SESSION 17

CARMEN PAPLIA ON ACCESSIBILITY AS SOCIAL PRACTICE

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MICHELLE TUNG ON ACCESS, CONNECTION AND TRANSLATION IN ADVANCING THE INTERESTS OF ABORGINAL COMMUNITIES

Tuesday June 13, 7pm
The Foreshore
Other Sights at Access Gallery
222 East Georgia, Vancouver BC

Please join us for two short presentations followed by discussion.

PAPALIA will present on his last few years of practice-based research on the topic of organizing for accessibility and mutual aid. Papalia will discuss 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.

Based on her work with Upper Fraser First Nations in natural resource management, TUNG will discuss the tension between their interests and those of environmental assessment processes. Exploring what is made visible and invisible, and for who, Michelle will share her experience on how themes of access, connection, and translation can provide creative spaces to advance the interests of Aboriginal communities.

BIOS
Born in Vancouver, 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; the Tate Liverpool, Liverpool; 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. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Simon Fraser University and a Master of Fine Arts with a focus in Art & Social Practice from Portland State University. His current work includes the multifunctional acoustic mobility device that he produced with Sara Hendren’s Investigating Normal lab at Olin College of Engineering, and “Lets Keep in Touch” a collaboration with curator Whitney Mashburn that sets a precedent for haptic criticism to become a viable practice within contemporary art.
Field Journal    Art21   CBC Radio

Michelle Tung has extensive interdisciplinary experience in natural resource management with a focus on the interests of Aboriginal communities, First Nation-Crown consultation and collaborative processes. Her work includes the assessment of impacts of various natural resource development and extraction proposals in relation to Aboriginal title, rights, and interests. She has worked with First Nations organizations province-wide and in particular in the Upper Fraser watershed.

Image Credits:
Documentation from Blind Field Shuttle, 2016, photo by William Furio
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Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance (UFFCA)

Audio recording of the event: