Visiting Curators Series.

Helping Quebec artists access new markets and opportunities.

Photo: Julia Stringhetta

Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, ELAN’s Visiting Curators Series creates links between Quebec artists and cultural centres outside Quebec, to increase career opportunities and market awareness.

For the 2017 edition, three curators from NYC and one from Toronto will view the work of 12 artists from Montreal and West Quebec. Scroll down for bios of this year’s participating curators.

The curators will present on strategies for artists to get their work seen and exhibited, observations of the art markets they participate in, and their own curatorial practices at a networking event on Sunday October 22, 5-8:30 PM at Parisian Laundry (3550 Saint-Antoine West; Facebook event).

The selection of artists was juried by a panel of professional art jurors who considered the quality of the artist’s work, and aimed for a broad spectrum of representation and cultural diversity in their selection.

Travel and accommodation subsidies are provided to artists chosen from the regions to attend the talk and networking event, and for those artists from West Quebec who are selected for visits with the curators. If you are interested in accessing this subsidy, email Amy Macdonald at amymacdonald@quebec-elan.org.

2017 Visiting Curators

Emelie Chhangur

Emelie Chhangur is an artist and award-winning curator and writer based in Toronto, Canada. She is known for her process-based, participatory curatorial practice and the creation of long-term collaborative projects performatively staged within and outside the gallery context.  Chhangur has developed an experimental approach to curatorial writing with an interest in how texts perform to create unique interpretative experiences. Over the past decade, she has been committed to finding inventive ways to enact activisms from within an institutional framework, questioning the nature and social function of the contemporary art gallery through embedded criticality and new methods of gallery “in-reach.” She currently holds the position of Assistant Director/Curator at the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU), Toronto and is the founder of the AGYU’s residency program. Chhangur makes single channel videos, installations, and performances that are shown nationally and internationally.

Photo: Bradley Hart

Alex Fialho

Alex Fialho (NYC), Programs Director at Visual AIDS in New York City, has facilitated projects and conversations around both the history and immediacy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, utilizing art to maintain HIV/AIDS visibility, consider its legacy, and galvanize contemporary response. Fialho’s extensive oral histories with Ron Athey, Lyle Ashton Harris, Nayland Blake, Gregg Bordowitz, Douglas Crimp, Lia Gangitano, Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson, Marguerite Van Cook, Carrie Yamaoka and more will be part of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art’s forthcoming Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic Oral History Project. He also curates exhibitions for Lower Manhattan Cultural Council as Research and Curatorial Associate, including Michael Richards: Winged; Trisha Brown: Embodied Practice & Site-Specificity; and Counter(Public) Art, Intervention and Performance in Lower Manhattan from 1978–1993. Fialho is a frequent contributor to Artforum.

Photo: Ashley Kolodner

Larry Ossei-Mensah

Larry Ossei-Mensah (NYC) is a Ghanaian-American independent curator and cultural critic who has documented contemporary art happenings for various publications including NeueJournal, Uptown and Whitewall Magazine. His writings have profiled some of the most dynamic visual artists working today—Derrick Adams, Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, Lorna Simpson and street artist JR. As a curator, Ossei-Mensah uses contemporary art and culture as a vehicle to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. He has organized exhibitions at commercial and nonprofit galleries throughout New York City featuring a roster of critically acclaimed artists including Firelei Baez, ruby amanze, Hugo McCloud, Brendan Fernandes, and Derek Fordjour to name a few.

Ossei-Mensah is also the Co-Founder of ARTNOIR, a global collective of culturalists who design multimodal experiences aimed to engage this generation’s dynamic and diverse creative class. ARTNOIR serves as a tangible extension of Ossei-Mensah’s curatorial vision of “bridging gaps.” ARTNOIR’s inaugural event was a conversation on art and gender justice featuring Wangechi Mutu, Julie Mehretu and Adrienne Edwards.

Recently, Ossei-Mensah has been named the 2017 Critic-in Residence at ART OMI in addition to serving as Co-Chair on Russell Simmons’ RUSH Artist Advisory Board and as a member of MoMA’s Friends of Education.

Photo: Andre Boyle

Questions regarding the submission process may be directed to the Project Manager, Stephen Lawson, at vama@quebec-elan.org

ELAN (English-Language Arts Network) is a not-for-profit organization that connects, supports, and creates opportunities for Quebec’s English-speaking artists and arts communities. ELAN members are individuals and organizations from a wide array of artistic disciplines, cultural and geographic backgrounds, and linguistic and cultural communities. Together this network reflects an evolving Québec identity and celebrates the province’s cultural, artistic, and social diversity.

Artists selected to participate in the 2017 Visting Curator Series studio visits will receive a one year ELAN professional membership that includes the following slate of benefits:

-Promotion and visibility through ELANews and social media

-Spotlight on your work in ELAN’s online Membership Directory (online soon!)

-Exclusive or reduced-price access to workshops and paid events

-First notice of upcoming projects and initiatives in your discipline

-Assistance with questions about funding, networking, and resources

-Participation in Minute Market segments at networking events

-Deals and discounts at artistic venues, shops, and other locales (visit https://www.quebec-elan.org/why-join-elan/ for the list)

-Right to vote at ELAN’s AGM

-Right to stand for election on ELAN’s Board of Directors

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested

$153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

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