Elemental Curatorial Panel
with Pamela Edmonds, Liz Ikiriko, Fynn Leitch, Chiedza Pasipanodya, and Leila Timmins
October 18, 2023, from 3 to 4:30 pm
online
Tim Whiten, Siege Perilous, 1988. Human skulls, wood, talc, white glue. AGYU installation view. Collection of Art Gallery of Hamilton. Photo Toni Hafkensheid.
Elemental: Fire by Tim Whiten was part of Elemental, an expanded, multi-venue retrospective celebrating Whiten’s extensive career. Elemental was developed as a partnership between the AGYU, the Art Gallery of Peterborough (AGP), Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG), and McMaster Museum of Art. This series of exhibitions presented throughout 2022–23 were thematically united by the classical elements of air, water, earth, and fire — a reference to Whiten’s interest in alchemical practices. AGYU was pleased to present the final exhibition of this series, Elemental: Fire curated by Liz Ikiriko, and to gather all the individual curators in conversation including Pamela Edmonds who began the series with the exhibition Elemental: Ethereal for McMaster Museum of Art; Leila Timmins who curated Elemental: Oceanic for RMG; and Chiedza Pasipanodya who guest curated Elemental: Earthen for the AGP.
The Elemental Curatorial Panel took place Wednesday, October 18th from 3–4:30pm EDT online and provided the curators the first public opportunity to collectively reflect on the sustained and durational effects of presenting a comprehensive body of work by a prolific maker of objects over time and geography. They discussed the crossed conceptual lines between each of their solo exhibitions of Whiten’s practice and offered audiences insight into their thought processes, distinctive selection of objects, and exhibition design.
Pamela Edmonds is a curator of contemporary art based in Kjipuktuk, Mi’kma’ki (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Her work is informed by critical dialogues related to social practice and often explores the impact of Black and African diasporic cultures on the evolving geography of Canadian art. Edmonds has been actively involved in educational initiatives and community engagement projects, focusing on cultural equity within the arts sector and institutional frameworks. She holds a BFA and MA in Art History from Concordia University and currently serves as the Director and Curator at the Dalhousie Art Gallery at Dalhousie University.
With over fifteen years of experience in the field of contemporary art and photography, Liz Ikiriko has delivered large-scale complex projects working closely with a variety of artists, organizations, and institutions. She builds long lasting connections with organizations, including Wedge Curatorial Projects, the National Music Centre, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, and the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Ikiriko received her MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University and has taught photography at Toronto Metropolitan University and Sheridan College. She has written for and worked on publications, including Maclean’s, Public Journal, MICE Magazine, Blackflash, Akimbo, C Magazine and, most recently, contributed to Aperture’s As We Rise: Photography From the Black Atlantic. She is co-founder of the Ways of Attuning Curatorial Study Group, a member of the curatorial committee for the 13th Rencontres de Bamako, African Photography Biennial in Mali. She is the inaugural Curator, Collections and Art in Public Space at the University of Toronto’s Art Museum and was the previous Curator of Collections and Contemporary Art Engagement at AGYU.
Fynn Leitch is an artist, writer, and curator. She received an MA in Visual Culture from Queen’s University in 2006. Her research focused on the intersection between craft and protest. From 2011 to 2014, she led the direction of ARTSPACE in Kingston, which included the development of an onsite Media Lab, and a renewed commitment to critical writing and publishing. Leitch is currently Curator at the Art Gallery of Peterborough. Her work has appeared in catalogues, magazines, and galleries across the country. She also works as an advocate for the arts regionally and provincially.
Chiedza Pasipanodya (chee-ed-za pasi-pano-jga) is an artist, curator, and writer. Their research-based practice emerges from southern African ways of being, knowing, and aesthetics and is informed by African pottery and social practice. Pasipanodya is curious about remembering and belonging and committed to elevating narratives which might otherwise be forgotten and misremembered, especially the cultural productions of people of African descent. Through exhibition-making, sculpture, conversation, collaboration, and writing, they have developed a multi-disciplinary Afro-diasporic practice that considers how and if connection, repair, and retrieval are possible through the making of objects and the telling of stories.
Pasipanodya completed a BFA (Hons) in Criticism and Curatorial Practices at OCAD University. They have exhibited at the Art Gallery of Burlington, Nia Centre for the Arts, Xpace Cultural Centre, Gallery Two Seven Two, and Whippersnapper Gallery and curated exhibitions with the Art Gallery of Peterborough, A Space Gallery, BAND Gallery, the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, and Nuit Blanche. They were a Toronto Biennial of Art Curatorial Fellow (2022) and have sat on committees and juries with the Royal Ontario Museum, Nia Centre for the Arts, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the inaugural Black Curators Forum (2019). They live and work in Bloomfield Hills, United States, Toronto, Canada, and Harare, Zimbabwe.
Leila Timmins is a writer and curator, receiving her Bachelors in Art History from the University of British Columbia and her Masters in Art History from the University of Toronto, with a focus on contemporary Canadian photography. Timmins is currently Senior Curator at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. She has held previous positions in Toronto at Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Workman Arts, Gallery TPW, the Justina M Barnicke Gallery, and Images Festival and in Vancouver at the the Helen and Morris Belkin Gallery, UBC.
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