Talks/Panels

Artist Talk: Potemkin Village Embassy > November 16th

Cedric Bomford

Join us for an artist talk by Esker alumni exhibiting artist Cedric Bomford. Cedric will discuss his recent project Potemkin Village Embassy on view at the Canadian Museum of Making, and his multi-disciplinary practice. Thanks to the Canadian Museum of Making. All welcome, registration is not required.

Crash Course: Discussions in Contemporary Art > November 15th

Mark Clintberg

Continuing this new informal lecture series presented monthly over the course of our current exhibition, guest speakers present on different aspects of contemporary art and practice. Defining and locating “modernism” is one of the thorniest subjects of art history. Modernist art has been argued to be both deeply tied to site and social identity (as with national and regional schools of artistic practice), and completely non-contextual – or even universal – in its values and aesthetics. By referring to a limited set of examples, this talk will identify qualities that connect to pivotal iterations of modernism in different locations and moments of continuum. Mark Clintberg is an artist who works in the field of art history. He teaches the history of art at the Alberta College of Art + Design, where he is an Assistant Professor. Registration essential.

Artist Talk: I feel the air of another world > November 9th

Jen Reimer and Magnus Tiesenhausen

Collaborators Jen Reimer and Magnus Tiesenhausen will speak about their shared practice, tunnel. tunnel is a platform and methodology by which Reimer and Tiesenhausen interact with acoustic spaces and produce sound works. In this talk, the artists will discuss their project’s formation and process, the aural agency of architectural spaces, science fiction, the mystical in music theory, archaeoacoustics, and resonance. Registration recommended. Following the talk, join us at the Esker Project Space to celebrate the opening of A tender proposition to the din. Refreshments and snacks compliments of Sidewalk Citizen Bakery will be served.

Discussion: The Growth of Weeds > October 20th

Alana Bartol & Mia Rushton + Eric Moschopedis

What is a weed? Why are they unwanted? What can we learn from them? Artists Alana Bartol, Eric Moschopedis, and Mia Ruston invite you to participate in conversations about the plants we call weeds. Over the course of an hour, participants will discuss various topics and questions through one-on-one conversations. This program will take place at Bea’s Eatery located inside Bite Grocer & Eatery on the main floor of the Atlantic Avenue Art Block building.  Registration essential. Throughout this program we will be serving dandelion tea provided by Light Cellar as well as weed inspired chamomile cookies made by Bite Grocer & Eatery.

Crash Course: Discussions in Contemporary Art > October 18th

Caitlind r.c. Brown

In this new informal lecture series presented monthly over the course of our current exhibitions, guest speakers will present on different aspects of contemporary art and practice. Tickling the Underbelly is a conversation with Caitlind r.c. Brown. Drawing from her experiences as a public artist, collaborator, and DIY-curator, Caitlind intends to explore the relationship between critical mass + critical discourse, public engagement + artistic autonomy, collaboration + individual focus. Audience members are invited to “choose their own adventure,” picking from a range of possible subjects, objects, and projects, and Caitlind will structure her presentation to their interests. Caitlind r.c. Brown is a Calgary-based artist creating intimate, immersive, and participatory installations for diverse publics. A serial collaborator, Caitlind is a co-curator with WRECK CITY and works frequently with Wayne Garrett, Lane Shordee, and a handful of other artists. Registration essential.

Artist Talk: Mapping the surface of emptiness > September 22nd

Sarah Stevenson

The works in Sarah Stevenson’s exhibition, Nothing Hidden, are hollow forms of wire and thread suspended in space so that they resemble three-dimensional line drawings. During this tour of the gallery the artist will talk about the development of this series and the themes of transparency and containment that have been ongoing throughout her artistic production. Registration recommended. Refreshments and snacks compliments of Sidewalk Citizen will be served following the talks on 22 September.  

