Nebulous Straits
As considerations of what futurisms of many different diasporas in art can be are expanded, visions of collective futures can become cloudy. However, ‘Nebulous Straits’ offers an approach to diasporic futurisms that allows diasporic artists to find tethers to vast oceans of knowledge and care that center the notion that many voices, perspectives, and visions can be made possible alongside and in support of one another.
‘Nebulous Straits’ is a virtual residency hosted by Diasporic Futurisms. The residency is facilitating space for three residents, Rihab Esseyh, Josephine Lee, and Faune Ybarra, to:
- expand their community through weekly meetings,
- build on their knowledge for the field of practice through group discussions, readings, and discussions,
- develop a new or existing project relating to themes of diasporic futurisms,
- participate in a public feedback session,
- and exhibit their artwork in a cumulative online exhibition.
Each artist is developing their work in this residency in relation to a wide array of themes and within different modes of production—making dandelion jam and sewing leaves as decolonial gestures, developing armor for marginalized people that cares for the wearer, and building digitized visions of textile worlds in SketchUp that honor the collective agencies of SWANA women.
A public talkback session is scheduled to take place in partnership with InterAccess on December 1 between 6pm and 7:30pm EST.
The talkback session will serve as an opportunity for each of the residents to present the work they’ve developed in the program and preview some of the work that will be included in the virtual exhibition. The last thirty minutes of the session will be dedicated to responding to curator and audience questions.
artists in residence
Rihab Essayh is a Canadian-Moroccan interdisciplinary artist whose large-scale, immersive installations create spaces of slowing down and softening. Her research considers issues of isolation and disconnection in the digital age, imagining futurities of soft-strength and social reconnection by proposing a heightened attunement to colour, costume, tactility and sound.
Josephine Lee is a first-generation immigrant and transdisciplinary artist informed by a lifetime of movement through the United States, Canada, and South Korea. Lee’s work interrogates the psychic impact of cultural assimilation and naturalization through migration, alongside issues of ecological and racial justice within technology. Lee has received a BSA in Animal Science from the University of Saskatchewan (CA), a BFA in Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia (CA), and an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons (US), and is currently working on a practice-based PhD in Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University (CA). Lee resides on the unceded and occupied ancestral and traditional lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Currently located in Vancouver, Faune Ybarra is a diasporic artist originally from Oaxaca and Mexico City. Due to the experience of constantly moving and adapting, Ybarra conceives of her body as a site of translation from whence she attempts to communicate with the other- than-human.
Nebulous Straits is produced with the support of the City of Toronto through Toronto Arts Council.
