Talking about eco-anxiety, entangled grief, and life in an age of climate catastrophe

Moderated by Erica Mendritzki of NSCAD University and Melanie Zurba of Dalhousie University.

Panelists: Byron Beardy, David Busolo, Willa Fisher, Natalie Goulet, Georgia Klein, Kateryna Rudenko Hosts/Principal Investigators: Melanie Zurba and Erica Mendritzki

Xiaojing Yan is a Chinese-Canadian artist who lives and works in Toronto/ Tkaronto area. Her labour-intensive works are infused with the immigrant’s complicated sense of cultural and psychological bifurcation and create contemporary connections to ancestral values. Her unique point of view brings together the past and the present and encompasses culture and nature, art and science.

Recent solo exhibitions include Chinese-American Arts Council in NYC, Suzhou Museum in China, and Maison Hermès in Shanghai. She recently showed at the Canadian Cultural Centre Paris. Her work can be found in collections, such as the ROM, Suzhou Museum, and Global Affairs Canada. 
Yan has received numerous awards and grants including InStyle’s Women InCreation Prize in Visual Arts (2021), Project Grants from the Ontario Arts Council, Project Grants from the Canada Council, Chalmers Arts Fellowship from the Ontario Arts Council, Young Alumni Achievement Award from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Learn more about Xiaojing Yan here.

Photo credit: Liang Yue

Natalie Michelle Goulet is a Canadian artist working within expanded realms of photography and image making. Of Scottish/French settler ancestry, she was raised in Northern Ontario (Treaty 9 territory) and currently resides in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. She holds an MFA from NSCAD University and a BFA in photography and film studies from the University of Ottawa. Her practice, although rooted in analog photography, consists of diverse material explorations, including the use of found objects and performance. Her work often revolves around concepts of instability and entanglement, and seeks an empathic approach to destructive human tendencies.

Learn more about Natalie Goulet here.

Image: Natalie Goulet. A Brief Respite From Fear, 2019.

Kuh Del Rosario (1980) is currently living and working in the unceded indigenous lands of Tiohtià:ke / Montreal, QC, Canada, of which the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation are the rightful custodians. 

Del Rosario is a 2023 MFA Candidate in Sculpture & Ceramics Studio Arts at Concordia University. 

Between 2017 and the end of 2019, Del Rosario lived in Batan, Aklan, Philippines where she ran Elmo’s House Artist Residency. Set in her ancestral home, the residency project was an integral part of her practice, which draws from personal history through the alchemy of everyday things. Del Rosario’s work explores truths filtered by memories, utilizing salvaged materials as the teller of stories.

Kuh Del Rosario is a Filipino-Canadian; born in Manila and raised in Calgary, Alberta. Del Rosario completed her BFA in Painting at the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2001. Before starting Elmo’s House Artist Residency, Del Rosario spent over a decade in Vancouver, BC, where she was involved in the administration and management of artist-run studio/project space, Dynamo Arts Association. She was also part of a curatorial team, SHIP based out of the Dynamo project space, as well as a member of CARFAC BC, which advocates for the legal rights of artists.

Kuh Del Rosario has exhibited across Canada in solo and group shows. Her past work includes installation, painting, video and performance, distilled from her sculptural art practice.

Learn more about Kuh Del Rosario here.

Photo by KYLE TRYHORN

Join us for a talk with artist Jenine Marsh. Jenine Marsh’s work is currently on view at the Port Loggia gallery as part of the exhibition Worried Earth: Eco-Anxiety & Entangled Grief.

Jenine Marsh (b. 1984, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, based in Toronto) is an artist who uses sculpture and installation to explore themes of agency, mortality and value. Coins as well as other paraphernalia of exchange and contact, such as casts of hands, purses and flowers, are manipulated through serialized processes of destruction and transformation to cultivate illicit and intimate responses to the shared conditions of end-stage capitalism. Solo and two-person exhibitions include: Cooper Cole and Franz Kaka, Toronto; Lulu, Mexico City; Centre CLARK and Vie d’ange, Montreal; Entrée, Bergen; Interface, Oakland CA; and Stride Gallery, Calgary. Group exhibitions include: The Plumb, Toronto; Essex Flowers, NYC; Gianni Manhattan, Vienna; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Frieze London; OSL contemporary, Oslo; Rupert, Vilnius; Murmurs, Night Gallery and Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles. Her work is represented by Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto.

Image curtesy of the artist