Wednesday, October 18, 2017
12–4pm
FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Care Work on view at the Blackwood Gallery from October 16–November 4, 2017, and as part of Take Care, Circuit 2: Care Work.
Carework as Choreography
With Cynthia Cranford, Marisa Morán Jahn, Kwentong Bayan Collective, Pinky Paglingayen
Wednesday, October, 18, 12pm-4pm
Blackwood Gallery, UTM
FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Lunch is provided.
12pm: Feminist Lunchtime Talks with CareForce (Marisa Morán Jahn), Cynthia Cranford, Kwentong Bayan Collective (Althea Balmes and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo), Pinky Paglingayen (TNO Caregivers in Transition Program)
2pm: Care Work artist-led exhibition tour
3pm: Dance Rally with Marisa Morán Jahn and local caregivers (location TBD)
Carework as Choreography begins with a round table on care work, presented as part of the Feminist Lunchtime Talks series. Kwentong Bayan Collective (Althea Balmes and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo) and Marisa Morán Jahn (CareForce) will each present their projects included in Take Care, UTM Associate Professor of Sociology Cynthia Cranford will speak to her research on personal care work in California and Ontario, and local activist Pinky Paglingayen will discuss her advocacy work as a former caregiver and now settlement counsellor with the TNO Caregivers in Transition Program.
Exploring themes such as artistic and academic modes of inquiry into care work, collaborating with caregiving communities, representing care labour processes, and workers’ responses to care crisis, the talks will be followed by an exhibition tour of Care Work with the artists and a dance rally led by Morán Jahn in collaboration with the Kwentong Bayan Collective and local caregiver communities.
This event is the first in a series of Feminist Lunchtime Talks featuring artists, writers, activists, and academics working across issues of labour, gender, race, and identity in the context of the crisis of care. The talks put artists participating in Take Care and other guest speakers into conversation with UTM faculty respondents.
The Feminist Lunchtime Talks are presented in partnership with Women and Gender Studies (UTM).
Cynthia Cranford is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, where she leads the research project “Understanding and Improving Immigrant Labour Markets for Personal Care Work: A Comparative Analysis of Public Sector Personal Care Work in North America.” She is currently writing a book comparing personal care in California and Ontario from the vantage points of workers, service users, labour and disability activists, employers, and state officials.
An artist and transmedia producer of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Morán Jahn founded Studio REV-, a non-profit organization whose key projects include El Bibliobandido, Video Slink Uganda, Contratados, the Nannyvan, an app for domestic workers that CNN named as “one of 5 apps to change the world”, and the CareForce. She is a graduate of MIT and teaches at MIT, Columbia University, and The New School.
Kwentong Bayan Collective is a collective of two Toronto-based artists, Althea Balmes and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo. Their work explores critical and intersectional approaches to community-based art, labour, and education. They are currently developing a comic book, Kwentong Bayan: Labour of Love, in close collaboration with caregivers, advocates, and community allies about the real life stories of Filipinx* migrant caregivers working in Canada under the Caregiver Program (formerly known as the Live-in Caregiver Program).
Pinky Paglingayen is from the Philippines and entered Canada through the Live-in Caregiver Program in 2004. She worked as a caregiver for three years taking care of children and the elderly. She has been involved in the organizing of caregivers and other migrant workers with Migrante since 2007. She studied in the Social Service Worker Program at George Brown College and graduated with honors. She now works as a Settlement Worker at Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, supporting caregivers and other migrant workers.
The Blackwood Gallery gratefully acknowledges the operating support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the University of Toronto Mississauga.
The Blackwood Gallery is grateful for additional support for Circuit 2: Care Work from the Department of Visual Studies (UTM); McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, Faculty of Information (UTSG); Parkland on the Glen Retirement Living; The Revue Cinema; Streetsville Public Library; Student Housing and Residence Life (UTM); Women and Gender Studies (UTM); Visual Arts Mississauga; University of Toronto Affinity Partners Manulife, TD Insurance, and MBNA.
Funding for additional staff support was made possible through the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations program, Department of Canadian Heritage. The Canadian Museums Association administers the program on behalf of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
