2023/24
rgb(0,0,0)
Over the next two years the Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation Global Experience Project at OCAD University will support 1 core GEP residency, 2 international student travel opportunities, and house 4 professional artist residencies in Toronto, ON.
rgb(255,255,255)
GEP Core Residency
rgb(255,255,255)
Christopher Cozier + Esery Mondesir
The GEP Committee has selected Esery Mondesir's project for this year's Core GEP Residency. Esery is a faculty member and project lead, who will be working with artist Christopher Cozier at Alice Yard in Trinidad, which includes a student travel opportunity and artist residency in Toronto, ON.
Christopher Cozier’s practice takes a critical look at the relationship between Western colonialism and current industrial and economic conditions in Trinidad, working cross-disciplinary through drawing, video installations, writings, and prints. Beyond his own artistic practice, Cozier mentors local artists in Trinidad and Tobago in his capacity as codirector of Alice Yard, a project space and residency program in Port of Spain.
Esery Mondesir is a Haitian-born video artist and filmmaker. Mondesir draws from personal and collective memory, official archives, vernacular records, and the Everyday to generate a reading of our society from its margins. Mondesir is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University in Toronto.
rgb(255,255,255)
About the Project
“Itinerant Acts and Suspended Form: Engaging the Caribbean Space Through the Work of Christopher Cozier.”
A cross-disciplinary studio seminar course in which a cohort of senior-level undergraduate and graduate OCAD U students will engage with contemporary global social issues from a Caribbean perspective. A two-week student residency at Alice Yard in Trinidad for 15 students in June 2023, will directly examine the work of internationally renowned Trinidadian artist Christopher Cozier. There will also be a series of in-person workshops and presentations in Toronto that will be open to a wider community. Students will create artworks that may be written responses, conceptual proposals, and work in any medium, including film, video, performance, site-specific projects, lectures, symposiums, and relational projects. Student participants will benefit from Cozier’s theorization of the Caribbean as a space, as well as the cross-disciplinarity approach of his practice. Through their travel opportunity/residency at Alice Yard, in Port-of-Spain (Trinidad and Tobago) students will create their own body of works to exhibit both in Toronto and Trinidad.
Christopher Cozier is invited for a two-week artist residency in Toronto in November 2023, to continue his work with the students and create a culminating exhibition.
rgb(255,255,255)
Additional projects
rgb(255,255,255)
Justin Randolph Thompson
Justin Randolph Thompson is a sculptor and new media artist living between Italy and the US since 2001, he has exhibited internationally and participated in numerous residencies in the US and in Europe. His work questions the implications of cultural relics and the mutability of their veneration within the context of displacement. Broadly collaborative and inherently interdisciplinary he relies upon the collective power of creative dialogue to provide platforms that envision communities as temporary monuments. He is also the founder of Black History Month Florence.
About the Project
Justin visited OCAD U in March 2023. He worked with OCAD U students by completing studio visits, participated as a guest critique for thesis classes, and held a public facing artist talk. After this initial relationship building phase, he will continue to work virtually with faculty members, community partners, and students to develop a longer working relationship to the OCAD U community and greater Toronto.
Tony Macarena
Tony Macarena is a design queeratorial duo. Their practice transits the intersection between hegemonic aesthetics, the commercialization of culture and the production of identity politics. They undress neo-colonizing and de-colonizing dynamics, national representation and self-exotization. "Tony" Lorena Canales makes text, she is an editor, interviewer, and critic from in Guadalajara. "Macarena" Alejandro Olavarri makes images, he is a designer, graphist, and painter from Mexico City. This opportunity includes a student travel and artist residency in Toronto, ON.
About the Project
A 3-phase project working with existing themes the artists are exploring in their work such as: gender identity, queerness, and decolonization. Artists will select 10 students, following a call for submissions to develop an online relationship. In June 2023 artist duo will visit Toronto to engage with selected students in partnership with Pride Toronto and Stackt Market, creating a public exhibition, after which the group will continue working virtually. Finally, students will travel to Mexico City, where they will work on a specific collaborative works to be presented in conjunction with Salon ACME, Material, and Zona Maco art fairs.
Antonius Roberts
Antonius Roberts is a painter, sculptor, and curator. As one of The Bahamas’ most outstanding Artists, he has been the impetus behind many prominent art initiatives in The Bahamas. His passion for preserving and documenting Bahamian/African heritage has had an indelible effect on environmental conservation. His use of re-cycled organic materials has been incorporated into his art long before “green” had fully infiltrated the general consciousness. His ethos of connecting humanity’s spiritual and emotional nature, and nature itself, and his desire to record and honour Bahamian heritage, are inherent in his paintings, sculpture, and creative pedagogy/mentorship.
About the project
We have invited Antonius to come to Toronto in October 2023 for a two-week artist residency. Inviting him to do a larger public artist talk, focusing on art, ecology, and sustainability. He will work with 10 selected students through mentorship, offering them help, guidance, and workshops onsite. This residency will be similar to the Nomadic Residency format.
rgb(0,0,0)
More about the jack weinbaum family foundation global experience project
The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation Global Experience Project was made possible by a $500,000 gift from the Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation to OCAD University. The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation has been a supporter of OCAD U for nearly 15 years by funding such events as the annual Graduate Exhibition and the Nomadic Resident Program.
“We are grateful to the Weinbaums for giving this opportunity to some of the university’s most promising creative minds, enabling them to immerse themselves in the rich and varied landscape of global artistic practice,” said Dr. Sara Diamond, OCAD University President and Vice-Chancellor. “The Global Experience Project will expand OCAD U’s global connections to strengthen teaching and learning experiences.”
“The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation is delighted to invest in this transformational program at OCAD U, where students will engage with world-renowned artists and embark on international learning experiences,” said Carol Weinbaum, representative of the Foundation.