Projects 2020

Storying Loss: A Critical Analysis Process for/as Pedagogy 

Pam Patterson, Vicky Talwar, Leila Talei, Angie Ma

January 2020 - March  2020

How might we explore the political and cultural implications of histories and stories, both personal and collective, around the intersection of land and cultural disruption and change? Often this historical and contemporary crisis is as a result of an inherited colonial legacy. The construction is about power. Many who were able to flee and/or were lured to Canada bear the trappings of the rewards they reaped from this place to which they migrated. But didn’t the acquisition of privilege and power have something to do with why they/we left in the first place? 

Troubled by this complex relationship of land, loss and potential acquisition, undergraduate student Faculty of Art Angie Ma, assistant professor Faculty of Art Pam Patterson, graduate student Vicky Talwar and OCAD staff Leila Talei, as settler/immigrants, in exhibition and conversation, occupy a problematic liminal space, a space adrift. 

At a moment at OCAD U when we are embracing a holistic indigenous curriculum, such conversations are key to examining these complex and often troubling and, in some cases, traumatic relationships. This multi-media exhibit invited the community to explore their own histories and stories in September 2019 within exhibition, conversation and workshop. It has been reworked here as pedagogy.

Link to Land Liminality Loss Research Project and individual works.

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