Image Credits: Courtesy of the artist.

Main Gallery

According To Whether

Artist

Lesley Loksi Chan

Curated by:

Sally Frater

Exhibition Dates:

September 1, 2017

- October 14, 2017

Opening Reception:

September 8, 2017 7:00 pm

In her new body of work According To Whether, Lesley Loksi Chan looks at educational materials used in North American elementary schools to reflect on broader issues of identity formation and to think through processes of knowledge, learning, and decision-making.

The particular sets of felt cut-outs used in this series were manufactured and printed during the late 1960s-1980s, a time when discourses of “diversity” were shifting but not yet normalized across dominant teaching methods. Though such materials were originally intended to be used for children, these pedagogical tools are re-contextualized here as cultural artifacts to address wider concerns at play both inside and outside the classroom including reflections on the complicated experience of memory and nostalgia.

Artist Biography:

Lesley Loksi Chan’s multidisciplinary works have been exhibited internationally and often explore the ambiguous ways in which the personal connects to wider cultural meanings through everyday objects and imaging technologies. Her eclectic practice is a constellation of inquiries that look into the ever-changing concepts and experiences of identity and hybridity. Chan has led several community-based educational projects, typically with a soft focus on the hand-made and the analogue. Her work as an artist and educator has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Chan was born in Hamilton and lives in Toronto.

Find more of her work online at lesleyloksichan.com.

Curator Biography:

Sally Frater holds an Honours BA in Studio Art from the University of Guelph and an MA in Contemporary Art from The University of Manchester/Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Curatorially, she is interested in decolonization, space and place, Black and Caribbean diasporas, photography, art of the everyday, and issues of equity and representation in museological spaces. She is the curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of Guelph and is the co-director of Artistic Programs at Emerging Curators Institute.