As part of our ongoing Conversations on Collecting series, this two-part miniseries will focus on the impacts that COVID-19 has had on artists, galleries, curators, studios and online entities operating within the complex ecosystem of the international art market in South Africa, Canada and beyond.

Join Latitudes Co-Directors Roberta Coci and Lucy MacGarry for a conversation focused on the challenges, changes and silver linings encountered over the course of the past year amidst COVID-19, and what it means to break down barriers and inequalities in the art world as the founders LATITUDES, the first platform of its kind dedicated to African art.

LATITUDES is an online platform featuring a constantly changing, curated selection of art from the African continent and the diaspora, bringing together artworks presented by galleries, curators, studios, not-for-profit and independent artists themselves.

Building on one of Griffin Art Project’s mandates to examine new currents in contemporary collecting practices, Conversations on Collecting is an ongoing series that considers the methodologies, thematics and narratives that shape collecting practices in Vancouver, Canada and beyond. This mini series is presented in collaboration with the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver.

Join Linda Zhang, professor in the School of Interior Design at Ryerson University in Toronto ON, live over Zoom to learn about the story and process behind her recent project ChinaTOwn, a multi-player board game that prompts participants to put their heads together to negotiate what is worth including in a community space. Zhang partnered with research technology officer in Ryerson’s Library Collaboratory, Jimmy Tran, to fly drones over Toronto’s Chinatown, photographing 99 individual buildings and subsequently turning each one into a board-game sized model. To play the game, participants must select only 12 of the 99 buildings to include in their hand-picked Chinatown. Centred on questions of heritage preservation within the community, ChinaTOwn asks players to have a conversation about what is important to them and the future of their community, a topic that is relevant now more than ever as Chinatown’s across the country face unprecedented challenges and change.

In the Shadows of Gold Mountain features filmmaker Karen Cho as she travels from Montreal to Vancouver to uncover stories from the last survivors of the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act, a set of laws imposed to single out the Chinese as unwanted immigrants to Canada from 1885 to 1947. Through a combination of history, poetry and raw emotion, this documentary sheds light on an era that shaped the identity of generations. Following the film, Griffin will be hosting a director’s talk and Q/A live over Zoom with Montreal filmmaker and founder of Story Booth Media, Karen Cho. With over a decade of experience in the film and television industry, Karen is an award winning writer/director of documentary films and TV series. Story Booth Media creates diverse films that explore topics of immigration, social justice, identity and belonging.

Join Griffin’s current artist-in-residence, Navarana Igloliorte, for an artist talk live over zoom to learn more about what she has been up to throughout her time at Griffin Art Projects! “During the Griffin Art Projects residency I plan to hang three large-scale stencils of caribou approximately 8x8 feet each. I will edit video and photos I have filmed of places and food sources of caribou in the past. I am from Labrador where the George River Herd population was traditionally around 750,000, and due to multiple forms of industry over the years, the population dwindled to 5000. Last year, 8100 were counted. In the community I grew up in caribou is not merely a source of food and clothing, but has great spiritual significance. In this connection, making this work is a kind of invocation or act that seeks to activate energy and hope for the caribou to do well again. The videos I edit will be projected on and through the large scale stencils. I am also planning on working on paper integrating watercolour and collage.” -Navarana Igloliorte Currently based in Vancouver, BC, Navarana Igloliorte is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker working in short gauge film, video, painting, printmaking and dance. Igloliorte often works in collaboration with community members or other artists, weaving together teachings, stories, movement and sometimes humour through reflection of our connectedness with nature and each other. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in 2003 and a Bachelor of Education degree at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2005. Since 2004, Igloliorte has frequently traveled back to Labrador where she grew up to work for the Nunatsiavut Government and Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation. Igloliorte’s artwork and films have been exhibited and screened in galleries and film festivals across Canada.