Bruce Hugh Russell in conversation with Robert Feldman > September 22nd

In 1972, Robert Feldman, founder and publisher of Parasol Press, wrote a letter to Agnes Martin about the possibility of her creating a suite of prints. This letter initiated a conversation that eventually led to On a Clear Day (1973), Martin’s portfolio of 30 screenprints. This conversation between Feldman and Bruce Hugh Russell, co-curator of Agnes Martin: The mind knows what the eye has not seen, will detail the history of Martin’s print work, and the significance of the prints to Martin’s broader artistic practice. Registration recommended.  

Talk: Speaking Truth to Materials: Revisiting the Workshop, from Bauhaus to Womanhouse > August 10th

Dr. Erin Silver

This talk will extend in two directions, taking the contemporary practices of Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma as springboards not only for tracing genealogies of early-20th century avant-garde workshops, including Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus, to the feminist studio workshop initiatives of the 1970s, that fused preoccupations with craft, design, and art with social, political, and economic ideology, but also for testing out the possibilities afforded by transposing present-day theoretical and political vantage points onto historical ones for expanding canonical thinking and bringing lesser known histories (notably, those of women and racialized artists) to the fore. Dr. Silver is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia  

Oyster Shells: Artist Talk and Tour > June 22nd

Vanessa Brown

Vanessa Brown will offer a talk and tour of her exhibition, The Witching Hour. In her talk, Brown will trace threads from her past work to her arrival at this present exhibition, while touching on the joys and pains of working with steel, the politics of scale, and the importance of fantasy in her work.  

Artist Talk > June 15th

Jolie Bird

In this talk, Bird will discuss 1597; Harmonious Frequencies, an ongoing performance-based installation in the Esker Project Space. Bird is interested in performing slow building techniques with simple to no tools over a long duration of time. Her work explores the physical and mental effects of carrying out a repetitive process, the perception of time, and artisanship. Registration recommended.

Launch of the publication: Peter von Tiesenhausen Songs for Pythagoras > June 8th

The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) and Esker Foundation are delighted to partner on a special event. Please join us to celebrate the Calgary launch of the publication Peter von Tiesenhausen Songs for Pythagoras. Published by the AGA, the publication accompanies Peter von Tiesenhausen’s recent exhibition Songs for Pythagoras. Artist Peter von Tiesenhausen will be in attendance, to discuss and sign the publications. Each publication features an inserted artwork, and a limited-edition flexi disk of a seven-minute outtake of audio from the installation Reservoir, produced in collaboration with Jen Reimer and Magnus Tiesenhausen. Registration recommended.

Life Stories through Stitched Cloths: Artist Talk and Tour > May 26th

Anna Torma

In this talk, Anna Torma discussed three of her major bodies of work, including: Red Fragments, an installation that focuses on the story of an immigrant artist cutting her heritage embroidery collection into pieces and reassembling them as a quilt alongside an elderly woman trying to reclaim the embroidery techniques of her youth; Carpet of many hands, a textile assemblage of collected and found textiles that have been collaged and recontextualized into a contemporary artwork; and Abandoned details, Torma’s latest series of hand embroideries, which reference a shift in her practice towards a more abstracted and open arrangement. Registration recommended.

Featured Talk: From Wheatfields to Future Libraries: This is also Public Art > April 20th

Ciara McKeown

How can we connect to artists’ ideas within the public realm that may not fit defined parameters? How can our understanding and expectations of public art evolve to reflect our contemporary context? This talk will question definitions and perceptions of public art by examining practices outside of the expected and monumental approach to reconsider ideas of place, the role of the artist, and to celebrate public art’s immense possibilities. Registration recommended. 

Environmental Psychology – What Buildings Do: Examples from Healthcare and Beyond > March 23rd

David Borkenhagen

This talk highlighted historic examples and contemporary applications of Environmental Psychology methods in the design and analysis of the built environment. Emphasis was given towards healthcare environments, where design can perform a life-critical function. Theory and tools for measuring human affect and behaviour in environments was also discussed.  

