Skip to content Skip to main navigation

Participants: Night of Ideas 2019

Join artists, philosophers, and scientists for a night of thinking through the urgencies of our time for the Night of Ideas 2019#NightOfIdeasTO

Note: Participants listed are subject to change. Click here for the schedule.

KEYNOTE

Novelist, poet, essayist, born in Pointe-Noire (Congo-Brazzaville), Alain Mabanckou is the author of more than twenty novels translated into fifteen languages. With writing rich in wordplay, philosophy and humour, he is a leading Francophone novelist of his generation. Broken Glass (2005) revealed him to the general public, and he won the prestigious Renaudot Prize for Memoirs of a Porcupine (2006). His recent novel Black Moses (2015) was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. He was elected at the Chaire de creation artistique at the Collège de France (2015-2016), and currently lives in the United States where he is Professor in Francophone literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. His new book, Les cigognes sont immortelles (2018), was just published.

Respondent

Alexie Tcheuyap is Professor at the Department of French, University of Toronto. He has previously taught in Cameroon and at the University of Calgary, and has been Visiting Professor in South Africa, the United States, Germany and France. He holds a Doctorat de Troisième Cycle in Literature from the University of Yaoundé and a Ph.D in French Studies from Queen’s University. His main areas of research are media studies, Francophone African literatures and Francophone African cinemas. Amongst his publications include Postnationalist African Cinemas (2011), Autoritarisme, Presse et Violence au Cameroun (2014), and an upcoming title on how security is framed in media discourse on Boko Haram.

 

FACING ZONES OF DETENTION

At the threshold between spaces, territories and nations, new modes of infrastructure emerge: dreams of permanence but also zones of detention. How can architecture reshape human displacement, statelessness, and redefine borders? How is it possible to deliver fair and efficient processing of applications for asylum seekers and large groups of people with dignity and safety being of paramount concerns? What responsibility do professionals in design, architecture, administration and human rights have in managing large crowds of people? How to make the strange and different more sustainable and welcoming?

Fabienne Brugère is Professor of Philosophy at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, the President of the Academic Council, Université Paris Lumières, and a member of the editorial board of the Esprit. Her recent publication with Guillaume Le Blanc, La Fin de l’hospitalité (2017), examines the reduction of undocumented peoples from a part of a population, which lent directly to the exhibition Persona Grata organized by the Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration (Paris). Brugère has also taught at the Universities of Hamburg, Munich and Quebec. Her research interests focus on the philosophy of art, morals and politics. Her other publications include Le sexe de la solicitude (2008), L’éthique du care (2017), , and she is a collaborator for collections at the Editions of the Waterfront and the Editions ENS Lyon. Brugère was recognized as a Knight of the Legion of Honor (2015).

Anne Bordeleau is the O’Donovan Director of the School of Architecture, Waterloo University, a registered architect in Quebec and a historian. She completed her professional degree and Masters in the history and theory of architecture from McGill University, and her PhD from Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London. Her research interests include the epistemology of the architectural project as well as the historiographical and practical bearing of investigating the relations between architecture and time. Bordeleau has published articles in a variety of international journals (such as the Journal of Architecture, Architectural Theory Review, and Architectural History) and was also the exhibition principal on Architecture as Evidence and The Evidence Room, an exhibition created for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale (2016).

Hanna Gros is an immigration lawyer, an International Human Rights Program and the 2016-2017 IHRP Senior Fellow at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, and co-author of No Life for a Child (2016). She is a lead advocate on immigration detention with the IHRP and is currently working on her fourth report focusing on procedural fairness and evidence testing in detention review hearings. She has presented at several conferences in locations including Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Costa Rica.

Rasha Elendari is a PhD student of Middle Eastern archaeology and the president/co-founder of Cultural Exchange and Support Initiative (CESI): a student-led educational and humanitarian group supporting newcomer youth with language acquisition, continuing studies, and the settlement process through weekly workshops held on the downtown university-campus. This hub brings U of T students wanting to learn Arabic together with newcomers to create a vibrant educational and social community. Elendari also cofounded the Syria Solidarity Collective (SSC) in 2013 at the University of Toronto to raise awareness about the war in her country. This group organizes talks by visiting scholars and stages demonstrations against the Assad regime. In year 2016 -2017, she was a Research Assistant in a SSHRC funded research project titled “Parenting Stress in Settlement: assessing parenting strains and buffers among Syrian refugee parents during early integration into Canada” at the Department of Sociology at U of T. Elendari is a former Fulbright Scholar.

