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Videos / February 11, 2021

Tangents Launch: Emma Sharpe in Conversation with Jay Pahre and Jagdeep Raina

In this video, three Spotlight contributors expand on the interdisciplinary approaches to their practices

On January 28, 2021, artists Jay Pahre and Jagdeep Raina joined writer and editor Emma Sharpe for a live, in-depth, public conversation about their multidisciplinary practices.

This event was held in conjunction with the launch of Canadian Art’s Winter 2021 issue, Tangents, which asked artists to tell us stories about their stories—to write about idiosyncratic histories, side interests or obsessions, curiosities and unknowns.

Sharpe curated and wrote the Spotlight section, which gathered a group of artists, including Pahre and Raina, whose works reimagine understandings of art objects.

The event began with “A Digital Land Acknowledgement,” by special guest, poet and performer Deirdre Lee, who was featured in our recent digital issue, Sovereignty.

Please enjoy the video recording of this conversation, which explores the convergent processes of research, material practice and creative writing, and touches on the personal, familial and historical stories that surround these artists’ practices.

“A Digital Land Acknowledgement” by Deirdre Lee: 00:00:45
Overview of Winter issue, Tangents: 00:04:35
Introduction of Emma Sharpe: 00:07:10
Acknowledgement of Spotlight artists and overview of talk: 00:08:39
Introduction of Jay Pahre and Jagdeep Raina: 00:10:00
Conversation between Sharpe, Pahre and Raina: 00:11:46
Images of Pahre’s work: 00:36:03
Images of Raina’s work: 00:43:48
Reading of Raina’s poetry: 00:54:48
Reading of Pahre’s poetry: 00:56:37
Q&A: 01:02:21
Closing remarks: 01:18:05

Deirdre Lee

Deirdre Lee is a poet, performer and maker of art, food, medicines and magic. Her work is intertwined with her complicated and sometimes confusing reality as a racialized, neurodivergent woman, and explores her perspectives on identity and healing. Deirdre lives in Kjipuktuk, in Mi'kma'ki, the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq and the home of Black arrivants for more than three centuries.

Emma Sharpe

Emma Sharpe writes and edits between Montreal and Toronto. She holds a BFA from NSCAD University and an MA in communication and culture from Ryerson and York Universities. Sharpe was Canadian Art’s 2019–20 Winter Editorial Resident.

Jay Pahre

Jay Pahre is a queer and trans settler artist, writer and cultural worker currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Weaving between drawing, sculpture and writing, his work queries trans and queer nonhuman ecologies as they intersect with the human. Originally from the midwestern US, Pahre has turned his work back toward the shifting ecologies of the Great Lakes and Great Plains regions. He received his BFA in painting and BA in East Asian studies in 2014, and his MA in East Asian studies from the University of Illinois in 2017. He went on to complete his MFA in Visual Art at the University of British Columbia in 2020. He was selected for the 2020 Transgender Studies Chair Fellowship at the University of Victoria, as well as the Helen Belkin Memorial Scholarship (2020) and Fred Herzog Award in Visual Art (2019) at the University of British Columbia.

Jagdeep Raina

Jagdeep Raina is an artist and emerging writer based in Guelph. Raina holds an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and was a 2021 RITM fellow at Yale University. Raina has been an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine; the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts; the Camden Arts Centre/Slade School of Fine Art in London, England; and the Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts and Design in Lahore, Pakistan.