the Symposium
December 16, 2023 - 9:30AM to 4PM
ABOUT
Guiding Bonds is an interdisciplinary symposium that explores peer support networks amongst BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) scholars and artists engaged in research-creation practices.
This symposium will be co-hosted by OCAD, University of Guelph, York University, and Gallery 44 on Saturday, December 16th at the OCAD U Graduate Gallery. This event will feature conversations and panels with themes exploring models for mentorship. The first day will include various presentations exploring themes related to kinship, professional mobility, reciprocity, isolation and peer support structures within arts and arts education.
This symposium is an opportunity to re-imagine research network models for BIPOC artists, designers, and scholars, as a way to further relationships, strategies, structures, and institutional change. It will feature local and diasporic BIPOC scholars and practitioners who insert narratives of resistance, difference, and social change in creative practices using community, media, performance, literature, technology and interdisciplinary approaches.
On Sunday, December 17th, a Book Sprint will be held at Gallery 44 to gather and cement knowledge from the symposium participants and their respective program outcomes.
Symposium Schedule
December 16, 2023 9:30 AM to 4 PM
at the OCAD Graduate Gallery (205 Richmond St. W, 1st Floor)
This event is open to the public, and reserve your ticket
Check-In & Coffee
9:30 AM - 10 AM
Opening Remarks
10 AM – 10:45 AM
Internationally renowned artist and educator Camille Turner will begin the day by offering us some insights and reflections on how mentorship has played a role in her decades-long practice.
Speaker
Camille Turner
Community and Collectives
PANEL
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM
This panel explores emerging experiences that artistic collectives and artist organizations encounter while developing mentorship relationships across various communities and peer-to-peer networks. Mentorship can be wide, brief, deep, and reciprocal – these relationships can take various forms based on the desires of the participants and the environments they are fostered in.
panelists
Aysia, Tse, Annie Wong, and Shellie Zhang
Moderator
Alana Traficante
Break
12:15 PM - 12:30 PM
Within/Without (Systems)
Panel
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Thinking outside of the traditional hierarchy of mentorship, scholars and practitioners have created informal events and spaces for skill sharing with academically underrepresented communities. These tools and familiar environments support the innovation of new research models, extended research networks, and strategies for advancing their professional development.
panelists
Carmela Alfaro-Laganse and Daniela Bascuñán
Moderator
Immony Men
Lunch
1:30 PM - 2 PM
Isolation and kinship
Panel
2:00 PM – 3:00 pm
What does it mean to name someone a mentor? Across institutions and departments BIPOC scholars and practitioners can experience moments of isolation due to a lack of representation in their discipline. Diverse notions of kinship can offer scholars a network of care from individuals who hold similar cultural positioning or affinities. These mentorship relationships can exist across institutions and disciplines, they are the bond that keep us invested and committed to each other.
Speakers
Casey Mecija and Dina Georgis
Break
3:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Closing Discussion
3:15 PM – 4pm
In this Closing Discussion, Peter Morin, Nicole Neidhardt and Justine Woods will share their experience with reciprocal mentorship and their mentor-mentee roles using the Tāłtān phrase, translated here into English, as a prompt: I am moved and changed by the works you’ve shared with me.
Speakers
Peter Morin, Nicole Neidhardt, and Justine Woods
Location
OCAD Graduate Gallery
205 Richmond St. West
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 1V3
Funders
Partners
