Viola Chen 陈宜晴, There Are Things I Want Besides A Home, one of twelve digital prints on acetate, 2016.
Romances in Diaspora: Beyond Longing
Within white settler states, racialized diasporic subjects experience dislocation through placelessness, through invisibility, through hypervisibility, through longing. This collaborative project explores the liberatory possibilities of never being at home, perhaps not even wanting home anymore. As we live these possibilities, new narratives of romance and partnership emerge between us and onto us.
What happens when the longing for a place (any place) dies? When we accept that we will never feel a wholly satisfying comfort, our bodies are confronted with new potentialities. We are faced with the choice to make discomfort livable and exhilarant. Through this project, we explore the ways in which we choose to make our bodies make sense despite the diasporic rupture that renders them senseless and chaotic.
CURATOR Viola Chen 陈宜晴
Exhibition April 9—May 11, 2016
Tuesday to Sunday 12 PM—3 AM
Vernissage April 20, 5—7 PM
Casa del Popolo (4372 Boulevard St. Laurent)
Co-presented with the Howl Arts Collective
as part of Festival Howl arts 2016 !
ARTISTS
An Li
Emily Yee Clare
Jesse Katabarwa
Richenda Grazette
Team Sagittarius
Võ Thiên Việt
Viola Chen 陈宜晴
Yuki Kasaï Paré
Artist talks + open discussion
Yuki KasaÏ-Paré, untitled, mixed media on wood panel, 2016.
The artists present their work, followed by an open discussion on love stories with contemporary art in people of colour diasporic communities.
Talks + more talking April 23, 3—5PM
Casa del Popolo (4372 Boulevard St. Laurent)
An Li, Võ Thiên Việt, and Emily Yee Clare. Three humans. Who made art. Once upon a time. Out of love for their communities, and rage for those who fuck with them.
Jesse Katabarwa est un artiste écœurant. He works on projects as a graphic designer and as a freelance artistic director. His work has been shown and published in New York, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. His artistic practice today is inspired by the idea that visual communication can be a mouthpiece for social issues and a way of escape as much for creators and the audience.
Richenda Grazette is a fourth year student at McGill University, studying Women's Studies and Canadian Ethnic & Racial Studies. Pieces from The Black Americana series have been featured in the House of Vans exhibit and the “Dissonant Integrations” put on by the Ethnocultural Art Histories Research group at Concordia, both in 2016. She has been a member of the McGill Black Students’ Network for two years, where she created the annual art compilation zine.
Team Sagittarius is a collective consisting of Hope Erin Phillips, Raoul Olou and Nicole Pacampara. They found each other (and created We Are Fine, We'll Be Fine) in Montreal at Concordia University's 2015 Critical Hit Game Incubator. They are artists, hackers and storytellers. And yes, they are all Sagittarius.
Viola Chen 陈宜晴 is a teacher and an artist from Tianjin, currently residing in Montreal on the unceded land of the Kanien’kehá:ka. Every photograph she takes is a photograph of her grandmother.
Yuki KasaÏ-Paré is a 22-year-old Japanese/Canadian currently living in Montreal. Her main mediums include wood panels, acrylic, plaster, found pornography, and papier maché. Her main inspirations include water damaged walls, construction sites, hardware shops, and recycling day road side garbage.