Talk: Unpleasant Design and its Discontents > March 2nd

Selena Savić

Unpleasant Design is a design phenomenon that promotes social control through discomfort, pain, and persuasion. It raises the value of urban space by preventing specific use scenarios such as sleeping on a park bench or loitering in a shopping mall. In this talk, Selena Savić showed some “stars” of unpleasant design and focused on patterns in the design of public space where these silent agents replace the need for supervision and condition our behaviour.

Artist Talk: Art, Science, History, and Hearsay > February 15th

DaveandJenn

The world of Calgary-based artists DaveandJenn, Jennifer Saleik and David Foy, merges history with hearsay, mythology with the everyday, and bronze with plastic. The artists will talk about making work in an information age and how their joint practice has evolved over the years from making highly detailed resin paintings to include intricate multi-medium sculptures and now, most recently, installation work. Registration recommended.

Curator’s Talk > February 4th

Nabila Abdel Nabi

Join The Power Plant’s Assistant Curator, Nabila Abdel Nabi, as she discusses the exhibition A wall is just a wall (and nothing more at all), which continues Kapwani Kiwanga’s engagement with disciplinary architecture and the ways in which we are confronted by spaces which shape and regulate our behaviour. She will explore how Kiwanga deconstructs the physical and psychological qualities of different built environments including schools, prisons, hospitals, and mental health facilities. Registration recommended.

Artist Talk > February 3rd

Kapwani Kiwanga

In this talk, artist Kapwani Kiwanga will discuss the research and interests behind her exhibition A wall is just a wall (and nothing more at all). Kiwanga’s work is often rooted in a period of research before bringing these concepts into the studio where they transform into various mediums: video, installation, performance, sound, and sculpture. Kiwanga’s recent work is often centered around historic archives, highlighting stories which have been overlooked or suppressed, and acts which are renegade and resist hegemonic erasure. Registration recommended.

Wildlife in Our City > November 29th

Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society

Did you know that over 400 species of wildlife live within the City of Calgary? Do you have questions about the wildlife that we share our city with? The Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society’s expert staff will provide information on local wildlife and wildlife-human conflict and then open up the floor for your questions. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about the various species in your backyard and receive answers to your wildlife related questions. A permanent resident animal from the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society will be in attendance, but there will be no physical interaction with the animal. This is a family-friendly program; however, children must be over the age of 7 to attend. Registration essential.

r/Evolution: Exhibition Talk > November 10th

Mary Anne Barkhouse and Jennifer Rudder

Join artist Mary Anne Barkhouse and guest curator Jennifer Rudder as they address historical and contemporary notions around land from a Western and Indigenous point of view. Engage in a discussion about the role of the animal and avian inhabitants of Le rêve aux loups as guides to our evolving world. Registration recommended.

PLACEHOLDER: It’s your turn to talk! with d.talks > November 4th

d.talks

Join d.talks, presenting in partnership with Esker Foundation, for PLACEHOLDER: It’s your turn to talk! This is an unconventional book club where we present the theme of the afternoon and you bring your own book, poem, or object that you feel best articulates the theme. This is an opportunity for Calgarians to critically discuss and identify how our city and citizens affect and are impacted by local and global themes borne out in the work of Esker’s current exhibiting artists. Let’s form a new narrative in Calgary together! The theme of this PLACEHOLDER will be ‘Borders.’   Registration essential.

Resilience: Feral Spaces and Transition Zones > October 27th

Veronica Verkley

Join Yukon sculptor and filmmaker Veronica Verkley discussed the process and ideas behind her Project Space installation, Second Nature: FERAL. This animation details changes in our environment that are usually imperceptible unless they are seen as a time lapse. The shape of the land fluctuates, species eat, reproduce, and die, ecosystems falter and improvise. Second Nature: FERAL focuses on these unseen rhythms. Even as things fall apart, out of destruction comes renewal. Life is resilient. Registration recommended. Following the talk, join us to celebrate the opening of Second Nature: FERAL, refreshments served with snacks generously provided by Sidewalk Citizen.  