Moderator

Alison Mountz is Professor of Geography, Canada Research Chair in Global Migration, Director of the International Migration Research Centre, and co-editor of the journal Politics & Space (Environment & Planning C). Mountz explores how people cross borders and access migration and asylum policies, studying the tension that exists between the decisions, displacements, and desires that drive human migration and the policies/practices that attempt to manage this phenomenon. She is currently working on projects that examine the use of big data to understand human displacement and on the United States war resister migration to Canada, funded by SSHRC, Canada. Recent recognitions include becoming an Inducted Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada (2016), and the Meridian Book Prize from the Association of American Geographers for her book Seeking Asylum: Human Smuggling and Bureaucracy at the Border (2011).

 

FACING DISLOCATION

The world is facing the largest number of internationally displaced persons in history. The driving factors behind mass migration and human displacement go beyond political instability and environmental changes. What can we learn from the histories of (mass) migration, and how can we shape collective responses today? What strategies can/must be undertaken to assist, protect, and facilitate durable solutions?  How can revival re-activate systems of knowledge?

Marine Denis is an IRIS (Institut de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux sociaux) and CERAP (Centre d’Études et de Recherches Administratives et Politiques) PhD Candidate at Université Paris 13 and EHESS. Her ongoing doctoral research analyses the legal responsibility of the UNHCR and IOM in the protection of environmentally displaced people in South Asia. She is currently a research assistant of the ‘Environmental Diplomacy and Geopolitics’ (EDGE) EU H2020 project in Sciences Po médialab research center. She recently joined the FORCCAST project (FORmation par la Cartographie des Controverses à l’Analyse des Sciences et Techniques), an educational project led by Sciences Po. She co-founded the project Youth on the Move, a collaborative research and action project on climate migrants, dedicated to the issue of youth and climate migrations.

Syed Hussan is a Toronto-based activist, organizer and writer in Toronto working with undocumented and migrant people, in defense of Indigenous sovereignty, and against counter-intuitive programs like war and capitalism. He is a coordinator for the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and the Coalition for Migrant Worker Rights Canada. He is co-creator, with Imposter host Aliya Pabani, of Remember January 29, an online memory project asking Canadians and others to make where they were when they first heard news of the Quebec mosque shooting.

Marc Carbonell is a member of SOS Mediterranée, a European, maritime-humanitarian organisation of rescuers in the Mediterranean.

Moderator

John Monahan is the 12th Warden of Hart House at the University of Toronto. In previous professional roles, John has been a lawyer, bureaucrat, and diplomat. He spent 13 years in various roles with the Government of Ontario, including as Ontario’s first Senior Economic Officer in New York City and then as Director of International Representation & Research. He also served as the inaugural Executive Director of the Mosaic Institute, growing it from a small start-up into an internationally-recognized “think and do” tank focused on diaspora engagement, inter-community dialogue and the development of young Canadians into peace-focused “global citizens”.

 

CURATORIAL & ARTIST TOUR IN UTAC

Catherine Crowston is curator of Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada, on view at the University of Toronto Art Centre, Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Crowston is Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Art Gallery of Alberta. Over the course of her career, Crowston has curated over 50 exhibitions and overseen the production of numerous national travelling exhibition projects, partnerships and publications. She has held positions at Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre, Art Gallery of York University, and Board of Directors of Fuse Magazine. In addition to her work at the AGA, Crowston has taught courses on curatorial practice and public art at the University of Alberta, and currently serves on the McEwan University Fine Arts Advisory Board. She has received awards such as the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Visual Arts, as well as the City of Edmonton Salute to Excellence Award for her ongoing direction of the Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art.

Jonathan Shaughnessy is curator of Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada, on view at the University of Toronto Art Centre, Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Shaughnessy is Associate Curator, Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Visual Arts, University of Ottawa. He is also pursuing his PhD at the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Arts and Culture (ICSLAC), Carleton University where his international research focuses on Canadian contemporary art production and its institutional collection as related to issues of globalization, transnationalism, and diaspora. He has curated numerous exhibition projects, including 2017 Canadian Biennial, “100 Years Today” in Shine a Light: Canadian Biennial 2014, and Louise Bourgeois: 1911-2010. His most recent publication Points of Departure: Vera Frenkel Words and Works (2016) followed from the major survey exhibition on the Toronto artist he organized for the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (now MOCA) in 2014.

