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Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood
Anique Jordan, Artist, Writer, Scholar
Andrew Hunter, Senior Curator, Art Gallery of Guelph
Canadian curators Anique Jordan and Andrew Hunter will present an illustrated lecture based on their recent exhibition and publication Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood, a critical reflection on Canada’s current sesquicentennial year (1867-2017) currently at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto through December 11th. Featuring over 35 contemporary artist’s projects, this exhibition has been praised for considering Canada “from its brutal colonial origins right on up to the present day, much of it not meriting the rising jingoism of the sesquicentennial moment. It extends to an indictment for the institution itself,” (The Toronto Star) and for “incorporating diversity, social justice advocacy and community outreach in a riveting presentation that will be referenced and discussed for years to come.” (Canadian Art). Speaking together, Jordan and Hunter will discuss key curatorial concepts, artworks and programming, and will also reflect on their respective creative paths since organizing what has been widely considered to be the “Canada 150 Exhibition We Need.” (shedoesthecity.com)
Anique Jordan is a self-taught, award-winning artist, writer and scholar of Afro-Caribbean decent. Her artwork plays with the aesthetics found in traditional Trinidadian carnival and the theory of hauntology challenging historical narratives and creating, what she calls, impossible images. Her practice works across photography, performance and installation. With over a decade working at the cross roads of cultural projection and community economic development, she has performed and exhibited in galleries across North America and the Caribbean. Currently Anique is a core documenter with Black Lives Matter Toronto, the 2017 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist of the Year, a curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the executive director of Whippersnapper Gallery.
Andrew Hunter is an accomplished curator, artist, writer, educator and community researcher. He recently became the Senior Curator at the Art Gallery of Guelph. From 2013 to 2017 he was the Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Hunter has held curatorial positions across Canada and, as an independent artist and curator he has produced exhibitions and publications in Canada, the United States, England, China and Croatia. A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Hunter is known for his innovative narrative-based museum interventions and his ongoing creative research performance Professor William Starling’s Perambulations of Inquiry. With Lisa Hirmer, he founded the international creative research project DodoLab and has been Adjunct Faculty at the Ontario College of Art and Design University and at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. Hunter’s curatorial work emphasizes inter-disciplinarity, collaboration and narrative and he is committed to the museum as a truly publically engaged institution of community learning and progressive thought.
Hunter has curated and co-curated a number of significant Canadian exhibitions including: The Other Landscape (Art Gallery of Alberta), Tom Thomson (AGO and NGC, with Dennis Reid and Charles Hill), Emily Carr: New Perspectives (a multi-curator collaboration with the NGC and VAG), Carl Schaefer (Museum London), and To A Watery Grave and Dark Matter: The Great War and Fading Memory (Confederation Centre). Hunter was Adjunct Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and his work for the institution included Ding Ho/Group of Seven (with Xiong Gu). His major AGO exhibitions included Alex Colville and The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris (with Steve Martin and Cynthia Burlingham) and he lead the expanded version of this exhibition in Toronto accompanied by his book In The Ward. He co-curated the current exhibition Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood (with Anique Jordan), a critical reflection on the Canada 150 moment featuring over 40 contemporary artists.