Animal Geographies > October 19th

Dr. Shelley Alexander

With decades-long research on wild canids (including coyotes, wolves, and African painted dogs) as an entry point in this talk, Dr. Alexander will explore human-animal relationships, with the goal of elucidating the ecological, ethical, social, and cultural pressures shaping these engagements. The emotional lives and expressions of morality and justice amongst social carnivores will also be explored. Registration recommended.

Closing Reception for Making Treaty 7: Finding Common Ground > October 14th

Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, Sykes Powderface, Cindy Provost, and Michèle Stanners

Visitors joined the artists of the Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society’s Common Ground Dinner Series to celebrate the closing of their Project Space exhibition. They spoke directly with the artists about their experiences participating in the Dinner Series, how it influenced their work in the exhibition, and their ongoing practice. Becoming a part of the conversation of what “making treaty” really means. This event featured remarks from Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, Sykes Powderface, Cindy Provost, and Michèle Stanners. The reception was held at the Esker Foundation’s Project Space on the main level of the Atlantic Avenue Art Block Building. This building is fully accessible and all are welcome to attend. Refreshments and snacks generously provided by Sidewalk Citizen.

Treacherous Terrain: A History of the U.S.-Mexico Border > September 28th

Dr. Mary E. Mendoza

The U.S.-Mexico border is a controversial place that has changed dramatically over the past century. Once an open range, the border has transformed into a place made up of fences, roads, checkpoints, and other infrastructure meant to curb unsanctioned migration across the international boundary line. This talk will discuss how and why the border has changed over time, as well as how both human migration and the natural environment have played a critical role in that process. Registration recommended.

Artist Talk with Postcommodity > September 16th

Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez

Postcommodity will present a body of related works moving from the U.S.-Mexico border to Athens, Greece. Furthermore, their presentation will frame, connect, and complicate their work A Very Long Line, on exhibition at Esker Foundation. Registration recommended.

The Science Behind “A house that tells you where you came from” > June 16th

Dr. Don Brinkman

In this talk, Dr. Don Brinkman will speak about the cultural significance of turtles and what makes them so unique among living vertebrates. He will present an overview of the history of turtles, including their origin, major groups, distribution patterns, and their fossil record in Alberta. Dr. Brinkman is the Director of Preservation & Research at the Royal Tyrrell Museum where he studies how ancient animals, and turtles in particular, lived in their environments during the time of the dinosaurs. Dr. Brinkman’s presentation will include information on Shelly, the Royal Tyrrell’s soft-shelled turtle, a member of a group of turtles that has remained unchanged for 100 million years and is featured in Jason de Haan’s A house that tells you where you came from. Registration recommended.

In conversation > June 10th

Jason de Haan, Miruna Dragan, Pranav Behari

Join Jason de Haan, Miruna Dragan, and Pranav Behari in conversation as they share a number of experiences, overlapping interests, and collaborative works as they relate to de Haan’s exhibition Oh for eyes! At night we dream of eyes! Partners in life and art, Jason de Haan and Miruna Dragan met in 2008 during the Cosmic Ray Research residency at the Banff Centre and have since lived and worked together in Canada, Mexico, Romania, Lebanon, and Greece, producing a number of projects individually and in collaboration. Pranav Behari is a writer and comedian based in Brooklyn whose work draws from absurdist, macabre, and metaphysical traditions. In 2016, Behari participated in the Corbin Union Residency, along with Dragan and de Haan in the East Kootenay coal-mining ghost town of Corbin, British Columbia. During that period of time de Haan and Behari began the collaboration that would develop into Herein Lie The Sleep Sick, the artist designed publication that accompanies this exhibition. Registration recommended.

Artist Talk > June 9th

Jason de Haan

Jason de Haan will lead a tour and talk through his exhibition Oh for eyes! At night we dream of eyes! providing insight into a number of projects, concepts, lines of research, and processes in the exhibition; including the exploration of uncertain and unexpected spaces, temporal flux, natural phenomena, transmissions, and open timelines. Registration recommended.

