File: TTInterview100220151
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[Music]

Q: So how did you turn art from

a passion into a career?

A: It was it was a long, long process. This

will be

at the end of the month, it will be 10

years since I first began

doing performances and it was a

combination

of formal education

and becoming involved in the local arts

community.

Q: And is art something that's always kind

of been a part of your life or

like from a young age or is it something

you kind of, I guess,

came into? A: To some degree I think I

was always

interested in drawing and painting.

You know like the kind of

usual things but then I think I reached

a point,  just out of

high school. When I really had to

think about

what kinds of things I felt I was.

Not just sort of skilled enough at, but

also interested enough in. That I

could really

throw myself into and have enough

time and interest to really try to do

well.

You know I went into my

first degree, which was a diploma

in fine arts at Langara College in

Vancouver.

Not really knowing anything, not having

any skills, and so I specifically chose

a program where they were. They would

teach you skills, where they would teach

you how to draw, or they would teach you

how to paint.

Q: Right kind of like direct, like what

you're passionate about and you

mentioned you were out in Vancouver.

So what brought you

to Toronto and got you involved in nui

blanche and all of that?

A: After I graduated with

my Bachelor of fine arts from Emily Carr

University,

I decided that I wanted to stop doing

school part time, and go full-time into a

master's degree. So I applied to the

Masters of Visual Studies here at the

University of Toronto, St

George. Q: Okay good. So how long

have you been involved in

Nui Blanche? A: Well you know I have

been attending Nui Blanche as just a

citizen

for about six years even before I moved

to Toronto.

I remember coming in and visiting

artist projects

by people that I knew who I thought were

amazing.

But this is my first year where I'm

participating

as an artist. I think up until now I

hadn't really found

a context that I thought was, that would

fit

really well with my work but Agustin

Perez Rubio's exhibition,

North, South - the new coordinates for the

Americas, sort of gave my work the

perfect platform

to sort of find itself in the city and

in Nui Blanche.

Q: So what, the exhibit in Nui blanche

that you're doing.

Part of it's on the refugee crisis. What

has made you so

passionate about that topic? A: Well

the work that we're presenting which is

a billboard on the corner of Jarvis and

Gerrard called "refugees run the seas"

is actually a work from 2014. You know

which was before

you know, the refugee crisis as we

know it right now in Syria, had really

hit the headlines

and when I proposed the work about a

year ago

these things weren't really in the

news. I think it's been a

a kind of a strange and in some ways a

very emotional coincidence that these

issues have sort of

come so much into the fore in the media

as the project has been mounted. But you

know

in terms of my personal connection to

issues of migration,

I came to Canada as a refugee

claimant with my family

when i was a teenager and I sort of

went from

that to becoming a citizen and so

I think one of the things that is in

some ways

always present in my work is this

awareness, this consciousness, this

thinking about

what it means to come from abroad and

and the ways in which we imagine

migrants and trying to create

alternative ways of

of thinking about people who come

from other places.

Q: And also, in your art exhibit you make

reference to the sea but you chose to

frame that line with a photo of the sky.

Why did you choose to do that? A: Partly

because

I didn't want the work to be too literal.

I wanted it to be quite poetic

partly because the

in the context of the exhibition,

you know, it's a lot about

what would happen if things were

flipped if things were switched,

if north was south. You know if the land

became the sea.

You know if the sky became the

thing that were underneath. So it was a

poetic decision.

Q: And I just have about 10 seconds left

here but we just want to know what

what does the future hold

for you? Kind of what are your

plans here? A: I teach both at the

University of Toronto and OCAD

University and I have another exhibition

at Sur

Gallery on Yonge and Queens Quay that

will run until November 25th.

Q: Okay amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Music]