Concealment offers its own kind of reveal. Guantánamo Diary and the artworks featured within this exhibition show us that even in the covering-up we are afforded insight into complex subjects, ranging from memory and mourning to power structures and mechanisms of institutional control. In each of these multi-layered projects, redaction performs as an invitation to challenge assumptions and easy readings of images, documents and texts. Through lines points to the spaces in-between, where the hidden and obscured become as significant as the visible.
Through lines is presented in partnership with Critical Distance Centre for Curators
Lise Beaudry is a Franco-Ontarian artist originally from the rural region of Témiscamingue on the Ontario-Québec border. Her work is influenced by the “lure of the local”, as Lucy Lippard describes, the sense and pull of a space. For Beaudry this is the land, geography and activities of the north. Beaudry holds a BFA from Concordia University (1997) and an MFA from York University (2006). Her photographic and video work has been presented across Canada and internationally, including Les rencontres internationales de la photographie (Arles), Grant Gallery (Vancouver), ASpace (Toronto), Biennial of Young Artists (Romania), Ice Follies, (North Bay), Art Gallery of Hamilton, Art Gallery of Mississauga, and Pierre François Ouellette Art Contemporain (Montréal). She lives and works in Toronto where she teaches in the Art and Art History program at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. www.lisebeaudry.com
Scott Benesiinaabandan is an Anishinabe intermedia artist that works primarily in photography, printmaking and video. Scott has recently completed international residencies at Parramatta Artist Studios in Australia (2012), Context Gallery in Derry, North of Ireland (2010) and is most recently been awarded the University Lethbridge/Royal Institute of Technology iAIR residency 2013, along with international collaborative projects in both the U.K and Ireland. He is currently in Montreal, and recently completed a Canada Council New Media Production grant through OBx Labs/Ab-tech and Concordia. Benesiinaabandan has taken part in several group exhibitions across Canada and the United States, most notably in Harbourfront’s Flatter the Land/Bigger the Ruckus (2006), Subconscious City at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (2008), unSacred, at Gallery 1C03 ( 2011), Mii Omaa Ayaad/Oshiki Inendemowin in Sydney, Australia (2012), and Ghost Dance at Ryerson Image Centre (2013). www.benesiinaabandan.com
Michèle Pearson Clarke is a Trinidad-born artist who works in photography, film, video and installation. Using archival, performative and process-oriented strategies, her work explores the personal and political possibilities afforded by considering experiences of emotions related to longing and loss. Her work has been shown across Canada, the United States, and Europe, including in exhibitions at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2018); ltd los angeles (2018); Studio XX, Montreal (2017); and Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto (2015); as well as in screenings at Ann Arbor Film Festival (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2016); International Film Festival Rotterdam (2015); and International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2015). Based in Toronto, she holds an MSW from the University of Toronto, and she received her MFA from Ryerson University in 2015. From 2016-2017, Clarke was artist-in-residence at Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, and she was the EDA Artist-in-Residence in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Toronto Scarborough for the Winter term 2018. Clarke’s writing has been published in Canadian Art and Transition Magazine, and she is currently teaching in the Documentary Media Studies program at Ryerson University. www.michelepearsonclarke.com
Leila Fatemi is an emerging artist, curator and community arts worker based in Toronto. Living between cultures, her work and curatorial endeavours stem from her daily experiences as a visible minority and aim to provide platforms and contribute alternative narratives to conversations of Ethnic representation in contemporary art. Leila holds a BFA in Image Arts from Ryerson University and has exhibited her work and curated exhibitions both nationally and internationally. www.leilafatemi.com
