CONVERSATIONS ACROSS CONTINENTS
With Salimata Diop, Ablaye Mbaye, Catherine Sicot, and Adrian Stimson
Moderated by Mona Filip
July 2
Dome Theatre | 5:30-7 PM
Join us for a panel discussion with Salimata Diop (French/Senegalese independent curator / artistic director, 2024 Dakar Biennial), Ablaye Mbaye (Senegalese storyteller, drummer, and Wolof dancer), Catherine Sicot (French/Canadian director/curator of Elegoa Cultural Productions/member of Interwoven Futures Collective), and Adrian Stimson (interdisciplinary artist and member of Siksika Nation/member of IF Collective) introducing their major artistic initiative – X2027: Thank You For Coming! – currently in development between communities, organizations, and institutions in France, Senegal, and Canada.
The late 19th century saw a surge in colonial exhibitions across western Europe; occasionally focused on certain thematics and framed as international displays of cultural objects and new technologies, they were intended to boost trade and bolster popular support for the colonial empires of the time. Among these exhibitions was the La Rochelle Colonial Exposition, held in the summer of 1927. To mark the centennial of La Rochelle’s colonial exhibition, X2027: Thank You For Coming! will organize a series of counter-performances, interventions, and exhibitions to upend colonial outlooks.
Salimata Diop, Ablaye Mbaye, and Catherine Sicot will be joining Adrian Stimson in Calgary/Mohkinstsis at the invitation of Shannon Bear Chief to visit and further deepen their collaboration with Siksika Nation. This conversation, moderated by Contemporary Calgary’s Chief Curator, Mona Filip, will offer audiences an overview of the panellists’ artistic practices and how they intersect to generate intercultural dialogue and decolonial actions.
The conversation will take place in English and French, with consecutive translation from French to English.
This panel is part of the speakers’ 10-day visit to Siksika/Calgary that is supported by Elegoa Cultural Productions through the Canada Council Strategic Innovation Fund – Cultivate program, in partnership with daphne, artist run centre in Montreal.
About the Speakers
Salimata Diop (she/her) is a Franco-Senegalese curator, art critic, and composer based between Dakar, Senegal, and La Rochelle, France. She is the former artistic director of the contemporary art fair AKAA (Also Known as Africa) and the co-creator and former director of the MuPho (Musée de la Photographie de Saint-Louis du Sénégal), the first West African museum dedicated to photography. In 2024, Diop was appointed artistic director of the 15th edition of the Dakar Biennale, a major event in the artistic scene on the African continent. Diop has lived in La Rochelle since 2020 and is involved in cultural life there. In her collaboration with IF Collective and the X2027 circle, Diop will create links with the Senegalese institutions and organizations such as MCN, IFAN Museum, University of Dakar UCAD, and RAW Material art center, among others.
Ablaye Mbaye (he/him) is the son of a line of griots. He grew up in the Wolof tradition of singing, drumming, storytelling, and dance. He is the most Senegalese of the Rochelais or the most Rochelais of the Senegalese. Mbaye has lived in La Rochelle and Sendou, Senegal for 30 years. He established a dance and drumming school that operates in both countries. He also works in schools, social centers, and nurseries where he teaches African choral singing, the gods and goddesses of the savannah: anchored to the ground with the head in the heavens, like giraffes, the agility of the feline, the ferocity of the lion, the stability and rooting of the baobab. Since 2020, he has been the founder and coordinator of the Maison de l’Afrique et des Caraïbes in La Rochelle and a new member of the Board of Directors of the Centre Intermondes.
Catherine Sicot (she/her) is an independent French/Canadian curator and cultural producer, founder of Elegoa Cultural Productions, and is currently based in Canada (Montréal) and France (La Rochelle). She previously lived and worked in Paris, Toronto, and Havana (Cuba). Taking a place-based approach, Sicot advocates for the role of the arts in shaping the socio-economic and political dynamics that define the contemporaneity of a place and its future. Working collaboratively and in a partnership framework based in Indigenous-led decolonial practices, she co-produces visual arts and media works and promotes their dissemination through exhibitions, artist residencies, symposiums, events, and publications. Sicot is a member of the Interwoven Futures Collective along with Barry Ace, Lori Beavis, Michelle McGeough, and Adrian Stimson.
Adrian Stimson (he/him) is a visual artist, member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation, territory covered by Treaty No. 7 (Alberta), Canada. Stimson was a student and resident at the University of Guelph, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He holds a BFA with distinction from the Alberta College of Art and Design (now AUArts), and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. He received the Prize for influential alumni from the University of Saskatchewan in 2020, the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2018, and REVEAL – First Nation’s art award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation in 2017. He received the Blackfoot Visual Arts Award in 2009, the Alberta Centennial medal in 2005, and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee medal in 2003. Stimson is a member of the Interwoven Futures Collective along with Barry Ace, Lori Beavis, Michelle McGeough, and Catherine Sicot.
About the Moderator
Mona Filip (she/her) is Contemporary Calgary’s Chief Curator. Her curatorial career spans two decades of developing critical visual art programs, supporting the production of new works, and introducing national and international artists to Toronto through first local exhibitions. As a former Curator at the Art Museum, University of Toronto, and previously Director/Curator of the Koffler Gallery, Filip has led numerous exhibitions, site-specific projects, public programs, and educational initiatives, focusing on themes of displacement and adaptation. Her projects have explored the intersections of collective memory, place, and belonging, examining artistic strategies that redress sidelined histories, restitution and repair, and storytelling as world-building. Originally from Bucharest, Romania, Filip holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art, Washington DC, and an MFA from SUNY at Buffalo. She has commissioned significant new works by Canadian artists such as Caroline Monnet, Sameer Farooq, Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Karen Tam, and José Luis Torres, while also curating the first Canadian exhibitions of acclaimed international artists Raphaël Zarka, Christian Hidaka, Sigalit Landau, and Isabel Rocamora.
About Interwoven Futures
Interwoven Futures is a new collective formed by artists Barry Ace (M’Chigeeng Odawa), Adrian Stimson (Siksika, Blackfoot), curators Lori Beavis (Michi Saagiig-Anishinaabe/Irish-Welsh), Michelle McGeough (Cree Métis/Irish), and curator/cultural producer Catherine Sicot (French/Canadian). The collective evolved from the Mobile Decolonial Do Tank (MDDT), an Indigenous-led experimental project undertaken by the collective members with initial contributions from Georgiana Uhlyarik (Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario). The initiative is supported by Elegoa Cultural Productions in partnership with daphne through multiple grants from the Canada Council for the Arts since 2018, including Sector Innovation and Development (2023) and Strategic Innovation Fund (2024-25), French institutions, and other funders.
About the Mobile Decolonial Do Tank (MDDT)
The MDDT promotes contemporary Indigenous cultures from Turtle Island through international commissions, exhibitions, events, and other forms of dissemination based in interdisciplinary and intercultural decolonial actions. It provides cultural and educational institutions access to Indigenous expertise and knowledge custodians to ensure accurate interpretation, contextualization, and restitution of cultural property held in these collections. The MDDT is grounded in developing partnerships and guarantees an ethical remuneration to its collaborators. The MDDT is now transitioning into IF Collective to expand funding sources and involve all members in the governance, administration, and financial responsibilities of the project. Each member is currently developing their own artistic or curatorial project while contributing to the collective’s strategic vision / the overall direction of the project.
