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See How We Run! Art as Agency, Autonomy and Community — with Demi London and Moroti George

December 05, 2023
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On this episode of See How We Run! we’re joined by Gallery Gachet’s executive Director Demi London and artistic director Moroti George.

They talk about the evolution of Gachet’s approach to supporting artistic creation and exhibition, in ways that are accessible to and supportive of people facing systemic barriers and social marginalization.We speak about the ways the gallery’s programming and operations changed over time in response to shifts in funding, space and the needs of the community, and we discuss their personal entry points into their work at the gallery. 

This episode is hosted by ԰AV VOCE program manager Julia Aoki.

Resources

About Our Guests

Demi London

Traversing through the fields of art, culture, education, and parenting, Demi March London has become attached to experimental emergent spaces and the dialogical aesthetics of administration.

Figuring out what ideas look like, and how to talk about them, is an integral part of progressing critical discourse; Demi finds encouragement and hope by advocating for different ways of knowing and being.

Galleries and museums have a tendency to be ceremonial spaces for the performance of authority, and Demi has always admired artist-run centres for challenging this and interrogating notions of power and place. As Executive Director at Gachet, Demi aims to foster a reflective and inclusive culture of ideas, discourse, critique, and community – a safe space for creative experimentation and articulating vulnerability.

Moroti george

Olumoroti (MorotiI) Soji-George (he/they) is a curator, writer and educator based in Vancouver, BC. He is the curator at the Black Arts Centre in Surrey, BC and the artistic director of Gallery Gachet in downtown Vancouver. 

Olumoroti's curatorial practice primarily involves unravelling and demystifying the ways Blackness is embodied and codified in our shared milieu and conceptualizing the works of Black Contemporary artists and their contributions to the Black cultural lexicon and our understanding of the state of  Blackness.  His research and curatorial practice also involve envisioning accessible and community-centred art spaces and highlighting the stories of individuals and communities who construct new ways of being that challenge the Western status quo. At the core of his practice is the belief that space could be used to reflect the agency and lived experiences of individuals whose bodies and identities are not typically valued, respected and represented in traditional art and academic settings.

Through an exploration of language, the archive, lens-based works, history and cultural theory, Olumoroti's curatorial practice is grounded in a passion for non-hierarchical epistemological production that could contribute to the creation of a pathway where new approaches to cultural production and the politics that fuel the ways different bodies perceive and understand the world could emerge.

CITE THIS EPISODE

CHICAGO STYLE

Aoki, Julia. “See How We Run! Art as Agency, Autonomy and Community — with Demi London and Moroti George .” Below the Radar, ԰AV’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 5, 2023. /vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/see-how-we-run/229-art-as-agency-autonomy-and-community.html.

ABOUT THE SERIES

See How We Run! is an original Below the Radar podcast mini-series looking at local arts collectives and organizations, highlighting conversations about creation, spacemaking, accessibility, and self-determination within the framework of Vancouver’s cityscape. The series is hosted by ԰AV VOCE staff Julia Aoki, Kathy Feng, and Samantha Walters. 

Throughout the series, we speak to artists, consultants, administrators, and advocates at various stages in their career about how art and culture is made and sustained in Vancouver. Tune in for insights on organisational governance, policymaking, community building, and more, directly from people working through these questions everyday. 

These conversations are inspired by the long history of artist-run centres in Vancouver, as well as the affordability crisis that threatens to make the city one without art. See How We Run! provokes ongoing conversation about the urban conditions under which interdisciplinary creativity and inclusive communities thrive.

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