Based in Brooklyn New York, Maria Hupfield is a member of the Anishinaabek Nation from Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, Canada. Her first major institutional solo exhibit, The One Who Keeps on Giving, is currently traveling and is a production of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto in partnership with Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Galerie de l’UQAM, Montréal; Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax; and Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris. This show builds on previous projects that have travelled internationally with Beat Nation: Aboriginal Art and Hip Hop and selected for SITELines Biennial SITE Santa Fe 2016. Hupfield is currently a Triangle Artist in Resident, the first Indigenous Fellow at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, ISCP in New York, and is completing a residency with Native Art Department International at DTA/FABnyc in the Lower East Side, New York. mariahupfield.wordpress.com
Raafia Jessa is a Pakistani-Canadian Graphic Designer currently living in Texas. Having lived and grown in greatly varying cultures, a central theme in much of her work is the idea of communication and the way in which humans interact with each other. The idea of interaction is explored as a way to understand the subjectivity of language and the existing limits of comprehension. Her work has many outlets including typography, English and Arabic calligraphy, illustration, as well as photography. Her work has been published for Parsons School of Design, installed permanently at the University of Houston, received an SEGD Global Design Honor Award and has been featured in art exhibitions worldwide. raafiajessa.com
Nadia Myre is an Indigenous and Quebecois artist from Montreal who is interested in having conversations about identity, resilience and politics of belonging. A graduate from Camosun College (1995), Emily Carr (1997), and Concordia University (M.F.A., 2002), Myre is a recipient of numerous awards, notably Banff Centre for Arts Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award (2016), Sobey Art Award (2014), Pratt & Whitney Canada’s ‘Les Elles de l’art’ for the Conseil des arts de Montréal (2011), Quebec Arts Council’s Prix à la création artistique pour la region des Laurentides (2009), and a Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum (2003). Recent accomplishments include Tout ce qui reste / Scattered Remains (Montreal Museum of Fine Art, 2017), Decolonial Gestures or Doing it Wrong? Refaire le chemin (McCord Museum, 2016) and commissions for new work: the Quebec Room carpet design (2015) for Canada House in London, England (with Karen Spencer), Orison (galerie Oboro, 2014), Formes et Paroles(Musée Dapper, Senegal, 2014), and Sakahàn (National Gallery of Canada, 2013). As well as having participated in international biennales (Shanghai 2014, Sydney 2012, and Montreal 2011), Myre’s work has featured in prominent group exhibitions such as Changing Hands 3 (Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY), Pour une république des rêves (CRAC Alsace – Centre Rhénan d’Art Contemporain, Altkirch, FR), Le temp du dessin (Ensemble Poirel, Nancy, France), Vantage Point(National Museum of American Indian National Mall, Washington, DC), It Is What It Is (National Gallery of Canada), and Femmes Artistes: L’éclatement des frontières 1965-2000 (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, QC). Her work has received accolades from the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Le Devoir, and has been featured in ARTnews, Canadian Art, Parachute, American Craft, C Magazine, and Monopol. Her works may be found on permanent exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, National Gallery of Canada, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Canadian Museum of History, and the Musée des civilizations (Quebec). www.nadiamyre.net
Noa Bronstein is a curator and writer based in Toronto. She has contributed to such publications as PREFIX Photo, Canadian Art, Border Crossings, The Journal of Curatorial Studies, and C Magazine. Noa has held several roles in the arts, including Director of Public Programs and Acting Curator at the Design Exchange and Executive Director of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography. Recent curatorial projects include When Form Becomes Attitude at Contemporary Calgary, bust/boom at The New Gallery (Calgary), With an instinct for justice at Doris McCarthy Gallery (Toronto) and Aleesa Cohene’s solo exhibition I Don’t Get It at Gallery 44 (Toronto), The Rooms (St. John’s) and Western Front (Vancouver). Noa is currently the Senior Curator of Museums Mississauga and the Small Arms Inspection Building.
Essay: Noa Bronstein | Design: Tony Hewer | Editing: Shannon Anderson
Koffler Gallery installation photos: Toni Hafkenscheid
Digital publication to the exhibition Through lines
Presented by the Koffler Gallery & Critical Distance Centre for Curators | September 13 to November 25, 2018 | Guest Curator: Noa Bronstein
© Koffler Centre of the Arts, 2018, in collaboration with the individual contributors. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-928175-16-2.