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Jeff Thomas: winner of 2019 Governor General’s Award

Black and white image of white corn.
Jeff Thomas, White Corn, detail from panel, 1990, pigment print, 50.8 cm x 127 cm. Collection of the artist

Bodies in Translation collaborator Jeff Thomas has won the 2019 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts!

Jeff Thomas is a self-taught photo-based artist, writer, public speaker, and curator. He has works in major collections in Canada, the United States and Europe. Jeff’s solo shows include Birdman Rising, A Necessary Fiction: My Conversation with Edward S. Curtis & George Hunter, The Dancing Grounds, and Resistance Is NOT Futile. He has also been in many group shows, including The Family Camera; Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989; Land/Slide: Possible Futures; SAKAHÀN; and UNMASKING: Arthur Renwick, Adrian Stimson, Jeff Thomas. He has received the Canada Council’s Duke and Duchess of York Award in Photography, the Karsh Award in photography, and a REVEAL Indigenous Art Award, and he has been inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Art. An urban-based Iroquois, Jeff was born in Buffalo, New York, and now lives in Ottawa, Ontario. ...  Continue reading

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Cripping as Disrupting

Performer with prosthetics doing a hand stand on wheelchair
Erin Ball performs in Crip Shorts. Photo: Michelle Peek Photography courtesy of Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology & Access to Life.

“The theme of disruption carried throughout the symposium with discussions about breaking down exclusionary environments and practices, and the silos that enclose Deaf, Disabled and Mad arts. While the contemporary art world often touts diversity and equality, the spaces in which it’s programmed and the rules by which it’s governed often operate on white, settler and patriarchal models. The mission of disabled artists and their allies is not only to increase visibility for marginalized artists but to break down, or crip, the colonial and ableist structures that have alienated them. ...  Continue reading

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Bridging forward: Accessible Arts Festival

A woman's face with cloudy abstract imagery superimposed

Inclusive Arts London is a regional collective dedicated to developing opportunities for artists and individuals who identify as deaf, disabled and/or mad.

From June to July,  Inclusive Arts London’s Bridging Forward: Accessibility Arts Festival is bringing exciting works from local, provincial, and national artists to London Ontario. See upcoming program below! ...  Continue reading

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Hear, Feel, See, What!

Artist Jenelle Rouse posing in dance

Centre[3] for Print and Media Arts in Hamilton and VibraFusionLab in London, Ontario present Hear, Feel, See What!, a collaborative speculative soundscape and interactive installation. Five artists from Hamilton, London, and Toronto, including hearing, hard of hearing and Deaf artists, and an archivist co-authored a piece that captures and documents both the audio and vibrations of historical, existing, and future sounds of Hamilton and London. In a society that is in a constant state of rapid change, this piece aims to collect and preserve city sounds before they are lost to history. ...  Continue reading

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Phantom Stills & Vibrations

Artist Lara Kramer standing by tree in front of former Pelican Lake Indian Residential School

Lara Kramer’s new work Phantom, stills & vibrations creates an intimacy with the north (Lac Seul, ON) and confronts the brutal and complex relationships between Indigenous peoples and Settler society. For this performance and sound installation, Kramer draws the spectator into an immersive experience of the former Pelican Lake Indian Residential School, where three generations of her family attended. Produced in collaboration with Stefan Petersen, Phantom stills & vibrations explores the residual effects of the Residential school system and the continuing trauma that permeates the landscape. ...  Continue reading