Promotional image for DIFFICULT PEOPLE - Amy Fung + Divya Mehra. Courtesy the artists.
Join us for the launch of our Spring 2018 issue, themed “Dirty Words.”
MARCH 22
7:30 p.m.
Open Space, 510 Fort Street, 2nd floor
As a public experiment and ongoing private conversation, artist Divya Mehra (Scorpio) and writer Amy Fung (Scorpio) are embarking on a series of public readings that trace their respective, and at times, overlapping experiences of living and working in the Canadian Prairies. Specifically, Mehra’s performative lecture explores memory, race, death, and the service industry in a series of non-linear short stories and poetics. The performance, as well as her overall practice, often asks “how do we exist within the crushing indifference of our day to day?” Sharing similar intentions of re-examining the mundane violence of white supremacy, Fung will be reading an excerpt from a new work in progress, Before I was a critic, I was a human being.
Amy Fung is a writer, researcher and curator born in Kowloon, Hong Kong, and currently based in Toronto, Canada. She received her Masters in English and Film Studies from the University of Alberta in 2009 with a specialization in criticism, poetics, and the moving image. Her writings can be found in print and online publications such as Canadian Art, Art Papers, C Magazine, and Frieze, among many more since 2002. Most recently, Fung held the position of Artistic Director of IMAGES Festival, Toronto between 2015 – 2017. She is a co-founder of MICE Magazine and has served on numerous boards and juries across the country. She is currently writing her first book on Canadian art forthcoming 2018.
Divya Mehra works in sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, video, and film and is known for her meticulous attention to the interaction of form, medium, and site. Recontextualizing references found in music, literature, and current affairs, her acerbic body of work addresses the long-term effects of colonization and institutional racism. Mehra’s work has been presented as part of exhibitions, screenings, and commissions, including with Creative Time (New York), MoMA PS1 (New York), MTV (New York), the Queens Museum (New York), MASS MoCA (North Adams), Artspeak (Vancouver), Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Toronto), the Images Festival (Toronto), the Beijing 798 Biennale (Beijing), Bielefelder Kunstverein (Bielefeld), and Latitude 28 (Delhi). Mehra holds an MFA from Columbia University and is represented by Georgia Sherman Projects.
For Canadian Art’s Spring 2018 issue, “Dirty Words,” Divya Mehra has produced a specially-commissioned cover and an artist project.
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