September 16, 2018
Canadian Fruit & Produce, 885 Avonhead Rd., Mississauga
Events are FREE and open to the public. All are welcome.
Presented as part of The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea.
Worked/Working
A Documented Conversation
Lisa Myers, Dolleen Tisawii'ashii Manning, Gabriel Allahdua, Evelyn Encalada Grez
September 16, 2018
Canadia Fruit & Produce, 885 Avonhead Rd., Mississauga
Events are FREE and open to the public. All are welcome.
Many Indigenous people have travelled from reserves in south and central Ontario to work for fruit farms in Clarkson. Considering this history and the present conditions for migrant workers, Shore Lunch brings narratives of migrant labour into conversation. Artists and scholars Dolleen Manning and Lisa Myers (both from Anishinaabe families who worked as fruit pickers/migrant workers), migrant worker Gabriel Allahdua, and Justice for Migrant Workers founder Evelyn Encalada Grez, will begin a discussion to deepen a collective understanding of this land’s use/appropriation and to build a fuller story of who worked/works the land. This session will be documented to ensure that these stories travel, grow, and add to the ongoing movement work for migrant rights, food justice, and Indigenous sovereignty.
Presented as part of The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea a site-specific exhibition, public program series, and publication platform designed to expand perspectives on climate change through artistic practices, cultural inquiry, and political mobilization.
Lisa Myers is an independent curator and artist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration. Myers has an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University. Since 2010, she has worked with anthocyanin pigment from blueberries in printmaking, and in her stop-motion animation. Her participatory performances involve sharing berries and other food items in social gatherings, reflecting on the value found in place and displacement; straining and absorbing. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and her writing has been published in a number of exhibition publications in addition to Senses and Society, C Magazine and FUSE. She is an Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Myers is a member of Beausoleil First Nation and she is based in Port Severn and Toronto.
Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning is a member of Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation, and a recipient of the SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship held at Michigan State University, September 2018-2020. Manning is an Anishinaabe artist and scholar with graduate degrees in critical theory and contemporary art. She works at the intersection of Indigenous philosophy, epistemology and ontology, critical theory, phenomenology, and art.
Gabriel Allahdua is from St Lucia and is a member of Justice for Migrant Workers. He works on farms in Ontario and speaks up for better working conditions.
Evelyn Encalada Grez is a transnational community organizer and co-founder of the award-winning collective, Justice for Migrant Workers. She has been organizing with migrant farmworkers for nearly two decades throughout rural Canada and in their home communities in Mexico and Guatemala. She has a PhD in Social Justice Education from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and her doctoral work focuses on the transnational lives of Mexican migrant women working and forging a living in rural Canada.
The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea is presented by the Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga in partnership with the City of Mississauga.
This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded in part through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.