Sarindar Dhaliwal is a participating artist in Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada. Working in a range of media that includes installation, video, photography, and drawing, Dhaliwal weaves compelling narratives that explore issues of culture, migration, and identity. Addressing difficult personal and collective narratives in lush, visually-stunning works that employ vibrant colours and floral motifs, Dhaliwal’s thought-provoking work responds to colonial histories with a critical approach that maintains reverence for wonder and imagination so that, as the artist describes, she may return beauty to the world. She received her BFA with a concentration in sculpture at University College Falmouth, UK, and her MFA from York University. She is currently enrolled in the Cultural Studies PhD program at Queens University. Dhaliwal was the 2012 recipient of the Canada Council International Residency at Artspace in Sydney, Australia. She has exhibited widely in Canada since the 1980s. 

Moderator

Barbara Fischer is Executive Director/Chief Curator of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. She is also Associate Professor, Teaching Stream and Director of the Master of Visual Studies program in Curatorial Studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Fischer has curated award-winning solo and group exhibitions in the area of contemporary art and its histories.

 

A CONVERSATION WITH…

Indu Vashist is curator of P. Mansaram: The Medium is the Medium is the Medium, on view at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Vashist is Executive Director of South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC). She holds a Master of Arts from Concordia University, where she wrote her thesis titled “Between Canadian Racism and Indian Repression: The Air India Bombing and Filmic Representations of Sikh Diasporic Identity in Canada”. She is an experienced educator having taught at both McGill University and Concordia University. Actively engaged in India diaspora and India itself, Vashist previously divided her time between living in Canada and India. In Canada, she programmed and hosted a weekly South Asian arts and culture radio show on CKUT 90.3, while in India she worked with artist, queer and feminist circles, notably with Bombay-based Queer Nazariva International Film Festival and Madras-based Marappacchi Theatre Group.

Toleen Touq is curator of P. Mansaram: The Medium is the Medium is the Medium, on view at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Touq is a curator, cultural producer and writer formerly based in Amman, Jordan. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Ibraaz, A Prior, and Manifesta Journal. She approaches her work with an aim to build radical pedagogical platforms and alternative knowledge systems through using site-responsiveness as a methodology. She has worked as a mentor for emerging artists, having co-founded Spring Sessions (an annual residency program that brings together artists, scholars and cultural practitioners in a collaborative and experiential learning environment) and initiated The River Has Two Banks (a multi-disciplinary platform addressing historical, political and mobility commonalities between Jordan and Palestine). She has received fellowships from the Clore Leadership Program, the Berlin Biennale, Art Dubai, and the Franchise Award from Apexart Gallery.

Moderator

Sarah Robayo Sheridan is Curator at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and an occasional lecturer in curatorial practice. Specialized in the presentation and dissemination of contemporary art, she has worked in a variety of non-profit galleries, museums and festivals both in Canada and internationally.

  

FACING THE FUTURE

With difficult times facing the present and near future, how can we cultivate hopeful futures? What are the ethics behind future-thinking? How can Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurisms help us generate ways of facing the present? How is exploring new technologies providing space for the extraordinary visions of futurism? How can futurism encourage visitors to think about their place in history and consider the present?  How do these experiences of possible futures translate into current change?

Mawena Yehouessi is a French-Beninese artist-activist who lives and works in Paris. From artistic curation to research in philosophy (PhD fellow of Paris 8 University, LLCP / Artec), from the management of cultural projects to visual arts manipulation and contemporary dance; her practice is exploratory, prospective and of collage. Yehouessi is the founder of the collective Black(s) to the Future, through which she outlines apparatus and forms that could, perhaps, tell, unfold and cur.e/ate the world differently.

Lisa Jackson’s award-winning films have screened widely, including Berlinale, Hotdocs, SXSW, and London BFI, aired on many networks in Canada, and earned her a Genie Award. Her CBC documentary Indictment: The Crimes of Shelly Chartier (co-directed with Shane Belcourt) won Best Documentary at imagineNATIVE in 2017 and her VR piece Biidaaban: First Light premiered at Tribeca in 2018, won the imagineNATIVE award for best interactive, and has received wide acclaim. Lisa is Anishinaabe, works in fiction and documentary, and upcoming projects include a multimedia installation Transmissions, an IMAX film Lichen, along with more traditional film and TV. She a director mentor for the NSI IndigiDocs program and sits on the advisory committee for the NFB’s Indigenous Action Plan.

