Artists’ Roundtable
Watch Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky in discussion with artists Anna Binta Diallo, Atanas Bozdarov, Barbara Hobot, Adriana Kuiper & Ryan Suter, Brendan L.S. Tang and Couzyn van Heuvelen. This roundtable explores various thematic threads that connect and resist within the exhibition—The Further Apart Things Seem.
Introductions by co-curators Shannon Anderson and Jay Wilson.
The Further Apart Things Seem
Co-curated by Shannon Anderson & Jay Wilson
In a social and political moment where opinions are often divisive, the possibility of finding common ground can seem beyond reach. Debates over human rights, climate change, land claims, and even the politicizing of the pandemic often seem at cross-purposes and irresolvable. How do we respond in times of uncertainty—when do we push forward, when do we give up, and when do we try things differently? In The Further Apart Things Seem, artists follow distinct paths toward subtle forms of resistance, while exploring areas of connection between that which feels disconnected or in opposition. By testing the unexpected, they embrace material experimentation and provisionality as productive spaces for building resilience, resolution, and understanding.
About the Artists
Anna Binta Diallo
Anna Binta Diallo (b. Dakar, Senegal, lives in Winnipeg, MB) is a multidisciplinary visual artist who investigates memory and nostalgia to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at La Maison des Artistes Francophones (Winnipeg), Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Art Gallery of Alberta, Towards (Toronto), Access Gallery (Vancouver), Vancouver’s Capture Photography Festival, MAI (Montréal Arts Interculturels), MOCA Tapei, SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), and BOZAR (Palais des beaux-arts de Bruxelles). In 2021, Diallo was awarded the Barbara Sphor Memorial Prize from the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre and received the Black Designers of Canada Award of Excellence. She has an Honours BFA in painting and design from the University of Manitoba’s School of Fine Art and an MFA from the Transart Institute, Berlin, Germany, and currently teaches at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art.
Atanas Bozdarov
Atanas Bozdarov (b. Etobicoke, ON, lives in Toronto, ON) is an artist and designer whose recent projects have explored systems of access and accessibility, unnoticed conditions of disability and design, and architectural propositions for public space. He received his HBA from the University of Toronto Mississauga and his MDes from OCAD University. He has exhibited at the Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto; Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto; the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Georgia; Montréal, arts interculturels (MAI), Montreal. His project, Every Step on Queen Street West & Every Ramp on Queen Street West, a collaboration with Craig Rodmore, was selected as a feature exhibition at the 25th edition of CONTACT Photography Festival. Bozdarov teaches design in the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College’s joint Art and Art History program.
Barbara Hobot
Barbara Hobot (b. Toronto, lives in Kitchener, ON) is interested in creative processes and actions that de-centre the human. She has worked with loose trompe l’oeil, alchemy, gravity, and chance, creating a confusion of materials that draws attention to our incomplete grasp on the world that surrounds us. Her recent sound work explores the process of attempting to access unreachable knowledge. Her work has been exhibited at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Cambridge Art Galleries, the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Forest City Gallery in London (ON), and AKA artist-run in Saskatoon. She has also exhibited her work in Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Hobot holds an MFA from the University of Western Ontario and is represented by Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.
Adriana Kuiper & Ryan Suter
Adriana Kuiper (b. Toronto, ON, lives in Sackville, NB) and Ryan Suter (b. Tilbury, ON, lives in Sackville, NB) have collaborated on work since 2010. They have completed a number of public site-specific works in the Magdalen Islands, QC; Halifax, NS: and in Dawson City, YK. They have exhibited together at the Confederation Centre for the Arts in Charlottetown, PEI; the Kenderdine Art Gallery, SK; and the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, AB. Kuiper completed her BA at the University of Guelph and her MFA at the University of Western Ontario. Her work has been shown across Canada and internationally in Oslo, Norway. She is a professor in sculpture and drawing at Mount Allison University. Suter is a multimedia artist who holds a BFA from the University of Ottawa and an MFA from the University of Guelph. He has worked as an arts administrator in artist-run centres for the past 15 years and has taught a variety of courses at the Nova Scotia of Art and Design and Mount Allison University. His work has been shown at many artist-run centres across Canada.
Brendan Lee Satish Tang
Brendan Lee Satish Tang (b. Dublin, Ireland, lives in Vancouver, BC) explores issues of identity and the hybridization of material and non-material culture in his work, drawing from futuristic technologies, contemporary culture, and ancient traditions. Tang’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver; the Gardiner Museum, Toronto; the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, QC; the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Italy; the Boston Art Museum; the Seattle Art Museum; and the Foundation d’Entreprise Bernardaud, Limoges, France, among others. He was a recipient of the 2016 Biennale Internationale de Vallauris Contemporary Ceramic Award, France; shortlisted for the Sobey Art Prize; and a finalist in the Loewe Foundation’s International Craft Prize, Madrid, Spain. He received a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and an MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Couzyn van Heuvelen
Couzyn van Heuvelen (b. Iqaluit, NU, lives in Bowmanville, ON) is a Canadian Inuk sculptor. His work explores Inuit culture and identity, new and old technologies, and personal narratives. While rooted in the history and traditions of Inuit art, the work strays from established Inuit art making methods and explores a range of fabrication processes. He has participated in exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Artspace in Peterborough, Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax, Winnipeg Art Gallery, and SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art in Montreal, among others. Van Heuvelen holds a BFA from York University and an MFA from NSCAD University. His work has been longlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and he has received commissions through the Sheridan’s Temporary Contemporary Artists series, in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Mississauga; and the George Reid House Project through OCAD U.
About the Moderators
Rhonda Weppler & Trevor Mahovsky
Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky, based in New York and Toronto respectively, are artists who have worked collaboratively since 2004. Their work, laborious and handmade, is concerned with material culture and our relationship to the world of things. Their practice has increasingly incorporated aspects of craft that are communal and more broadly collaborative, such as the production of DIY tutorial videos, the distribution of source files for the making of versions of their works, the hosting of virtual crafting bees, and facilitating other collaborative public projects within and without institutional settings. Their current ongoing project, Crafts Abyss, produced in conjunction with and hosted by the Museum of Arts & Design, NYC, was first created during the 2020 edition of Contemporary Calgary’s Collider residency.
Other exhibitions include: National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), LABoral (Gijon), Dos de Mayo (Madrid), Aurora (Dallas), Vancouver Art Gallery, Flux Night (Atlanta), Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Power Plant (Toronto), Musee d’art Contemporain de Montreal, Tokyo Wonder Site, loop-raum (Berlin), 516 Arts (Albuquerque), Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), Alter Space (San Francisco), Glow (Washington DC). Mahovsky has written for journals such as Artforum and for catalogues such as Liz Magor (MACM: Montreal, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst: Zurich, and Hamburg Kunstverein). In 2017, Weppler was the inaugural artist in residence with the MFA Art Practice program at the School of Visual Arts, New York, and in 2018 she completed a major project for the Community Arts Initiative, Artists Project program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.
About The Further Apart Things Seem
In a social and political moment where opinions are often divisive, the possibility of finding common ground can seem beyond reach. Debates over human rights, climate change, land claims, and even the politicizing of the pandemic often seem at cross-purposes and irresolvable. How do we respond in times of uncertainty—when do we push forward, when do we give up, and when do we try things differently? In The Further Apart Things Seem, artists follow distinct paths toward subtle forms of resistance, while exploring areas of connection between that which feels disconnected or in opposition. By testing the unexpected, they embrace material experimentation and provisionality as productive spaces for building resilience, resolution, and understanding.