Over the course of 4 days, a group of curious and thoughtful artists, filmmakers, critics, and academics engaging with Latin American artistic production in Canada will take part in the First Latin American Media Arts Symposium (LAMAS). The symposium aims to explore questions about how media arts spaces and institutions are or are not supporting the visibility of Latin American media arts and film in Canada. It will also explore the idea of how we can move forward through local and transnational collaboration.
LAMAS includes panel discussions, round tables, performances, and special collaborations with local arts organizations. The symposium is taking place on October 4-7, 2023 at the Friends House in Toronto.
PROGRAM AT A GLANCE
Wednesday, October 4th (2:30-6:30pm)
Panel: Academics, critics, and curators speakers Laura Levin, Diana Sánchez, Tamara Toledo, and Luz Sierra will discuss the ecosystem of Latin American media art in Canada, informed by their experiences working for, as well as directing academic, commercial, and artistic institutions.
Collective creativity: Creato, a network of Latin American creators, artists, designers, and community organizers across Canada, will host a space of conversation and collective creativity while talking about the future of our creative communities in Toronto.
Thursday, October 5th (3:30-6:30 pm)
Performance: Montréal-based and Colombian performer Helena Martín Franco, the Elephant Woman, disturbs the space she occupies—the colonial space, an always already violent ground, where individuals and communities are classified within a hierarchical system of value.
Panel: Archival Visitations.
Camila Salcedo’s interdisciplinary practice, in particular her work with the Textile Museum and the Gardiner Museum’s collections, approaches material objects, sometimes fragmented and incomplete, as starting points for speculative futures.
In his ongoing work with UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, Jorge Ayala-Isaza seeks to entangle canonic history and proposes creative approximations to repositories of history.
Kevin Coleman’s investment in a photographic representation of victims of the 1928 Massacre of Banana Workers in Colombia ponders on the corporate techniques of erasure, and possible revindications of overlooked histories.
Friday, October 6th (3:30-6:30 pm)
Panel: On Loss: Migrant Relationalities
Artists Helena Martín Franco and Alexandra Gelis will convene with curator Claudia Arana to discuss their artistic inquiries in relation to their experiences of migration.
While Martín Franco focuses on the embodiment of diasporic discounters and miscommunications between the newcomer and the local, Gelis wonders about the possibilities of mourning in the distance, and the role of human and non-human relationality in expressing and processing a deterritorialized grief.
Panel: Poetics of Arrival
Artist José Andrés Mora’s text-based practice, through which he seeks to build a sense of belonging and home, will enter into conversation with Anahí González’s photographic work, which delves into the representation of Mexican immigration and labour in North America.
Filmmakers Luísa Cruz, from Brasília, and Derek Sands, from Walpole Island First Nation, will present their collaborative work which contemplates the possibilities of coding newcomer experiences through a lens of Indigenous land ethics.
Saturday, October 7th (3:30-6:30 pm)
Panel: Political Praxes of Memory: Diaspora Media Art Archives
Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda, a media artist and historian, Sarah Shamash, a scholar and filmmaker, and Zaira Zarza, an art historian and curator navigate the nuanced interplay of memory, feminist strategies, and cultural narratives, and delve into Latin American diaspora media art archives.
Collective Listening: Hosted by the producers of three sound-based projects looking at human and non-human relationality, this event explores ideas of homecoming, nostalgia, and futurity. Led by Bernardo García, Luis Navarro Del Angel, Luisa Isidro Herrera, Nicole Marchesseau, and Johan Sander Puustusmaa.
All panels and events are open to the public, and entrance will be FREE! Please register in advance at alucinefestival.com.
