event

“We will learn to kiss and hold each other through the waves of the web. We will feed each other, re-distribute wealth, strike. We will understand our own importance from the places we must stay”.

Moved by the call of writer Mimi Zhu, CSV invites media artists and curators across Canada for a “mid-pandemic check in”, responding to the ongoing transformation (or stagnation) of our communities confronting a worldwide pandemic.
As artists, it is important to not only embrace but challenge the role of media as a form of change making, collective organizing and networking on both broader and individual scales.
Now that most major cities are in the stages of “re-opening”, has this statement rung true? How much have we adapted and learned from our physical and energetic environments? In retrospect, what has been abandoned in the push to “go back to business”? In the same breath, how has digital media become an intrinsic source of human socialization and creative ingenuity? Has our world truly become more accessible? Have we truly “learn(ed) to hold each other through the waves of the web - from the places we must stay”?

Join us on this panel with Jess Murwin, Melannie Monoceros, and Belinda Kwan, moderated by Samay Arcentales Cajas as they speak to lessons llearned and unlearned throughout this time.

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Accessibility: This event will be live captioned on Facebook and Youtube.
For any questions please contact programming@charlesstreetvideo.com
Check back here for a link to the YouTube Live

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Artist Bios

melannie monoceros is a poet and interdisciplinary artist exploring polysensory production and somatic grief through text/ile. A Black, Taino-Arak, queer and chronically ill creator, they live in Treaty 1/Winnipeg, MB; home fo the Metis First Nation and the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Dene, Cree, Dakota, and Oji-Cree Nations. In 2019, melannie was awarded the JRG Emerging Artist Award for their continued pursuit, integrating technology and accessibility through film via their series “ancestoradio”. In 2020, melannie’s work can be found at Gallery 1C03 (University of Winnipeg) and Window Gallery (Winnipeg) and the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (Brandon, MB).

Jess Murwin is a mixed nonbinary queer Mi'kmaw artist and curator currently based Montreal, Quebec. They received formal artistic training from Notre Dame de la Tilloye (France) and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Canada), as well as informal training on various sets, at artist centres and in workshops in Canada, Europe and India. Their work is largely community based, combining futurism and social engagement through a variety of mediums.
As a programmer, they have worked for the Atlantic International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, among others. Their focus in presenting films and media art works has always been to champion stories by female, LGBTQIA + and Indigenous filmmakers. They see this work as a critical way of reclaiming narrative spaces and as an important political and artistic act.
They are currently directing a new media documentary as part of the National Film Board's “Who is Otherly?”and working with Indigenous youth.

Belinda Kwan is a Chinese-Canadian settler curator interested in exhibitionary forms of critique, pedagogy, and advocacy. Her research-based practice explores how processes of knowledge translation and legitimization produce or influence transgenerational trauma. She has curated the work of locally and internationally-known artists for the Society of Literature, Science, and the Arts (US/Canada); Varley Art Gallery (Markham); Art Gallery of York University (Toronto); and Myseum of Toronto. Her projects have been featured in Canadian Art and CBC Arts.
Currently, Kwan is a Co-Director at Bunker 2 Contemporary Art Container and an executive board member of Trinity Square Video (Toronto).