LATIN AMERICAN SPEAKERS SERIES @  
A Space Gallery, 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 110

A series of thematic talks will take place at A Space Gallery once a month from February to July 2008. The Talks will address politically and socially engaged themes pertaining to the local Latin American artistic community. A wide range of visual artists, curators, designers, educators, and academics will have the opportunity to share and discuss their projects creating a forum for dialogue and collaboration as well as provide an educational vehicle for change and exchange. The public will have the opportunity to engage in discussion after each presentation. 

Wednesday, June 18^th 7-9pm

LATINAMERICAN-CANADIAN IDENTITY?

The following talk will present two perspectives from academia on the construction of a Latin American-Canadian identity and whether this construction is a feasible notion for a continent marked by its differences and similarities.

Lorena Gajardo

Gajardo studies the construction of Canadian Latina/o identity. Of particular interest in her work is the way in which practices, like cultural practices, enable the construction of identities that generate novel ways of approaching issues of nation making and belonging. This talk will focus on how Latina/o cultural practices redefine the notion of latinidad while at the same time redefining Canadianness.

Susan Douglas

Douglas is developing an analysis of Argentinean and Canadian art that articulates national identity, specifically from 1960 to the present. She hopes to determine how cultural identity relates to the idea of nation and how institutions, cultural policies and art forms project each nation's sense of self.

Wednesday July 16^th 7-9pm

PROPOSALS FOR COMMUNITY ARTISTIC GROWTH

This talk will present an opportunity for Latin American non-for profit artist run organizations to present their work and their proposals for the future.

Alucine Film Festival, Latin American Art Projects, and Latino Canadian Cultural Association

The discussion will provide a platform for the Latin American community to develop, network, participate, organize and engage in dialogue with the artistic community at large. 

PREVIOUS TALKS

Wednesday February 13^th 7-9pm

SOCIAL PROBLEMS VS YOUTH CREATIVITY

Many artists have been working along youth in order to offer them alternatives to their immediate surroundings of violence and poverty. As immigrants to Canada , many Latin American artists have lived or are living in such environments and are able to contribute by offering constructive views and ways of engagement.  

Jorge Lozano and Guillermina Buzio

Lozano and Buzio will be discussing their facilitation of video workshops in Canada , Colombia and Venezuela which focus on self-representation. These videos are written, shot, acted and edited by the participants and are poetic, intimate and powerful examples of self-representation by marginalized youth living in poor neighborhoods affected by socio political violence. In their workshops, Buzio and Lozano promote creativity through autonomy.

Rodrigo Moreno

This talk focuses on the new program “From the Inside Out,” launched by the Lawrence Heights Community Health Centre and the Toronto Arts Council. This community arts project includes the creation of a visual and written archive of the Lawrence Heights community. Local youth photograph and interview people in the neighbourhood with mentorship from artist-in-residence, Rodrigo Moreno.

Wednesday, March 5^th 7-9 pm

WOMEN ARTISTS AND MOTHERHOOD

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, we offer a night of film and performance in which two Latina artists cope with motherhood and continue developing their work as artists.

Sinara Rozo

Sinara will present her recent documentary entitled Primigravida -- Latin for a woman in her first pregnancy.  Primigravida is a personal exploration of the illusions and allusions surrounding pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting in Canada as she explores how society encourages motherhood to be ordinary and not extraordinary.  In Primigravida, Rozo investigates the mythologies surrounding motherhood from its inherent heroism status to its darkest less discussed elements.

Rita Camacho

Performance installation artist addresses key aspects of her experiences as an artist and as a mother as she shares her strategies of adaptation to an uncontrollable environment led by her son and by the act of performance.

Wednesday, March 26^th 7-9 pm

POWER IN COLLECTIVES

Poder en números, Spanish for “Power in numbers”. Many Latin American artists find themselves isolated and marginalized by cultural and linguistic barriers forcing them to organize in collectives in order to achieve recognition and find a familiar place to create.

Z’otz* Collective

Nahúm Flores, Erik Jerezano, and Ilyana Martínez created a new entity – Z’otz* (Mayan word for “bat”) – an amalgamation of their personalities and a fusion of their artistic styles. Through experimental collaboration Z’otz* allows them the space to let go, and play.

Las Perlas del Mar Collective

Artist Alex Flores and journalist Laura Guerrero are a production collective, which show and distribute documentaries, focusing on social, political, gender, sexual orientation and human rights issues. Their objective is to offer a media perspective on international issues alternative to “official” Canadian perspectives.

E-Fagia Collective

Arlan Londono and Julieta Maria explore mass media, digital communications and language as it connects to culture, with an emphasis on Latin American art and diasporic art. The collective’s website develops and publishes art and digital image theory as well as web art projects. They also curate exhibitions of digital art works and projects.

Wednesday, April 16^th 7-9 pm

POLITICAL UPBRINGING = POLITICAL ACTIONS

Thousands of political refugees have arrived to Canada from various countries of Latin America . This talk will focus on two artists that have come from a background of exile. The artists will explain how their work has become a reflection of their past and how their notions of politics is a synopsis of their future.

Rodrigo Barreda

Barreda addresses the outcomes of a Chilean-Canadian generation committed to political resistance and the art projects he has developed as a response to historical processes. Rodrigo discusses the Solidaridad Museum a curatorial / design project with the Chilean exile and political refugee community living in Canada .

Rodrigo Hernandez

As the son of Mexican refugees, Hernandez experienced art therapy as a means to deal with trauma and emotional instability. Hernandez discusses his artistic work with prisoners in Mexico and with newcomers in Canada and how he finds it has become a tool and a vehicle for community empowerment and humanitarian intervention.

Wednesday, May 14^th 7-9 pm

INTROSPECTIVE INSIGHT

Roots, heritage, traditions, race, land, and culture are all concurrent themes within the work of the following artists.  These artists have found methods to investigate inherited identities as they work in a transcultural arena such as Toronto .

Julieta Maria

Maria explores her Palestinian-Colombian heritage through media based installations. 

Taira Liceaga

Puerto Rican born artist celebrates the mestizaje (racial and cultural mixture of African, Aboriginal and Spanish) of her Latin American heritage through life-sized fiber sculptures. 

Rafael Goldchain
Chilean born artist presents his latest work entitled Familial Ground, an autobiographical series of photographs in which Goldchain performs as ancestral figures from his own family history. His work is about grounding an identity within a familial and cultural history subject to extinction, geographic displacement, and cultural dislocation.

Organizer and Curator of Latin American Speakers Series: Tamara Toledo

Toledo is a Chilean born curator, artist and educator. She graduated with honours in Drawing and Painting at Ontario College of Art & Design and completed a MFA at York University . Tamara is co-founder and Visual Arts Director of the Salvador Allende Arts Festival for Peace and of the Latin American Art Projects, a not-for-profit arts organization. She is currently a recipient of the Culturally Diverse Curators grant of the Canada Council for the Arts and is in residence at A Space Gallery until November 2008. During her residency Toledo will organize a Latin American Speakers Series, curate an exhibit in September 2008 and invite guest art critic and curator Gerardo Mosquera to Toronto for a series of lectures at various educational institutions.

For further information please contact:
Tamara Toledo
Curatorial Resident
110 - 401 Richmond St. W.
Toronto , ON , M5V 3A8
Tel: 416-979-9633
Fax: 416-979-9683
tamara@aspacegallery.org

We acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, theCulture Division of the City of Toronto , the Hispanic Development Council, Alucine Film Festival, E-Fagia Collective, and Latin American Art Projects.