The Next 50 Years
Summer 2023 | Upcoming Events:
Pockets of Eden: Feeding the Earth - Worms, Flowers, and Good Intentions at Latitude 53 - Nov 8, in person
As Latitude 53 approaches our 50th Anniversary in October 2023, we have been thinking about the last 50 years and trying to imagine “What will the next 50 years look like?”
To consider this question, we aim to bring together artists, writers, curators, community members and youth to explore some of the emergent issues that affect our current society.
Our six Lead Artists will be hosting events both in person and online for discussion, creation, research, and experimentation, with invited guest artists and lecturers. We invite our community to join as members of their working groups to consider these questions of futurity.
Those interested in joining these discussion and working groups are invited to contact program@latitude53.org expressing interest. Look for more details on the events soon in our calendar.
Image courtesy of Breanna Barrington
AI.Craft
Lead Artists: Blaine Campbell & Mohamed Somani
In recent months, AI-generated art has triggered a great deal of attention with the general release of Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, and other similar tools. We are interested in what these tools mean to us as artists, their potential impacts on the reception of art and the role of the artist, and how they might be used as means of inspiration and collaboration in visual arts practices.
Initially inspired by the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse, we are exploring the use of randomness, pattern making, and AI as a means to connect diverse groups through collaborative play, making the process of artistic creation accessible to audiences that may not think of themselves as “artists”. The basis for this investigation has been the collaborative art-making app “Arpp”.
We will engage in a series of discussions and patterning workshops to investigate these considerations. Discussions will begin in an online format, leading up to in-person events later this summer.
Open to any artists interested in the potential use of AI as a generative and collaborative tool in the creation of visual art. Working group sessions will include a mix of panel discussions and workshops. We will also have in-person public activities to which the working group will be invited.
Past A.I Craft Worksop with Ben Bogart and Fatima Travassos: Watch Here
Ghosts of the gallery
Lead Artists: Joni Cheung & Luke Johnson
Joni Cheung and Luke Johnson believe in ghosts: the people, the places, the objects, and the narratives which haunt us and disrupt our understanding of the present. In the face of a cultural moment where corporations, nation-states, and institutions pit individuals and collectives against one another under the guise of scarcity and survival, how might engaging with these ghosts of the past change our outlooks on how to move towards the future?
Using textual material associated with Latitude 53’s past on the occasion of the artist-run centre’s 50th anniversary, Cheung and Johnson will lead a series of interactive workshops to make contact with those that haunt us. From the diaristic entries of anonymous Google reviews to the partial statements left behind by now-retired artists, participants will help sort out what we might learn from the traces left behind by those who came before us.
As Latitude 53 embarks on a new chapter from a new location, Cheung and Johnson ask: How do we sustain our networks of relations? How do we think beyond linear conceptions of growth and loss? Can we collectively find meaningful alternative measures of value, connection, and purpose? Do answers lie with ghosts?
These creative workshops will take place in hybrid spaces in Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal—your participation in person or through zoom is welcomed.
Pockets of Eden: Practices in earth Stewardship
Lead Artists: Merlin Uwalaka & Breanna Barrington
The collaborative program we intend to create is focused on giving participants the tools and language to communicate and engage with nature. As artists, we are interested in building awareness and intimacy with the natural environment. What language can we use to talk about ecology, and environmental conservation, that is grounded, embodied and accessible?
We are doing so through creativity and engagement. Instead of engaging through ideas and the mind, our focus is to connect with the heart and body. This way participants recognize that their relationship with nature is unique to them, continuous and evolving.
We intend to hold the energetic space to show people what it feels like and could look like to embody material intelligence, and to live life knowing about the earth, communicating with the earth, honouring the earth as a collaborator, and making everyday choices with this awareness.
The artists invite you to join a series of storytelling and story-making workshops and events working especially with textiles, relationship to the land, music and language. With the events as prompts, join us with your own ideas, thoughts and reflections on the topic and we’ll find out where we travel.
About the Artists
Breanna Barrington is an artist based on Treaty 6 territory with a BFA from the University of Alberta (visual/performance art). Blending eco-sensibilities with a dash of whimsy, their work has shown at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Alberta Council for Ukrainian Arts, Mile Zero Dance, hcma Architecture, Alberta Craft Council, Bleeding Heart Art Space, the Works Festival, the Creative Arts Centre, Found Festival, Kaleido Festival, Harcourt House, and more. Breanna is also currently the studio AIR at McLuhan House hosted by Arts Habitat.
