Megan Gnanasihamany | Introductory Curatorial Talk
Photo courtesy of Lawrence Philomene.
Join Latitude 53’s curator-in-residence Megan Gnanasihamany for an introductory curatorial talk on Thursday, September 3 at 6pm. The talk will take place on Zoom.
Over the course of the residency, Gnanasihamany will be researching the possibility of a curatorial practice that’s built on the theoretical frameworks of degrowth and abolition. Systems of incarceration, labour exploitation, and the protection of private property through policing perpetuate isolation and unfreedom. These systems target Black and Indigenous peoples, those living with disabilities, drug users, sex workers, and others whose failure to thrive under capitalism marks them for removal from the social bonds and material resources that are required for living together, making art, and sharing in its creation. The membership of artistic communities and collaborative networks is limited by pervasive structures of power and progress; these same structures maintain exclusionary access to academic programs, galleries, residencies, museums, and studios, further entrenching the boundaries around who can participate in art and collective labour or action. Gnanasihamany is interested in how the words community and collaboration are used both in curation and in the formation of bonds of solidarity. During the residency, Gnanasihamany will be seeking out artists who are exploring concepts of looting and theft, state violence, artistic labour, abolition, and capitalism in their work, as well as non-artists who want to work together on the project.
Some of Gnanasihamany’s previous curatorial and collaborative projects include: Hour Glaze at dc3 Art Projects (2017), Hibernaculum at The Works Gallery (2017) and Tennis Club, an artist collective of five guided by a co-created performative identity.
Megan Gnanasihamany is a gig economy worker, artist, writer, and curator. Their work in video, performance, photography, and poetry examines systems of power and structures of meaning within language and visual media. Megan is currently working on a year long book project about authoritative images, and, this past spring, they began writing a weekly newsletter which you can read at https://tinyletter.com/Megan_G/archive.