Phase II : Session 1

DIGNITY AND ACCESS
Carmen Papalia with Joulene Tse

Tuesday, January 23, 2018, 7:00-8:30 pm
nə́c̓aʔmat ct Strathcona Branch, Vancouver Public Library
Wo Soon (Mary) Lee Chan Room
730 East Hastings Street

Carmen Papalia and Joulene Tse Parent will discuss issues of cultural accessibility and human rights in the city, including Tse’s ongoing research on the history of Indigenous workers on the waterfront, as well as Papalia’s projects leading up to and including his recent conceptual work Open Access, a new, relational model for accessibility that sets a precedent for considerations of agency and power in relation to the disabling social, cultural, and political conditions in a given context.

BIOS

Born in Vancouver in unceded Coast Salish Territory in 1981, Carmen Papalia is a social practice artist and non-visual learner who makes participatory projects about access to public space, the art institution and visual culture. His work has been featured at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Harvard Art Museums,Cambridge; Tate Liverpool, UK; and locally at Gallery Gachet and the Surrey Art Gallery. Papalia is the recipient of the 2014 Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary and the 2013 Wynn Newhouse Award. His current work includes the multifunctional acoustic mobility device produced with Sara Hendren’s Investigating Normal Lab at Olin College of Engineering and Let’s Keep in Touch a collaboration with curator Whitney Mashburn that sets a precedent for haptic criticism to become a viable practice within contemporary art.

Joulene Parent’s maternal lines come from the Indigenous Dene Nation of Northern Saskachewan, and paternal lines from a father who was a working immigrant from Canton, China. Most of Joulene’s childhood was raised in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, the unceded territory of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She is an active Union Member of the International Longshore Warehouse Union, and currently holds a two year Executive position for Local 500 Vancouver. She also sits on the Vancouver District Labour Council, as a Delegate and Co-Chair on the Women’s Committee.

Image Credit:

Documentation from White Cane Amplified, 2015

Screenshot by Philip Lui

Audio recording of the event: