LOMAA

LOMAA Is Excited To Present Our First Online Series, Holding Space, highlighting Black Canadian Media Artists In an interview for Nina Simone Great Performances: College Concerts and Interviews the singer and activist states: an artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. Under current circumstances, this is quite a charge. It is the London Ontario Media Arts Association’s belief that this responsibility should not simply fall on the shoulders of arti...sts. Arts organizations are complicit and should share this duty through the provision of space and funds to vanguard creators who continue to communicate their unique perspectives, histories, and narratives. Over Fall 2020, LOMAA will highlight Black Canadian artists in a social media series titled Holding Space. Aimed at uplifting these media practitioners, this program will champion the artistic pursuits, and overall ensure the primacy, of minoritarian makers. Designed for online dissemination and digital audiences, LOMAA will feature 10 media artists, ranging from emerging to established, from across Canada who embody Nina Simone’s further statements: we will shape and mold this country. Through Holding Space LOMAA hopes to counter pervasive and continued systemic racism, a task that is vital in shaping the future of Canadian arts. PLEASE JOIN OUR INVITED ARTISTS to see and hear new works, listen to artist talks, and learn more about the practice’s of important media artists from across Canada Quentin VerCetty September 20 September 26 Sylvia D. Hamilton September 27 October 3 Jenelle Rouse October 4 October 10 Christina Battle October 11 October 17 Aaron Jones October 18 October 24 Chantal Gibson October 25 October 31 Jessica Karuhanga November 1 November 7 Abdi Osman November 8 November 14 Ronnie Clarke November 15 November 21 Madelyne Beckles November 22 November 28 Program details will be published every Sunday evening on Instagram, so make sure to follow LOMAA to stay up-to-date: https://www.instagram.com/l.o.m.a.a/ LOMAA's Holding Space series is made possible through the generous funding provided by Canada Council for the Art’s Digital Originals grant Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada!

For our final artist in the Holding Space series we are excited to present Masking The Film by artist Madelyne Beckles! You can see the work through the link in our Instagram bio or on our IGTV Both will go LIVE tomorrow and be available for viewing until Monday November 30! Madelyne Beckles is a multidisciplinary artist from Toronto. She holds a BFA in Art History and Women’s Studies and now puts her critical faculties to work as a co-host of the podcast High T. Her artw...ork explores themes of femininity and the body with abject aesthetics and camp humour, which has been shown at MoMA, the AGO, and Miami Art Basel. She is currently the Curatorial Assistant of Youth and Engagement at the AGO. Beckles has been collaborating with Delilah Rosier as 'Masking Collective' since their debut exhibition Masking is Always More Fun with a Friend in 2015. Masking Collective’s artistic objectives are to create interdisciplinary, immersive environments by incorporating a combination of readymades, collaborations and independently created artworks. Theory heavily informs their practice practice as they have, and continue to, generate works that critique the art and pop historical cannon, through an intersectional feminist lens. Follow us and stay up-to-date here: https://www.instagram.com/l.o.m.a.a/ Thanks again Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and the Digital Originals Grant!

Artist Ronnie Clarke @ronnieaaclarke will be taking over our Instagram to present her recent work soundscape, as part of our Holding Space series. Please visit us there over the next week to see and hear this project! Ronnie Clarke is a Black, queer and Canadian emerging artist living and working in Toronto, Ontario. Her work blends elements of choreography, dance, movement, collaboration, video and installation. She is interested in how language manifests, becomes translat...ed and is mediated in the digital age. With an interest in the poetics of digital gestures, spaces and interfaces, she often uses movement to investigate how technology plays a role in our interactions with others. She holds a BFA from The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Clarke has performed and exhibited professionally at a number galleries and performance venues such as Forest City Gallery (London), Artlab Gallery (London), Trinity Square Video (Toronto), and Xpace Cultural Centre (Toronto). Recent projects include a commissioned online performance for Artcite Inc. (Windsor, 2020) and an online residency at the 7th Annual Roundtable Residency (Toronto, 2019). Image: Spotlight, 2018. Performance at The Gardiner Museum with Younger than Beyonce Gallery. Photo by Yuula Benivolski. Follow us and stay up-to-date here: https://www.instagram.com/l.o.m.a.a/ Thanks again Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and the Digital Originals Grant!

