September 15, 2018
Southdown Rd. at Lakeshore Rd., Mississauga
Events are FREE and open to the public. All are welcome.
Presented as part of The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea.
miinawaa // also; and; again
A Conversation on Transgenerational Environmental Violence
Vanessa Gray, Erica Violet Lee, Dylan A.T. Miner, Michelle Murphy
September 15, 2018
Southdown Rd. at Lakeshore Rd., Mississauga
Events are FREE and open to the public. All are welcome.
A poet, an artist, an activist, and an historian of science discuss transgenerational environmental violence, thinking and working from non-linear histories and futurities. Exploring the infrastructures and decolonial futures of life already affected by chemical contamination in the Great Lakes and Chemical Valley, the conversation will turn to decolonizing environmental justice from the perspective of grassroots organizing, land defense, and education.
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.
Vanessa Gray is a 25-year-old Anishinaabe kwe from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, located in Canada’s Chemical Valley. As an organizer with Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against Pipelines (ASAP), she works with community members to bring awareness to the health issues resulting from her reserve’s toxic surroundings. On December 21, 2015, Vanessa was arrested for shutting down Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline.
Erica Violet Lee is a two-spirit nēhiyaw writer and community organizer from westside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She has a BA in political theory from the University of Saskatchewan, and is now a graduate student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, pursuing her master’s degree in the department of Social Justice Education with a focus on Indigenous feminist freedom and embodied sovereignties.
Dylan A.T. Miner is a Wiisaakodewinini (Métis) artist, activist, and scholar. He is Director of American Indian and Indigenous Studies and Associate Professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. Miner sits on the Michigan Indian Education Council, is a founding member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, has been featured in over 20 solo exhibitions, and been an artist in residence or visiting artist at institutions across North America and Europe. He holds a PhD from The University of New Mexico and has published more than sixty journal articles, book chapters, critical essays, and encyclopedia entries, and numerous limited-edition artist books/booklets. He recently commenced the Bootaagaani-minis ∞ Drummond Island Land Reclamation Project and is uncertain if he will return to academic writing.
Michelle Murphy works on decolonial feminist technoscience studies. She is the author of three books including The Economization of Life (Duke University Press, 2017). She is director of the Technoscience Research Unit, which hosts a social justice technoscience lab with a specific focus on environmental and data justice. Murphy is a Professor of History and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. She is Métis from Winnipeg.
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.