In recent years Breanna has been working to refine their artistic voice around the subjects of Ukrainian diasporic identity, and channeling Ecological-Anxiety into hopeful action. These explorations usually orbit around illustration, performance, and bricolage arrangements. Breanna’s practice takes shelter under the “multimedia'' umbrella because sustainability is a priority. They try to use second-hand materials as much as possible, sourcing paint from thrift stores, canvases from back alleys, pencil crayons from local buy and sell groups, and more. By utilizing pre-owned matter, they give forgotten items a new poetic context.
Blaine Campbell is an Alberta-based artist working in photography, sculpture, and video. Campbell’s thematic interests vary widely and have included landscape theory, mediation and artifice, quantum mechanics, and mathematical patterning. A 2007 graduate of Emily Carr University with a BFA in photography, he previously obtained B.Math (UWaterloo) and M.Sc. (UCalgary) degrees in mathematics. In 2015/16 Campbell completed an artist residency at the TRIUMF particle and nuclear physics lab and in 2017 at the Banff Centre. Most recently he presented the immersive sculpture “Transcendence Engine 2021-a” as part of The Works Art & Design Festival.
🔮 Snack Witch Joni Cheung 🍡 is a grateful, uninvited guest born—and knows she wants to die—on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh peoples. They are currently working on the stolen lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples, to become a Certified Sculpture Witch with a MFA from Concordia University. A wicked #magicalgirl ✨ eating art + making snacks, their interdisciplinary practice investigates the relationship between objects↔place↔identity, navigating discourses of transnationalism, migration, and diasporas, always with humour, and sometimes with food. 😉
Luke Johnson is a Minnesota-born artist currently based in Edmonton, Alberta on Treaty 6 territory. Working in print, publications, and durational engagements within collections, Johnson draws from the stories and unintended afterlives of archival materials, creating works which complicate notions such as standardized categorization and stasis within systems of knowledge. He received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his MFA from the University of Alberta, where he is currently a lecturer in printmaking and drawing.
Mohamed Somani is an Ottawa-based artist and co-founder of Mobil Art School in Vancouver (2018) which was founded on the belief of creativity as a fundamental human need and right, and is dedicated to broadening public access to art making through collaborative analog and technological methods and art education. Mobil Art was initially a fully 'mobile' concept, providing art classes and history lectures to seniors and other underserved communities, hiring local artists to fill a much needed connection with the communities in which they live. The Mobil concept quickly led to the founding of an actual physical school in May of 2019 in Vancouver's historic Chinatown. Mobil became a place where classes were a mixture of play and creativity, specializing in local artist-hosted 'Drink & Draws', ceramics and painting classes, art talks, and more, being recognized in the 2019 edition of The Georgia Straight's "Best of Vancouver'. Mobil also specialized in creative team building, translating artistically rooted concepts into wider domains, using play-based methods where traditional artistic skills was not a prerequisite.
In 2020, Mobil developed a collaborative iOS drawing app called Arpp, inspired by the surrealist drawing game ‘exquisite corpse’. This has led to an exploration of AI between Mobil Art and Blaine Campbell as a collaborative buffer between people and use of AI as a 'random' input into the creative process.
Merlin Uwalaka: I was born in 1996, in the ancient kingdom of Oyo. Here, I experienced life through storytelling, inspiration and connection to nature. Life in Oyo was full of opportunities to create and perform; dancing, plays, writing, music, fashion, and other visual and applied arts.
In 2012, I moved to Canada to study Economics at the University of Alberta. However, I continued exploring my passion for art and design; I would create and upcycle dresses for my friends. In 2016, I merged my love for nature and economics, by getting an MSc in Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology. At the same time, inspired by local artists, I began exploring my creativity as a profession; collaborating and co-creating with local makers and storytellers. I worked as an art director, photographer, writer, costume designer and stylist. I learnt by doing. I discovered myself to be full of ideas and infinite possibilities: I existed in the world as a multi-disciplinary artist and an environmental scientist.
Today, I spend my time creating Fashion, accessories and art in a practise that centers the Earth. Fashion design is my core medium. I create hand-made garments that are practical and beautiful, using colorful, bold, and sustainable textiles. Many of the pieces are unique, one-of-one works of art. I am also involved in community projects: textile and beading worships that help raise awareness about environmental issues and intentionality in fashion. The most rewarding part of my work is the connection I feel to community, to the natural world, and to the spirit of creativity that flows through all of us.