Image: Yellow Dream (2020) by Ilene Sova. Mixed media paper collage on glitter paper.
On International Women’s Day, OCAD University celebrates the Feminist Art Collective (FAC), founded by Faculty of Art Assistant Professor and Ada Slaight Chair of Contemporary Drawing and Painting Ilene Sova.
The collective provides opportunities for the exploration and artistic communication of social issues including trans rights, domestic violence, racism and disability rights in a context that encourages sharing, creating and discussion. Through multi-disciplinary art practices and a trans-inclusive, anti-racist and intersectional environment the FAC propels progressive change. Since its founding in 2013, the collective has hosted numerous conferences, exhibitions and artist residencies.
In its most recent exhibition, the collective asked feminist artists to submit works that reflected their pandemic experience. Despite the isolation brought upon by local and international lockdowns the members of the collective managed to foster connection online through the virtual exhibition Pandemic: A Feminist Response.
“We invited feminist artists of all disciplines to share work with us that touched on the intersections of equity and the pandemic,” explains Sova. “We received 120 submissions from all over the world and chose 11 works in total. They are powerful examples of how COVID-19 revealed layers of inequities in our communities,” she continues.
The works were selected by Justine Abigail Yu, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Living Hyphen, a publication that celebrates the experiences of immigrant Canadians, artist and InPrint Collective Founder Maureen Da Silva as well as Sova.
The online exhibition features collage, textile, crochet, poetry and video works by 12 artists from Canada and abroad including, Giulia Cerioli, oh ciseaux, Ariel Elofer, Tal Fitzpatrick, Michelle Hamer, Kate Just, Krystal Kavita Jagoo, Anjalee Nadarajan, Gabriela Noujaim, Andra Ragusila, Priya “Pree” Rehal and Andrea Thompson.
The concept for the online show was born out of an initiative that Professor Sova developed in May 2020 called the COVID Collage Project. Her goal was to produce one collage each day of the first lockdown in Toronto while also giving back to the community. Motivated by the social injustices that were further revealed and exacerbated by the pandemic, the works were given to recipients in exchange for donations to local food banks.
“The sense of action and purpose that came from the COVID Collage Project led me to the idea that we could use our platform at the Feminist Art Collective in Toronto to see how other feminist artists were interpreting the pandemic,” reflects Sova.
On Friday, March 6, Sova spoke about the COVID Collage Project and the Feminist Art Collective at the latest Horasis summit. The independent international organization annually brings together governments and international organizations to build solutions to global challenges.
She was a member of the panel, The Arts: Shaping Equality, Charting the Future, along with feminist American artists, Wendy Artin, Carole Feuerman, Helen C. Frederick and Linda Stein. Also at the summit were Canadian Deputy Minister of Global Affairs Canada Marta Morgan, President of the UN Economic and Social Council Munir Akram, as well as the former prime ministers of Belgium, Ecuador, Finland and Sri Lanka.
“I am feeling incredibly grateful to have been able to bring an intersectional feminist view to the discussions of public policy and pandemics at the Horasis summit. I believe art has the power to provide world leaders with insight, which can lead to actions in these challenging times so that we can truly build back better," notes Sova.