhibitions for museums and galleries with a focus on contemporary artists’ practices based in western Canada. Recent exhibitions include Between Things: Alberta Ceramics, co-curated with Lindsey Sharman at the Art Gallery of Alberta (2023–24) and the travelling Alberta Foundation for the Arts TREX Southwest exhibition Mary Shannon Will: dot.dot.dot. Organized by the Alberta Society of Artists (2022–24). This exhibition included almost thirty works on paper that extended Sherlock’s research for Mary Shannon Will: People, Places and Things, a career survey of the artist’s work at the University of Calgary Nickle Galleries (2020–21). 

Author of over eighty texts for gallery catalogues and contemporary art journals internationally, Sherlock is editor of six books including two artist’s monographs, Larissa Fassler: Viewshed (DISTANZ, Berlin, 2022) and Rita mckeough: Works (EMMEDIA Gallery & Production Society, M:ST Performative Art, and TRUCK Contemporary Art, Calgary, 2018). She taught curatorial and professional practices at the Alberta College of Art and Design (Alberta University of the Arts) from 2000–2020. 

Mary-Beth Laviolette, is an art curator, writer, public speaker, and author. With a speciality in Alberta visual art, Mary-Beth has worked for over a decade as a contract curator – researching and organizing exhibitions for public art galleries in Alberta. They include: Glenbow Museum (Calgary), Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies (Banff), Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery, The Esplanade Gallery (Medicine Hat), Galt Museum (Lethbridge). Her most recent curatorial project involved a 70 year retrospective of Harry Kiyooka paintings and prints for the University of Calgary’s Nickle Galleries in 2024.