LOCAL AND VISITING ARTISTS

Cathy Busby: “A Stimulant, A Conversation”
Thursday, March 24, 2011, 7-8 pm at MAWA
Presented in partnership with PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts

Cathy Busby’s artwork is made up of installations and printed matter that are concerned with the way language influences attitudes and action. Since the 1990s, it has explored the ways emotions are mediated in culture. Discourse and textual analysis, as well as feminist perspectives related to social justice, inform her perspective. She will discuss her socially interactive and provocative practice.

Cathy Busby has a PhD in Communication (Concordia University, Montreal, 1999) and was a Fulbright Scholar at New York University (1995-96). She has an MA in Media Studies (Concordia University, 1992) and a BFA (1984) from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax. Her work is represented in the collection of the City of Ottawa, the Nova Scotia Art Bank, the Canada Council Art Bank and the National Gallery of Canada. Be sure to check out Cathy’s current exhibition in Winnipeg, EVERY LINE & EVERY OTHER LINE at PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts, March 18 – May 7, 2011, opening on March 18 at 7 pm. Curated by J.J. Kegan McFadden, EVERY LINE & EVERY OTHER LINE brings together work in photography and video by Cathy Busby, Bruce LaBruce, Brendan Fernandes, Suzy Lake and Arthur Renwick in an attempt to consider what the face, and more precisely the mouth, reveals about colonization, revolution and gendered space.

Cathy Busby with her project We Are Sorry. Photo by Luther Alexander

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Divya Mehra: “Painfully Indian”
Saturday, May 14, 2011, 2-3 pm at MAWA

In her practice, Mehra explores cultural appropriation, displacement and hybridization. She will talk about how these issues play out in her work, as well as her use of humour as an ongoing strategy.

Divya Mehra is a multimedia artist who recently earned her MFA from Columbia University, New York. Her work has been included in a number of exhibitions and screenings across North America and overseas, most notably at the Queens Museum of Art and Hendershot Gallery (New York, U.S.A.), the Beijing 798 Biennale (Beijing, China), Plug In ICA and PLATFORM: center for photographic + digital arts (Winnipeg, Canada), Images Festival and A Space (Toronto, Canada), Groupe Intervention Video (Montreal, Canada), and Gallery OED (Cochin, India). Mehra currently divides her time between Winnipeg and New York.

Divya Mehra, I am the American Dream (still just a Paki), 1987 Gold Jaguar Vanden Plas, 75” x 192” x 40”, 2010