Presented as part of Knot Projections 2019: Imagining Publics, a city-wide public art exhibition in Ottawa running from July-November 2019, featuring five new commissions by Ottawa artists at four outdoor locations. The exhibition was the culmination of a year-long commissioning program, which ran simultaneously with the Video in the Public Sphere speaker series – a discursive program featuring international artists and scholars who spoke Knot Project Space and at times ran workshops and seminars on themes related to public art. More info about the project can be found here.
we only liberate ourselves
This on-site discussion took Pansee Atta’s projection work titled we only liberate ourselves by binding our liberations to those of one another as a point of departure to navigate the structures, commitments and affects of solidarity and inter-dependence it investigates and performs, taken here as modes of relation that are central mobilizers to collective action and social movements more broadly. The discussion began with a brief artist talk by Pansee Atta about her work, followed by presentations and responses around its themes and processes, viewed through contemporary and local concerns by Alexis Shotwell and Andi Vicente.
Alexis Shotwell
Alexis Shotwell teaches and writes in Ottawa, on unceded Algonquin territory, where she’s a part of the Punch Up anarchist collective. She is the co-investigator for the AIDS Activist History Project (aidsactivisthistory.ca), and author of Knowing Otherwise: Race, Gender, and Implicit Understanding and Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times.
Andi Vicente
Adrienne (Andi) Vicente a queer filipinx second generation immigrant settler on Algonquin Territory. Her work revolves around community building, grassroots advocacy, decolonization, undoing border imperialism and creating safe and inclusive spaces. They are a full spectrum doula and have a decade of experience helping folks with precarious status navigate immigration systems. Andi is also on the board for Kind Space, Planned Parenthood and the Ottawa Birth and Wellness Centre.
Pansee Atta
Pansee Atta is an emerging Egyptian-Canadian artist and scholar whose practice considers themes of colonization, feminism, and Muslim representation, as well as the role of Canadian cultural institutions in legacies of epistemic violence. Her multimedia practice includes new media forms such as GIF animation, 3d-printed and laser cut sculpture, as well as installation, painting, and video work. Previous exhibitions have taken place at La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Z Art Space in Montreal, MSVU Art Gallery and others.
Related Programming
Public Art: we only liberate ourselves […], Pansee Atta. Sept. 27 – Oct. 5, 2019.