Take some time and view this powerful work by Abdi Osman, available to the public until Monday November 16! https://vimeo.com/476036506

Join us on Instagram from Monday, November 9 to Saturday, November 14, 2020 to view the work of Abdi Osman. In addition, please head over to the link in our IG bio live tomorrow to watch Osman’s work Bajan Trans: new womanhoods from Barbados. The video will be available to the public from Monday November 9 to Monday, November 16, 2020. Abdi Osman is a Somali-Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on questions of black masculinity as it intersects with Muslim ...and queer identities. Follow us and stay up-to-date here: https://www.instagram.com/l.o.m.a.a/ Thanks again Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and the Digital Originals Grant!

Please join us on Instagram over the next week as artist Jessica Karuhanga facilitates a Takeover as part of our Holding Space series! Jessica Karuhanga is a Canadian Ugandan-British artist whose work addresses issues of cultural politics of identity and Black Diasporic concerns through lens-based technologies, writing, drawing and performances. Through her practice she explores individual and collective concerns of Black subjectivity illness, rage, grief, desire and longin...g within the context of Black embodiment. She has presented her work at The Bentway, Toronto, Ontario (2019), Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2018), Onsite Gallery, Toronto (2018), Museum London, London, UK (2018), and Goldsmiths, London, UK (2017). Her writing has been published by C Magazine, Susan Hobbs Gallery and Fonderie Darling. She has been featured in AGO's Artist Spotlight, i-D, DAZED, Visual Aids, Border Crossings, Toronto Star, CBC Arts, filthy dreams, Globe and Mail, and Canadian Art. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western University, Western, Ontario and Masters of Fine Arts from University of Victoria, Victoria, BC. She lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Image: Body and Soul, 2019, Single-channel video Follow us and stay up-to-date here: https://www.instagram.com/l.o.m.a.a/ Thanks again Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and the Digital Originals grant!

We are excited to share that Chantal Gibson will be the next featured artist in our Holding Space series. Please join us on our Instagram page over the following week to see some of her work and then head to the link in our IG bio tomorrow morning to view her video "The Other James Baldwin Workshop," co-created with Mily Mumford and hosted on our Vimeo page. This work will be available for public viewing until Monday November 1, 2020. Chantal Gibson is an award-winning poet-a...rtist-educator living on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Peoples. Working in the overlap between literary and visual art, she reuses everyday objects--from academic history books to kitchy souvenir spoonsto confront colonialism head on. Her art has been exhibited at the ROM, MBAM, the AGNS and Open Space Victoria. Her work Who’s Who?: A Historical In(ter)vention is installed in the Senate of Canada until June 2021. As a facilitator, Chantal works with individuals, groups, and institutions to unpack hegemonic mechanisms persistent across the Canadian landscape. Her altered book workshops, including The Other James Baldwin, imagine BIPOC voices in the silences and omissions left by cultural and historical erasure. Her debut book of poetry, How She Read (Caitlin Press, 2019) explores the representation of Black women in Canadian history, art, literature. It won the 2020 Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the 2020 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Award, and it was shortlisted for the prestigious 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. She teaches writing and design communication in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University. Photo Credit: Dale Northey Follow us and stay up-to-date here: https://www.instagram.com/l.o.m.a.a/ Thanks again Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and the Digital Originals Grant

MONDAY will be the last day Chantal Gibson’s new documentary The Other James Baldwin Workshop will be available for viewing. Don’t miss out! And head on over to our Instagram page to view other works as part of her Holding Space Takeover. ... https://vimeo.com/471803892