aceartinc. is pleased to host a group exhibition by Cato Cormier, Vi Houssin, Desa Kalem, Shelley McCafferty, Alana MacDougall, Mandy Malazdrewich, and Emma Mayer.
MAWA Foundation Mentorship Program 2022/2023 Exhibition
On Friday, March 15 from 6-9PM, we welcome you to join our opening celebration.
Honouring the Work of Hands brings together works by seven artists participating in MAWA’s 2022-23 Foundation Mentorship Program as mentees. While group exhibitions generally coalesce around a unifying theme or constellation of related ideas, the idea of coalescence itself is the fundamental contextual framework of the survey exhibition. Surveys offer a snapshot of the cultural production of a specific time and place, expressing the ideas and concerns of artists who, by choice, circumstance, or a mix of both, live and work in some proximity to one another.
One the distinct pleasures that this kind of exhibition can offer is variety, an opportunity to see what dialogues emerge when works with very different sensibilities share space. A similar pleasure can be found within communities like those that MAWA strives to foster, ones that welcome varied perspectives and encourage intergenerational and intercultural exchange.
All of the mentees in this cohort expressed a deep sense of respect and gratitude toward their program mentors – Barb Hunt, Jennine Krauchi, Kristin Nelson, and Leesa Streifler – respect for the their longstanding commitment to their respective practices, and gratitude for their generous sharing of their insights and skills – a key aspect of feminist praxis and pedagogy.
Works in Honouring the Work of Hands pay respect to various histories of making, including those that colonialist, patriarchal, and classist structural hierarchies have often relegated to realms outside “fine art” discourse: sewing, beadworking, hobbycrafts, ceramics, woodworking and construction, underground comics and zines, and drag, to name a few. They also explore the generative and creative potential of acts like gardening, parenting, body imaging, bodily imagining, performance and play. Through their work, these artists explore the pain, joy and spectacular strangeness of having a body and being alive, of being wonderously imbued with the agency, desire, and capacity to give their ideas and experiences shape and form through the work of their hands. (Written by Blair Fornwald)
Exhibition run: March 15 – April 19, 2024
Gallery hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12-5PM
About aceartinc.: We are an artist-run centre dedicated to the support, exhibition, and dissemination of contemporary art. aceartinc. Presents five major exhibitions a year by contemporary visual artists. www.aceart.org
We are on Treaty 1 Territory. On the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. We offer our respect and gratitude to the caretakers of this land.
