TORONTO — Earlier this month a call for submissions to the Mess Mates exhibit at the Ontario College of Art and Design University was made by Co-curators Michelle Beck and Dana Snow.
The result brought together an exhibition that will show until November 1, that encompasses work that focuses on climate justice which can manifest as: imagined futures, stories concerning the earth and the tracks we leave on her, and concepts and strategies that help activate and mobilize communities.
The exhibition, hosted by the Faculty of Art, serves as an entry point to thinking about how we engage with the land and the land’s resources: How do we make room for a relationship with land other than one of ownership? How do we navigate our own complicity in colonial and capitalist environmental destruction? What does it mean to push through collective grief for the land and to strategize? Messmates is not an end point, but a call to action. The exhibition encourages the audience to ask each other to do more: to advocate for changes in policy; to use our bodies and our art to protest; to listen and learn from one another; and to value collaboration, interconnection and care in a radical sense.
Featured artists include: Annie Chen, Athena Katerina, Beehive Collective, Brandon Prince, Carolina Uscategui, Chelsea Smith, Ghazal Vakilzadeh, Gina D’Aloisio, Huaijun Wen, Patrick Stochmal, Sandra Dammizio, Sean Sandusky, Skylar Cheung, Tamar Bresge, Zishou Li.
Among them is also a Chippewa and Potawatomi artist from Rama First Nation and Moosedeer Point First Nation, currently based in Toronto, Chief Lady Bird.
The exhibit stands in Ada Slaight Gallery, OCAD University, 100 McCaul St., with the closing reception: November 1, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. A panel is also set to take pace the same day: Creative Action during Climate Crisis – November 1. Moderated by Joce Two Crows Tremblay at the OCAD University, 100 McCaul St., in Room 190, Auditorium.
The panellists insluce: Maya Menezes (The Leap and Noone is Illegal), Andrea Bastien (Indigenous Climate Action), Daniel Sarah Karasik (Artists for Climate & Migrant Justice and Indigenous Sovereignty). The times are set for 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. for the Creative Action during Climate Crisis panel and the panel reception.
