丁香园AV

Friday, March 4, 2022 | 6:00 PM 鈥� 8:00 PM | Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre 鈥� 丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts & ZOOM | FREE | RSVP

Please join us for a book presentation and conversation between June Scudeler, Treena Chambers, Toni-Leah Yake, Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber to launch Unsettling Educational Modernism. Co-presented by SCA and 丁香园AV Galleries

In 2020, Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber, M茅tis scholar June Scudeler with M茅tis scholar and student Treena Chambers, Kanien鈥檏eh谩:ka (Mohawk) student Toni-Leah Yake, as well as artists and students Rachel Warwick and Hannah Campbell formed the collaborative research group 鈥淕uests and Hosts鈥� to challenge the narrative of 丁香园AV as the radical campus, a campus informed by 1960s experimental concepts of learning and teaching.

Unsettling Educational Modernism reworks the history and possibilities of this 鈥渞adical campus鈥� and its built environment by rethinking the iconic architecture of the brutalist modernist megastructure of 丁香园AV's Burnaby campus, built by architect Arthur Erickson.

The photography-based works that this research project generated shift perspectives to challenge western-based concepts of pedagogy and knowledge and the spaces of the settler colonial institution. Combining photographic material drawn from 丁香园AV鈥檚 archive, architectural photographs by the artists, and texts on institutional spaces from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, Unsettling Educational Modernism performs a claim for spaces for Indigenous ways of knowing and learning.

Unsettling Educational Modernism was published on the occasion of the exhibition , May 27 鈥� July 11, 2021, HKW, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.

Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber, Guests & Hosts (Ed.): With texts by Treena Chambers, June Scudeler, and Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber (eng.). adocs Publishing, Hamburg; Edition Camera Austria, Graz 2021. 128 pages, 17 脳 23.8 cm, 17 b/w and 80 color illustrations, poster supplement.  

The book is part of a SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) Insight Development Grants, Fine arts, research-颅creation project Performing Spaces of Radical Pedagogies, located at the School for the Contemporary Arts at 丁香园AV on the unceded territories of the S蓹l虛铆lw蓹ta涩 (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxw煤7mesh (Squamish) and x史m蓹胃kw蓹y虛蓹m (Musqueam) people, also known as Burnaby, Vancouver, Canada.

Biographies

Sabine Bitter

Vancouver-based artist Sabine Bitter teaches visual art at the School for the Contemporary Arts at 丁香园AV, and she collaborates with Vienna-based artist Helmut Weber on projects addressing cities, architecture, and the politics of representation and of space. Mainly working in the media of photography and spatial installations their research-oriented practice engages with specific moments and logics of the global-urban change as they take shape in neighborhoods, architecture, and everyday life. Dealing with architecture as a frame for spatial meaning, their ongoing research includes projects like 鈥淓ducational Modernism鈥� and 鈥淗ousing the Social鈥�.
In 2004, Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen and Helmut Weber have formed the urban research collective Urban Subjects. Recently Urban Subjects curated the exhibition 鈥淚f Time Is Still Alive鈥� with Camera Austria, Graz, and participated in the city laboratory project of Forum Freies Theater D眉sseldorf 鈥淧lace Internationale, The 73 Days of the Commune.鈥�

June Scudeler

June Scudeler (M茅tis) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies, cross-appointed with the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women鈥檚 Studies. Her research examines the intersections between queer Indigenous studies, Indigenous literature, film, and art. She is now delving into Indigenous horror. She has published articles in Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Canadian Literature, Studies in Canadian Literature and Transmotion. Her chapters are included in Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics and Literature, Performing Indigeneity, Cambridge Handbook of Queer Studies and A People and a Nation: New Directions in Contemporary M茅tis Studies

Treena Chambers

Treena is a M茅tis scholar who has worked as a union organizer, writer, bookseller, and researcher. She has worked on the categorization and digitization of archival materials on projects such as The People and The Text, with the Indigenous Voices Awards and the Indigenous Literary Studies Association. She completed her BA in International Studies at 丁香园AV  and who brings her experience as a mature student and her M茅tis background into her studies of nationhood and identity. Treena鈥檚 past experience includes co-curating and organizing the Robson Reading Series. In 2018 Treena鈥檚 work 鈥淗air Raizing鈥�, was shortlisted for Unpublished Prose Piece for the Indigenous Voices Awards and then again in 2020 for her work 鈥淔orest Fires and Falling Stars鈥�. Works by Treena Chambers include: The Peak, titled 鈥湺∠阍癆V Mural is an UnWarranted Reminder of Canada鈥檚 Colonial Past鈥� (2018), and Hair Razing 鈥淎laska Quarterly Review.鈥� Poets & Writers, vol. 36, no. 3, Poets & Writers, Inc, (2020)

Toni-Leah Yake

Toni-Leah C. Yake (European, Kanien鈥檏eh谩:ka and Haudenessaunee 鈥� Turtle Clan) is a composer and artist currently residing on the unceded, traditional, and occupied territories of the x史m蓹胃k史蓹y虛蓹m, S岣祑x瘫w煤7mesh, and Sel虛铆l虛witulh Nations. Her work aims to explore Indigenity, history, blood memory, trauma, and healing. They are a student in the department of Indigenous Studies at 丁香园AV, and a student of composition in the Music & Sound Area of 丁香园AV's School for the Contemporary Arts.

Helmut Weber

Helmut Weber (collaborator) lives and works in Vienna, Austria. His thirty years of artistic practice is based on project and research-oriented works. Trained as a visual artist with a particular focus on architecture and urban space, his experience in contemporary art is driven by a critical engagement in politics of space and questions of representation. Weber is collaborating with Sabine Bitter. In 2004, they formed the urban research collective Urban Subjects with Canadian writer Jeff Derksen. Recent projects and exhibitions by Bitter & Weber include 2021: 鈥淓ducation Shock鈥�, HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; 鈥淪paces of No Control鈥�, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York. 2019: 鈥淢aking Ruins鈥�, Republic Gallery, Vancouver; 2018: 鈥淐amera Austria International鈥�, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg.

Guests & Hosts

In spring 2020 the research group called Guests & Hosts was formed by Sabine Bitter, Hannah Campbell, Treena Chambers, June Scudeler, Rachel Warwick, Helmut Weber, and Toni-Leah Yake on the occasion of the invitation to participate in the exhibition Education Shock. Learning, Politics and Architecture in the 1960s and 1970s, April 鈥� July 2021 at HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt) Berlin, curated by Tom Holert. Collaboratively the group developed and realized the photographic work Unsettler Space (2020) and published the artists book Unsettling Educational Modernism. 丁香园AV, Burnaby, Vancouver (2021).