Looking into Windows > May 28th

Laura Dutton

In conjunction with the exhibition Night Comes On (on view 1 May – 23 July in the Project Space), Laura Dutton will discuss her work and its relationship to notions of urban voyeurism. The window, which is a reoccurring theme throughout Dutton’s practice, will be explored as a symbol of liminality – a threshold between us/them, inside/outside, public/private. Her treatment of the photographic image as an object and her interest in light as both material and subject matter will be discussed in relation to unconventional processes employed in previous works. Registration recommended.

Life on Mars > April 27th

Shauna Thompson

Join curator Shauna Thompson as she contextualizes why and how the works in Earthlings have been brought together through a PowerPoint presentation on the curatorial process, precedent exhibitions, and studio co-operatives in the North, as well as some of the relationships and intersections among various works on display. Registration recommended.

Medalta: Where the Future Meets the Past > April 21st

Aaron Nelson

Medalta is an innovative industrial museum, contemporary ceramic arts facility, art gallery, and community hub located in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Working from a mixed economy business model, this once static museum has been transformed into a dynamic third space that activates community and inspires change. Join Aaron Nelson, Associate Director of Medalta, on this informative talk that will discuss Medalta’s experience-based education program, its world-renowned artist residencies, and its unique pottery facilities and distribution enterprise. Registration recommended.

Inventions and Interventions in Inuit Art > March 31st

Dr. Heather Igloliorte

In this lecture Dr. Heather Igloliorte examines the history of modern and contemporary Inuit art by investigating how artistic innovation and interventions have changed and expanded the field of production. Examining works that break from convention from the mid-twentieth century to the present, Igloliorte will discuss the history of Inuit art as one of constant renewal, reexamination, and creativity. Registration recommended.  

PLACEHOLDER: It’s your turn to talk! > February 24th

d.talks

Join d.talks, in collaboration with Esker Foundation, for an evening discussion that responds to the exhibition, Earthlings, and draws upon the ceramic influences from Rankin Inlet, Cape Dorset, and Medalta in Medicine Hat. Structured as an unconventional book club, PLACEHOLDER is an intimate discussion and an opportunity for Calgarians to identify how our city and citizens affect – and are impacted by – local and global themes borne out of the work of Esker’s current exhibiting artists. Receive a list of selected texts or bring your own book, poem, or object. Let’s form a new narrative in Calgary together! Registration essential.

North Goes South: Shuvinai Ashoona and the Repositioning of Inuit Art > February 23rd

Sara Angel and Nancy Campbell

Inuit art is seldom part of the contemporary art canon. Shuvinai Ashoona’s creative output breaks this rule. Her work has been exhibited in Switzerland and Australia, while ongoing collaborations with artist Shary Boyle have placed her in contexts previously not considered for Inuit artists. This talk, featuring Nancy Campbell, author of the new book Shuvinai Ashoona: Life and Work in conversation with Sara Angel, Director of the Art Canada Institute, investigates the remarkable trajectory of this singular artist. Registration recommended.

Artist Talk > February 3rd

Jude Griebel

Jude Griebel creates sculptures of hybrid bodies whose anatomy is merged with their surroundings. These figures are compromised by situations of consumption, excess, and disregard, which are played out on their dioramic surfaces. In this presentation, the artist will discuss the diverse references and concepts behind his work as well as his shift into a sculptural practice. Join us at the Project Space after the program to celebrate the opening of Estranged Setting. Registration recommended.

Collaborations > January 21st

Pierre Aupilardjuk, Shary Boyle, and John Kurok

In this shared artist talk, Shary Boyle will present slides of her travels to Rankin Inlet and Cape Dorset, Nunavut, contextualizing the extraordinary spaces where the artists of Matchbox and Kinngait studios live and create their work. Pierre Aupilardjuk and John Kurok will join Boyle in conversation, sharing images and stories from their 2016 residency at Medalta in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Following the presentation the artists will lead a short gallery tour. Registration recommended.