Moderator

Karyn Recollet Ph.D. is an Assistant professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is an urban Cree scholar/writer currently living in the Williams Treaty territory, and teaching in the Dish with One Spoon treaty territory. Recollet explores celestial land pedagogies as ‘kinstillatory’ in her work – expressing an understanding of land pedagogy that exceeds the terrestrial. Recollet thinks alongside dance making practices, hip hop, and visual/digital art as they relate to forms of Indigenous futurities and relational practices of being.  Recollet co-writes with dance choreographers and artists engaged in other mediums to expand upon methodologies that consider land relationships and kinship making practices that are going to take us into the future.

 

FACING THE MONUMENTAL

Taking a cue from recent exhibitions and global events, this panel looks at artists’s commitment to the relation of politics, history and beauty in art. What is the relevance of the monument(al) today? How do artists face the monumental issues of our time, and how can the permanent public monuments mediate social change and changing power relations? Can conversations about symbols have an impact on changing the political conversation?

Kari Cwynar is a curator, critic and editor based in Toronto. She is Curator at Evergreen Brick Works, where she develops a program of temporary, site-specific public art projects in Toronto’s Don Valley, as well as Editorial Director of C Magazine, where she has been since 2015. Cwynar has held curatorial research positions at The Banff Centre, National Gallery of Canada and Art Gallery of Ontario. She has curated exhibitions internationally, at de Appel Arts Centre (Amsterdam), apexart (New York), EFA Project Space, New York; Cooper Cole (Toronto), and The Banff Park Museum, among others, and has participated in curatorial residencies at Fogo Island Arts, the Banff Centre and SOMA Mexico. Cwynar also writes on contemporary art for publications including Artforum, Frieze, C Magazine and Inuit Art Quarterly.

Divya Mehra is a participating artist in Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada with work featured in Night of Ideas. Working in sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, video, and most recently film, Divya Mehra is known for her meticulous attention to the interaction of form, medium, and site. Through an acerbic tone, she addresses the long-term effects of colonization and institutional racism. Re-contextualizing references found in music, literature, and current affairs, she contends with contemporary expressions of societies continuously formed by their colonial roots. Mehra’s work has been included in a number of exhibitions and screenings, notably with Creative Time, MoMA PS1, MTV, and The Queens Museum of Art (New York), MASS MoCA (North Adams), Artspeak (Vancouver), Art Metropole, The Images Festival (Toronto), The Beijing 798 Biennale, Bielefelder Kunstverein (Bielefeld), and Latitude 28 (Delhi). Mehra holds an MFA from Columbia University and is represented in Toronto by Georgia Scherman Projects.

Richard Sommer is an architect and urbanist with over twenty years of experience as a practitioner, educator, and theorist, and is currently the Dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. His design practice, research, and writing take the complex physical geography, culture, technology, politics, and historiography of the contemporary city as a starting point for creating a synthetic, cosmopolitan architecture. Previously he was a member of the design faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for a decade. He has also held many other distinguished appointments, including serving as Scholar-in-Residence at the California College of the Arts (1995-98) and as a Visiting Professor at Washington University, St. Louis (1993-95).

Moderator

Tong Lam is a Toronto-based visual artist and historian. His visual ethnographic work uses photography, cinematography, and video projection to engage the issues of the Cold War, nuclear fallout, ruins, cities, media technology, and the relationship between aesthetics and politics. In addition to publishing research-based photo books and photo essays, he has exhibited his works internationally. Tong Lam is Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, with research projects on infrastructure, ruins, science and technology, postcolonial critique, modern and contemporary China and East Asia.

 

INDEPENDENT SESSION

Winner of the highly selective and prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, dancer and choreographer Aguibou Bougobali Sanou (known as ‘Bougobali’) hails from Burkina Faso, West Africa. Bougobali’s work is a mix of West African Mandingo traditional dances, Brazilian capoeira and theater expressions drawn from his work with influential European stage directors. His training in sacred and profane African traditional dance in his native country combines with other forms of expression to create a unique theatrical statement. In the past ten years, Bougobali has developed a dynamic performance and teaching presence which has led him to work assignments in Mexico, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Morocco, France, France, and the United States. He has won several choreographic awards, including Bronze Medalist at the Jeux de la Francophonie (2013), 2nd prize at La Semaine Nationale de la culture (2012), and the Delphic Laurel Medal at the Delphic Games (2009).

Respondent

Seika Boye is a scholar, writer, educator and artist whose practices revolve around dance and movement. She teaches practical and lecture courses and is Director of the Institute for Dance Studies with the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, University of Toronto. She is Adjunct Curator at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and currently an Artist-at-Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her publications include writing for Dance Chronicle (forthcoming), Canadian Theatre Review, alt.theatre, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, Performance Matters, Dance Collection Danse Magazine and The Dance Current, and forthcoming book project Dancing on Dime: Social Dance within Toronto’s Black Population at Mid-century.

