One of These Things is Not Like the Other
Pamila Matharu, Sister Co-Resister
A Space Main Gallery
March 15 – April 20, 2019
Curated by: Vicky Moufawad-Paul
Copresented by: Images Festival
With accompanying text by Sajdeep Soomal
Artist and Curator Talk: Saturday, April 13th, 1:00pm
One of These Things is Not Like the Other explores the politics of archives, decolonial aesthetics, and self-preservation. Pamila Matharu has created two installations that incorporate new media, archived texts, and a site-specific installation – a collaborative shraddhanjali (Panjabi/Urdu/Hindi word for homage) and baithak (Panjabi/Urdu/Hindi word for lounge).
Using discarded videotapes from the archives as a starting point for a critical analysis to examine the role of institutional critique, institutional memory, systemic erasure, and cultural safety, Matharu works through these two projects to ask how do we survive in archives and how are we erased. Simultaneously, they explore the impact of the absences of non-hegemonic cultural production in the ongoing project of archives.
Keywords: institutional critique / erasure / memory, decolonial aesthetics, counter-response / narrative / archive, difference, otherness, inclusionism exhibition-as-medium
Returning the Gaze salon series organized by Sister Co-Resister
Returning the Gaze Salon Series draws on honouring ancestral wisdom to queer ‘care’ forward in the name of feminist cultural production, radical hospitality as an act of returning the gaze. As an intentional act of care, space-making and redistribution, Sister Co-Resister hosts a roster of artists, activists and thinkers to take up space in the Dear Amrita baithak – meditating on coexistence and co-resistance with a weekly gathering space to connect, investigate, unlearn, and recharge through relational dialogue, conversations and tea:
March 23, 3-5pm Queering Tkaranto: Beyond Performative Allyship Natalie King, Fallon Simard, and Solskin Brask
March 30, 3-5pm Indians from All Directions: Anupa Mistry
April 6, 12-3pm An invitational response by Project Chroma: Archiving BIPOC Artists in Canada: April Aliermo
April 10, 7-9pm Can We Talk About The Kardashians and Khalistan? Rachna Raj Kaur
April 13, 3-5pm who’s home on native land? South Asians and their role as non-Indigenous treaty partners Nishant Upadhyay with Binish Ahmed, Sabina Chatterjee, Rinchen Dolma & Mita Hans
April 20, 3-5pm An afternoon with @ southasia.art: Noor Bhangu with Misbah Ahmed, Fysal Amirzada, Amrit Brar, Harmeet Rehal
Biographies
Pamila Matharu is visual artist, educator and cultural producer living in Toronto. Her art practice is informed by a mash-up of contemporary world culture that goes beyond limits, boundaries, and borders of all natures. She is a 2nd Generation South-Asian Canadian, born in Birmingham, UK and raised in the bland & beauty of the Toronto suburbs. The artist acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council.
Sister Co-Resister’s Dear Amrita collaborative salon baithak includes works by Misbah Ahmed, Justin Aranha, Amrit Brar, Bonerkill, Yan Wen Chang, Emelie Chhangur, Heidi Cho, Annanda DeSilva, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Jatinder Singh Durhailay, Marilyn Fernandes, Amandeep Singh Gill, Jasjyot Singh Hans, Ayqa Khan, Zahra Komeylian, Ness Lee, Sab Meynert, Allyson Mitchell, Zinnia Naqvi, Sojourner Truth Parsons, Jaclyn Quaresma, Andrew Reyes, Zanette Singh, SAD ART STORE, Annie Wong and Curtia Wright.
Vicky Moufawad-Paul (she/her) is a Toronto based curator and writer. She is the Director/Curator at A Space Gallery. She has curated exhibitions at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Carlton University Art Gallery, Gallery 101, MAI: Montreal arts interculturels, Latitude 53, Museum London, McIntosh Gallery, Contact Photography Festival, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, A Space Gallery, and 16 Beaver. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario and an MFA in Film and Video from York University. Moufawad-Paul has published texts on several artists including Harun Farocki, James Luna, Emily Jacir, Wafaa Bilal, Taysir Batniji, Paul Dennis Miller, Deirdre Logue, Mohammed Mohsen, Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen, Juan Ortiz-Apuy, Basil AlZeri, Erica Lord, John Halak, Rehab Nazzal, Adam Broomberg, Oliver Chanarin, Akram Zaatari, and Yto Barrada.