Joar Nango is an architect, builder, artist and self-publisher. Nango’s work often parses out the division between design, architecture, and visual art and uses improvisation as method and process. A long proponent of printed matter and its political potential to mobilize larger social transformations, Nango along with collaborators, have fulfilled publication projects including The Indigenuity Project, The Normadic Library and the self-published zine series Sámi Huksendáidda: the Fanzine. Nango has been part of a number exhibition projects throughout Canada and elsewhere including SAW Gallery in Ottawa; Vancouver’s Western Front; Gallery Deluxe in Halifax; The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway; Sydhavn Station in Copenhagen, Denmark; Bildmuseet in Umeå Sweden and Tensta Konsthall in Stockholm. He recently presented European Everything at Documenta14 in Athens and Kassel in 2017.
PARTICIPANTS:
Albyn Carias is an interdisciplinary artist originally from El Salvador. He immigrated to Canada at the age of 13 with his family and is fluent in Spanish and English. Carias’s artistic research focuses on experimentation with unconventional materials to push the complexity of art beyond its imposed borders. His major focus is working with the Latino community in Brandon Manitoba, with an emphasis on immigration. He develops community-based artworks that discuss the barriers that Latino immigrants face everyday. Carias graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from Brandon University Ishkabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabeteg.
Carrie Allison is an Indigenous mixed-ancestry visual artist, writer, arts administrator and educator, born and raised on unceded and unsurrendered Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, BC). Situated in K’jipuktuk since 2010, Allison’s practice responds to her maternal Cree and Metis ancestry, thinking through intergenerational cultural loss and acts of resilience, resistance, and activism, while also thinking through notions of allyship, kinship and visiting. Allison’s practice is rooted in research and pedagogical discourses. Her work seeks to reclaim, remember, recreate and celebrate her ancestry through visual discourses. Allison holds a Master in Fine Art, a Bachelor in Fine Art and a Bachelor in Art History from NSCAD University.
David Peters is from the East coast where the ad hoc response necessitated by living against resource depletion means that people become clever in lean times. He knows that work set against lack is a creative endeavour, and feels best about his work is when it has some lived element, when it seems to become indistinguishable from everything else. Peters is part of an epistolary drawing and writing practice that bridges distances between friends and part of a collaborative practice with artist Leah McInnis under the name Club Assembly. Peters and McInnis work with salvaged materials to create arenas for the curious.
Evan Taylor is a Métis architectural intern and designer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. His interests lie in exploring spatial narratives, through drawing and making, as a participatory tool for architectural discourse within complex cultural scenarios and environmental conditions. Recent works look toward imagining constructive and collaborative futures for remote settlements and indigenous communities in northern Canada. He has travelled to remote First Nations communities to study the conditions of current housing stocks, and was recognized by Architects Without Borders’ “Indigenous Housing Competition” in 2018 for his proposal “Towards a New Normal” which approaches indigenous housing not as a singular design solution, but as a consequence of the socio-political and environmental variables that precede the creation of the dwelling itself. Evan holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture and a Master of Architecture from Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism. He currently lives in Toronto, working towards a professional architectural license.
Lorraine Albert is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and designer whose work is rooted in conceptual ideation and lateral thinking, with an ongoing interest in pedagogy, design, and counterhegemonic theories. Her artistic and design practices put forth notions of space (place), body (movement), and time (pace) converge. She has a degree in Graphic Design (Dawson College), a Bachelor of Fine Art (Concordia University) and a Masters of Fine Art (NSCAD University). Albert presented a paper on alternative art pedagogies (2017) and co-facilitated a round-table addressing Land & Treaties (2018) at the Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC) conference and was a panelist (2017) at the International Council of Fine Arts Deans (ICFAD) conference in Halifax, NS. Most recently, Albert was a scholar at the Centre for Art Tapes and presented choreographic work with Kinetic Studio, Halifax. Her work has appeared in festivals, galleries, and at various sites in Canada and Australia, including Steps Forward, a permanent installation on the Skyline Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
Alicia Marie Lawrence is an urban contemporary artist working in two-dimensional mediums including painting, drawing and mixed media, and also works in the realm of textual art and creative writing, and integrating text and syllabics with visual media. Lawrence is competent in the use of digital media, graphic design, and communications, and is interested in the way drawing awareness to signage structures knowledge of our environments. At Plug In ICA, she hopes to learn about ways to connect visual messaging in space to creative dialogues that nourish, energize, stabilize, and form an emotional, social and spatial compass. Lawrence engages in process, technique and aesthetic, as statement, and continually explores the relation between artist, subject and viewer. She has completed coursework in visual art studio at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and Vancouver Island School of Art, and holds a Certificate in Art & Design Studio Skills from the Ontario College of Art & Design, and a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College.
Julie Gendron is an artist and designer who works within the areas of interactivity, accessibility, playfulness and change. Gendron designs and facilitates experiences that allow people to explore and create their own point of view, culture and communities. Gendron completed her graduate work in the department of Art, Design and Technology at Concordia University specializing in Participatory Design. She has received awards and grants from the Japan Media Art Festival, Canariasmediafest (Spain), Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Centre interuniversitaire des arts mediatiques, Dora and Avi Morrow Award for Excellence in Visual Arts and BC Film. She has shared her work at various conferences in Canada, Spain, Japan, Australia and the US. Gendron currently works independently under the guise of desiringproductions.com doing digital strategy, creative design, interaction strategy and installations.
Our 2019 Summer Institute was generously supported by the RBC Foundation and the Johnston Group Inc.
Summer Institute 2019, Indigenous Architectures. Found objects on site location. Objects used as main construction pieces for installations.
Summer Institute 2019, Indigenous Architectures. Site location pre-setup.
Summer Institute 2019, Indigenous Architectures. Process.
Joar Nango, Albyn Carias, Carrie Allison, David Peters, Evan Taylor, Lorraine Albert, Alicia Marie Lawrence, Julie Gendron. Site Setup / Stages Launch party. Summer Institute August 16, 2019, Indigenous Architectures.