Has the Community Been Fed? is a workshop series centered on hospitality as a mode of public engagement between artists and their communities. Throughout the month of December, artists will host film screenings, workshops, and artist talks that traverse diverse points of research and interest, which will culminate with food and conversation. The aim of this workshop series is to engage the public through events while opening channels for exchange through food, outside the mediated boundaries of artist and public.
Has the Community Been Fed? is presented by Noor Bhangu, an emerging curator and scholar based between Winnipeg, Treaty 1 and Toronto/Tkaronto, whose practice employs cross-cultural encounters to interrogate issues of diaspora and indigeneity in post- and settler-colonial contexts. Bhangu was the curator-in-residence at Latitude 53 from July-September 2019, and will return to curate an exhibition in early 2020.
Riaz Mehmood’s workshop will focus on his projects and ideas that are influenced by the Pashtun region of Pakistan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), the place of his birth. In his presentation, he will share information about his experiences, ideas, history, and popular culture along with the visual culture from that region.
Mehmood is currently working on a project about the Khudai Khidmatgar movement (‘servants of God’, which also means to serve people selflessly). This socio-political movement was started by a Pashtun man known as Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) during the 1920s-30s. In 2014, another Pashtun-led, social justice movement called the Pashtun Taful Movement (PTM) arose in Pakistan and has increasingly gained traction with young Pashtun people. This group is not associated with any political party. One of their primary goals is to raise awareness about missing people during the recent, ‘war on terror’ military and intelligent agencies raids in Pashtun dominant regions. The state has completely censored the PTM, however the group is successfully using social media to spread its message.
Mehmood will prepare food for the participants and share stories about the food items and dishes that are of significance to him. For him, this evening will be about sharing and exchanging ideas.
Riaz Mehmood is a multidisciplinary artist who mostly uses video, photography and computer programming as his primary means of expression. He immigrated to Canada in 2000 as a professional engineer and decided to pursue a career in arts. Riaz obtained an MFA from the University of Windsor (2012) and completed the Integrated Media program at the Ontario College of Art and Design (2005). He has participated in several international and national artist residencies and workshops, and has earned a number of grants, scholarships, and awards over the years. Riaz has also been involved with a number of artist-run centers and served on the boards of SAVAC (Toronto) and articule (Montréal). His works have been shown nationally and internationally. He is currently based in Edmonton, Canada.