THIS COULD BE THE PLACE: Performance Art Symposium May 30-June 4 @ University of Waterloo

Tue May 24 13:00:29 EDT 2016

MAY 30-JUNE 4
Performance Art + Airstream Trailer = ACTION
University of Waterloo Arts Quad adjacent to Dana Porter Art Library

Lori Blondeau & Adrian Stimson
Francisco-Fernando Granados
Nahed Mansour
Andrew McPhail
Vessna Perunovich

In 2014, This Could Be The Place addressed precarity. This time out we are using borders as a framing principle to explore aspects of culture, identity, gender, migration, and indigeneity. Border is a curious word that is alternately used to describe a geo-political demarcation or a decorative element. It is a permeable space where people and ideas intersect or are kept apart. Things happen at borders: crossings, connections, separations, reunions, transgressions. Lines are drawn. Borders blur in the wake of our increasingly globalized culture. At the moment, we are experiencing an unprecedented movement of goods and people underlined by the ongoing refugee crisis. This Could Be The Place invites artists to respond to the complexity of borders using a vintage Airstream trailer as a staging area. The artists will present relevant, topical projects over the course of five days, followed by a closing symposium. Ivan Jurakic & Bojana Videkanic, co-curators

MON MAY 30 @ NOON
ANDREW McPHAIL_Insecure Ts

Insecure Ts uses handcraft to make ironic wearable artworks that function as expressions of personal anxiety. Words like REJECT or FLUNKEE are hand-sewn by the artist using glittering sequins on black T-shirts that are ready-to-wear by participants over the course of the event. // Andrew McPhail is a Hamilton-based multidisciplinary artist who draws, paints, makes sculpture and performative installations. He has exhibited across Canada and is the co-director of Hundred Dollar Gallery in Hamilton.

TUE MAY 31 @ NOON
NAHED MANSOUR_SAFE

SAFE is a performance installation that explores the relationship between experiences of migration and feelings of home and safety. By drawing on and referencing the game of baseball, the piece mediates on North American notions of belonging and exclusion. // Nahed Mansour is a multidisciplinary video, installation, and performance artist. She currently resides in Toronto and is the program coordinator at the South Asian Visual Arts Centre.

WED JUNE 1 @ NOON
VESSNA PERUNOVICH_Shifting Shelter

Shifting Shelter is a durational performance involving the assembly of household items and furniture into transitory shelters that explore notions of transition and migration, poetically reflecting on the ongoing migrant refugee crisis. // Vessna Perunovich is a Toronto-based visual artist who works in a variety of media ranging from sculpture and painting to video and performance. Her art and projects have been exhibited widely across Canada and Europe.

THU JUNE 2 @ NOON
FRANCISCO-FERNANDO GRANADOS_NEW PRIMARIES: fill in

NEW PRIMARIES: fill in is an action-based, site-specific engagement that addresses contemporary experiences of migration and queerness using conceptual and formal strategies that challenge and shift perceptions regarding the stability of identity categories. // Francisco-Fernando Granados is a Toronto-based artist whose process-based practice extends into a range of media including installation, video, text, and drawing. He teaches as sessional faculty at OCAD University and University of Toronto Scarborough.

FRI JUNE 3 @ NOON
LORI BLONDEAU & ADRIAN STIMSON_Belle & Boy’s: Savage Buffalo Happy Hour

Belle & Boy’s: Savage Buffalo Happy Hour harkens to a time when Buffalo were savage and the people were happy. Savage Buffalo Happy Hour will be a space where anything can happen: photo ops, interpretive dance, indigenous critique, six-gun justice, and much more. Like spectacles of the past, Belle and Boy recreate a variety show that will shock, rock, and tickle the Nation. // Lori Blondeau is a Cree/Saulteaux/Metis artist and performer, and executive director of Tribe Inc. in Saskatoon. She is sometimes also known as Belle Sauvage. Adrian Stimson is a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation and is a multidisciplinary artist and performer based in Saskatoon. He is sometimes also known as Buffalo Boy.

SAT JUNE 4 @ 11:00 AM
CAFKA.16 SYMPOSIUM
CRITICAL MEDIA LAB_44 GAUKEL ST KITCHENER

Event Moderator: Marcel O’Gorman
11:00_Guest Speaker: Mona El-Khafif, co-director of UWSA DATAlab and principle of SCALESHIFT
11:30_CAFKA.16 Artist Roundtable 1
12:00_Lunch Break
13:00_Lori Blondeau & Adrian Stimson reprise Belle & Boy’s: Savage Buffalo Happy Hour
14:00_This Could Be The Place Artist Panel moderated by Gabby Moser, writer, independent curator and acting chair of Visual & Critical Studies, OCAD University
15:00_Guest Speaker: Christine Shaw, assistant professor and director/curator of Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga
15:30_CAFKA.16 Artist Roundtable 2

CONTACT US
Ivan Jurakic, Director/Curator
University of Waterloo Art Gallery
519.888.4567 ext. 36741
ijurakic at uwaterloo.ca
uwag.uwaterloo.ca
facebook.com/uwag.waterloo

FIND US
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1
Parking available in Visitor C—$5 flat rate

Look for the Airstream trailer between the Dana Porter Arts Library LIB Arts Lecture Hall AL and Modern Languages ML
uwaterloo.ca/map

LIKE US
facebook.com/thiscouldbetheplace
thiscouldbetheplace.org
cafka.org

THIS COULD BE THE PLACE has been made possible with the generous support of the Region of Waterloo ARTS FUND and the Canada Council for the Arts. This Could Be The Place is a co-presentation of the University of Waterloo Art Gallery and UW Fine Arts, in partnership with CAFKA.16: What we do together that we can’t do alone and Critical Media Lab.

Images (clockwise from top left): Andrew McPhail, Insecure Ts (Fraud), 2014; Lori Blondeau and Adrian Stimson, Belle Sauvage & Buffalo Boy (detail), 2014; Nahed Mansour, SAFE (detail), 2016; Vessna Perunovich, Moving Mattress (detail), 2012; Francisco-Fernando Granados, Study for The Ballad of ______ B (detail), 2013. Photo: Manolo Lugo. Images courtesy of the individual artists unless otherwise noted.
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