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Hadassah ‘Hazy’ GreenSky is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and visual artist based in the Metro Detroit area where she was also raised. She is a member of the Waganakising Odawa peoples from the lands now referred to as Harbor Springs, Michigan. Like many other young Indigenous women in the midwest [and across the Americas], GreenSky was subject to cheap ill-mannered name-calling like “Pocahontas” by non-Indigenous people when she was growing up. Her personal experiences of racism is a condition of systemic structures and barriers held up by white supremacy all throughout North America. Speaking to GreenSky, she shared with me that…

All my life, I have been compelled to write my way through stretches of time alone, and I have never spent so much time journaling alone as I do lately—living through a global pandemic where nearly every form of socialization is either mitigated for our safety or mediated onto a screen. A notebook is a welcoming alternative to the digital sphere, where participation can blur into performance. Conversely, It is empowering to produce something only for oneself. Yet spending too much time in this mode can often feel a little absurd. Are we documenting our lives or rationalizing our private…

s we move towards reshaping the world into a reality where the most marginalized and oppressed people are able to thrive, unimpeded by state and racial violence, the mediums in which identity manifests are a moving target. Racial and ethnic categories continue to shift, dodge, and take on new forms simultaneous to the expanding social consciousness of systemic racism’s histories. Whiteness in particular continues to evade blame and repercussion for the historical, structural oppression and volatility it has and continues to systematize. Instead, we have witnessed performative allyship from individuals and institutions of power that is as ineffectual as it is…

Time is slippery, expanding, and contracting simultaneously. Forward, back, forward, back, searching for balance. Micro-movements make a dance of the fall (like the dances we do on the sidewalk, keeping our distance). Mid-slip feels endless, somehow senseless, we have no idea where the ground is or when it will arrive. (In the meantime, maybe we grow wings?) Everything is expanding and contracting now — lungs, bravery, optimism. — The flowers came late this year. Laggard blooms, stamens tightly swaddled, all wrapped up in pink. I heard it again and again, the cruelest month, the cruelest month, as if no one could…

The colonial regime owes its legitimacy to force and at no time does it endeavor to cover up this nature of things. Every statue of these conquistadors ensconced on colonial soil is a constant reminder: “We are here by the force of the bayonet.” – Frantz Fanon Now the statue is bleeding. We did not make it bleed. It is bloody at its very foundation. This is not an act of vandalism. It is a work of public art and an act of applied art criticism. – Monument Removal Brigade What are the aesthetics of carcerality that organize and regulate our psychic…

Ekene Emeka-Maduka is a master of her own visage. She is not the first, and undoubtedly will not be the last in a long line of artists that have explored the world of auto-portraiture. Her work so far has mostly consisted of images featuring the artist’s likeness, depicted against a variety of set designs, and artfully orchestrated scenes to communicate whatever she wants to send across to its viewer. At the age of 23, Emeka-Maduka is on a bit of a rising streak. Having recently come out of art school, she is already gaining recognition from the prestigious auction house, Christie’s, on their…

I met Cindy Mochizuki when I attended the artist talk for her residency at the Burrard Arts Foundation, culminating in her most recent installation work, The Sakaki Tree, a Jewel, and the Mirror (2020). The work brings out her gifts as a fortune teller and builds on Japanese myth, light, shadow, ceramic art, and puppetry. Not to play too much into the destiny of it all—but when I entered the gallery, Cindy’s eyes met mine in a warm and familiar way. I don’t want to say that she knew I was coming, but when we spoke, it felt like she already knew me. For years,…

It started with a found photograph, then another, and another. This discovery would later give way to a would-be thesis paper. But the confines of a single essay just didn’t do it. Instead, curiosity and ambition grew to allow the initial inquiry to spider out, creating this new labyrinthine collection of writing. It precedes a work of visual art, and although this textual work does not necessarily speak for the artwork in any direct way, it enriches it. Together the written and visual works culminate in the still-evolving project titled Yours to Discover. The title of this project, which centers around…

My conversation with Montreal-based artist Kandis Friesen was far from routine. In the lead up to our chat, I planned to visit Friesen’s most recent exhibit, Tape 158: New Documents from the Archives at TRUCK Gallery, here in Calgary. But just before this the province went into lockdown and the gallery was closed to the public. Rather than an in-person experience of the show, I had to rely on documentation of the exhibition provided by Friesen: an archive of the archive. While looking and listening to the documentation on my computer, in the comfort of my living room, I was drawn to the intricacy and…

This past February, I attended the Berlinale Film Festival for the first time. My partner, Omar Elhamy, had a short film in the competition, and we took the opportunity to make a holiday out of it. I was particularly curious about the Forum Expanded and went with ambitions to write about this unique program. However, for a variety of reasons, including the 300 + minute run-time of films in the exhibition portion, distance between venues, scheduling conflicts, and the looming shadow of other (overdue) writing deadlines, I decided it was good enough to just absorb what I could, and learn for next time,…