Self Portrait, 2023 by Flannery O'Kafka
Identity • Connection • Place
Arpita Shah, Kate Schneider, Flannery O’kafka, Clea Christakos-Gee
A Space Windows
March 8 – July 15, 2023
Reception April 1st, 2-4pm.
Feminist Photography Network is a shifting collective led by co-directors Jennifer Long and Clare Samuel based in Tkaronto. Our projects emphasize support and connection between artists rather than competition. We promote the careers of women and non-binary photographers, as well as research and reflection on the relationship between gender and lens-based media.
The web exhibition Identity•Connection•Place showcases work by sixteen artists from Canada and the UK who participated in the online peer-to-peer residencies we ran in 2017, 2020, and 2021. Identity, Connection and Place were themes weaving through these photographers’ work and our experiences of the residency itself. For many of us, this support structure helped sustain our identity as artmakers alongside demanding roles like caregiver or breadwinner. Receiving creative perspectives and research material from different cultural locations was inspiring, and resulted in many rich friendships and creative collaborations, both national and transatlantic.
These four images by Arpita Shah, Kate Schneider, Flannery O’Kafka and Clea Christakos-Gee are drawn from this larger virtual exhibition. In different ways they all explore feminine-coded bodies, framing them so they simultaneously reveal and conceal identities.
The exhibition launches on 8th March 2023 (International Women’s Day) at FPNexhibit.com with the Identity section, and the Connection and Place sections will go live on consecutive weeks. The site includes seven commissioned texts by Canadian arts writers, and three live online events:
Artist talks by Hannah Laycock and Flannery O’Kafka, in partnership with Street Level Photoworks (March 9th 13.30 EST).
Artist talk by Stacey Tyrell in partnership with Napier University (March 14th 11.00 EST).
Panel discussion with Margaret Mitchell, Arpita Shah and Fariah Aliyah Shah moderated by Liz Ikiriko (April 1st 12.00 EST).
Biographies
Arpita Shah is a photographic artist based in Eastbourne, UK who graduated from Napier University in Edinburgh in 2006. Her work focuses on home, belonging and shifting cultural identities. Recent exhibitions were at Autograph APB, Street Level Photoworks and Impressions Gallery.
Kate Schneider is an artist of settler ancestry living in Tkaronto. As a life-long resident of the Great Lakes region, her artistic practice considers her relationship to her environment during a time of climate crisis. Her work has been shown at Prefix ICA, SoHo Photo, and Harbourfront Centre.
Flannery O’kafka (she/they) is an artist who graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2018 while raising her family. All their work is an emotional document, a cumulative clumsy stab at a self portrait of the comedy of suffering, and an examination of the picturing of disability.
Clea Christakos-Gee is a visual artist holding a Photography BFA from Toronto Metropolitan University. Her lens-based work is often collaborative, inspired by loved ones and creative community, capturing the dreamy, uncanny qualities of personal memory and relationships.