 

ART INSTALLATION

Divya Mehra is a participating artist in Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada with work featured in Night of Ideas. Working in sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, video, and most recently film, Divya Mehra is known for her meticulous attention to the interaction of form, medium, and site. Through an acerbic tone, she addresses the long-term effects of colonization and institutional racism. Re-contextualizing references found in music, literature, and current affairs, she contends with contemporary expressions of societies continuously formed by their colonial roots. Mehra’s work has been included in a number of exhibitions and screenings, notably with Creative Time, MoMA PS1, MTV, and The Queens Museum of Art (New York), MASS MoCA (North Adams), Artspeak (Vancouver), Art Metropole, The Images Festival (Toronto), The Beijing 798 Biennale, Bielefelder Kunstverein (Bielefeld), and Latitude 28 (Delhi). Mehra holds an MFA from Columbia University and is represented in Toronto by Georgia Scherman Projects.

Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi & Shuddhabrata Sengupta) is a participating artist in Vision Exchange: Perspectives from India to Canada with work featured in Night of Ideas. Founded in 1992 and based in Delhi, Raqs Media Collective follows its self-declared imperative of ‘kinetic contemplation’ to produce a trajectory that is restless in its forms and methods, yet concise with the infra procedures that it invents. The collective makes contemporary art, edits books, curates exhibitions, and stages situations. It has collaborated with architects, computer programmers, writers, curators, and theatre directors, and has made films. In 2001 it co-founded Sarai, the inter-disciplinary and incubatory space at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, where it initiated processes that have left deep impact on contemporary culture in India. Their work has been exhibited widely at solo museum shows and international platforms, including at Documenta, and the Venice, Sao Paulo, Manifesta, Istanbul, Shanghai, Sydney and Taipei Biennales.

 

THEATRE

Territorial Tales is a creative launching pad for young storytellers (ages 14-21) to share their experiences of displacement, migration and settlement. With experiences spanning across the globe, a group of diverse young writers from the GTA are given the opportunity to turn their personal stories into short theatrical works under the mentorship of Canadian Stage.

 

BANDS

Kuné – Canada’s Global Orchestra is an ensemble of musicians hailing from all corners of the globe. At once global and uniquely local, Kuné explores and celebrates Canada’s cultural diversity and communicates through the common shared language of music. Kuné is an initiative developed by The Royal Conservatory of Music.

Join us for a performance by Kuné members Anwar Khurshid (Pakistan, sitar) and Salif “Lasso” Sanou (Burkina Faso, n’goni and vocals).

 

SCREENINGS

Jumana Manna is a Palestinian artist working primarily in video and sculpture. Manna explores the construction of identity in relation to historical narratives and uncertain states of contemporary communities. Her videos weave together portraits of various characters and events. Her work has been exhibited and screened widely in North America, Europe, and Asia. She is the recipient of a number of awards, including New Visions Award, CPH:DOX Film festival (2018), ars viva Prize for Visual Arts (2017), Films on Art Award, Wroclaw Film Festival (2016), Sandefjord Kunstpris, Norway (2015), and A.M. Qattan Foundations’ Young Palestinian Artist Award (2012).

 

ACTIVITIES

UTSG Cricket Club is the officially recognized student body with the responsibility of providing UofT students with a formal structure in which to play cricket. It aims to unite all people who are interested in all facets of the game to enjoy it together. Anyone who loves to watch, play or talk about cricket is invited to join us regardless of race, religion or gender. We welcome all fellow cricket lovers.

Respondent

Janelle Joseph is Director, Academic Success Centre and Assistant Director, Transitional Year Program at the University of Toronto. Joseph is also an Adjunct Lecturer in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education where she teaches issues related to gender, race, indigeneity, multiculturalism, sport and leisure. She completed her PhD and two post-doctoral research fellowships (in New Zealand and Canada) in the areas of sport and race. Her Banting SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship research focused on physical activity in criminal justice settings. Most recently, she published her book Sport in the Black Atlantic: Cricket, Canada and the Caribbean Diaspora (2017).

 

Presented by:

NOI partners

Supported by:

Cultural Partners:

aga logo           savac logo

Media Sponsors:

ciut logo    now logo   walrus logo

Program Archive

Feature Past Programs