In a time of generalized anxiety, precarity, and upheaval, how do artists sustain themselves? What do we make of self-care imperatives in light of our late-capitalist, neoliberal, neocolonial context? How do we care for others while also caring for ourselves? The Sustenance Rite is a group exhibition featuring work by emerging and mid-career Canadian artists that engages issues of health, wellness, healing, care, and survival from queer, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour), and intersectional feminist perspectives. The works in this exhibition proffer alternatives to dominant discourses of health that are critical and reparative. Reflecting on the rites and rights of mental, emotional, and physical healthcare in the contemporary moment, these artists make space for the rituals that sustain us.
Nov 20, 2017 – Dec 09, 2017
Past
The Sustenance Rite
Anthea Black, Thirza Cuthand, Erika DeFreitas, Petrina Ng, Zoë Schneider, Kara Stone, Evan Tyler, Justice Walz, Jessica Lynn Whitbread
Curated by Lauren Fournier
Part of Take Care Circuit 3: Infrastructures and Aesthetics of Mutual Aid
Curated by Lauren Fournier
Part of Take Care Circuit 3: Infrastructures and Aesthetics of Mutual Aid
Artist Projects
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Artist Projects
Installation Views
- Artists
- Anthea Black
- Thirza Cuthand
- Erika DeFreitas
- Petrina Ng
- Zoë Schneider
- Kara Stone
- Evan Tyler
- Justice Walz
- Jessica Lynn Whitbread
Anthea Black is a Canadian artist, writer, and cultural worker based in San Francisco and Toronto. Her work addresses feminist and queer history, collaboration, materiality, and labour. She has exhibited and published in Canada, the United States, the Netherlands, France, and Norway. She is the co-editor of HANDBOOK: Supporting Queer and Trans Students in Art and Design Education with Shamina Chherawala, and Craft on Demand: The New Politics of the Handmade with Nicole Burisch. Black is an Assistant Professor of Printmedia at the California College of the Arts.
Thirza Jean Cuthand (b. 1978, Regina SK) makes short experimental videos and films about sexuality, madness, queer identity, love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals and galleries internationally. She completed her BFA majoring in Film/Video at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2005, and her MA in Media Production at Ryerson University in 2015. A Whitney Biennial 2019 artist, she has performed at Live At The End Of The Century in Vancouver, the Performatorium in Regina, and 7a*11d in Toronto. She is Plains Cree/Scots, a member of Little Pine First Nation, and resides in Toronto, Canada.
Erika DeFreitas is a Scarborough-based multidisciplinary conceptual artist. Placing an emphasis on process, gesture, and documentation, her work explores the influence of language, loss, and culture on the formation of identity, with the use of textile-based works and performative actions. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and the United States. Longlisted for the 2017 Sobey Art Award, a recipient of the Toronto Friends of Visual Arts’ 2016 Finalist Artist Prize and the 2016 John Hartman Award, DeFreitas holds a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto.
Petrina Ng is a visual artist and cultural worker based in Toronto. Her multi-form feminist practice connects intimacy, discomfort, and absurdity. Previous projects have been shown in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Ng received a BA from the University of Toronto and an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art (London).
Zoë Schneider is a sculptor, curator, and arts administrator who transforms found and fabricated materials into artworks that investigate corporeality within social systems. Schneider’s works explore various phenomenon and experience, invoking responses ranging from quiet contemplation to interactive engagement. Schneider is currently completing an MFA at the University of Saskatchewan.
Kara Stone is an artist and scholar interested in the affective and gendered experiences of mental illness, wellness, and healing as it relates to art production, video games, and traditional crafting. Her artwork has been featured in The Atlantic, Wired, and Vice. She is a member of the Different Games Collective. She holds an MA from York University in Communication and Culture and is pursuing a PhD in Film and Digital Media with a designated emphasis in Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Cruz.
Evan Tyler is an artist, musician, occasional curator, and a writer of fiction living and working in Canada. Tyler has exhibited and curated both nationally and internationally. From 2010-2014 he ran gallerywest on Toronto’s Queen Street West. His artwork focuses on voice and performance, blending the fictional and autobiographical. Tyler is a graduate of Masters of Visual Studies (MVS) in the studio program at the University of Toronto, with a collaborative graduate specialization from the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies.
Justice Walz is an interdisciplinary, Toronto-based artist. She is currently completing her BFA in Ryerson University's RTA New Media program. Her work spans a variety of media including installation, illustration, clay, and digital art. At age 11 she was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis—a condition that causes her chronic pain and fatigue. Today, Walz uses art to confront past traumas and has embraced her voice as a queer, mad-identifying, intersectional feminist—these themes resonate loudly in her work.
Jessica Lynn Whitbread is an activist and artist who has worked in the HIV movement since her diagnosis in 2002. She works in social practice and community art, engaging a diversity of audiences in critical dialogue. Her primary interests are bodies, sexuality, and desire, and her work explores how gender, sero-status, and criminalization impact the navigation of sexual relationships. In 2014 Jessica published her first book, Tea Time: Mapping Informal Networks of Women Living with HIV, a photo collection of her Tea Time community arts practice.
- Curator
- Lauren Fournier
Lauren Fournier is a writer, artist, curator, and researcher. She is a doctoral candidate at York University, where she is completing a SSHRC-funded cross-disciplinary study of auto-theory as a contemporary mode of feminist practice. Her prior work as a front-line mental health and harm-reduction worker informs her research. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and in Berlin, Athens, and Houston, and her writing has appeared in numerous arts and academic publications.
The Blackwood Gallery gratefully acknowledges the operating support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the University of Toronto Mississauga.
The Blackwood Gallery is grateful for additional support for Circuit 3: Infrastructures and Aesthetics of Mutual Aid from the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information & Technology (UTM); Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts; University of Toronto Affinity Partners Manulife, TD Insurance, and MBNA; USArtists International, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Women and Gender Studies (UTM).
Funding for additional staff support was made possible through the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations program, Department of Canadian Heritage. The Canadian Museums Association administers the program on behalf of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The Blackwood Gallery is grateful for additional support for Circuit 3: Infrastructures and Aesthetics of Mutual Aid from the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information & Technology (UTM); Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts; University of Toronto Affinity Partners Manulife, TD Insurance, and MBNA; USArtists International, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Women and Gender Studies (UTM).
Funding for additional staff support was made possible through the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations program, Department of Canadian Heritage. The Canadian Museums Association administers the program on behalf of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The Blackwood
University of Toronto Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road
Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6
[email protected]
(905) 828-3789
The galleries are currently open. Hours of operation: Monday–Saturday, 12–5pm, Wednesdays until 8pm.
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The Blackwood is situated on the Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Seneca, and Huron-Wendat.