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Outrageous Worldmaking from a Bright Yellow Kitchen

Outrageous Worldmaking from a Bright Yellow Kitchen

In this episode, Emelie Chhangur, Director Curator of Agnes Etherington Art Centre speaks about worldmaking and her radical curatorial practice.

Transcript

Outrageous Worldmaking from a Bright Yellow Kitchen
In this episode, Emelie Chhangur, Director Curator of Agnes Etherington Art Centre speaks about worldmaking and her radical curatorial practice.

Emelie Chhangur, Director Curator of Agnes Etherington Art Centre talks with Qanita Lilla about her radical curatorial practice. Growing up in Paris, Ontario in an assimilationist paradigm, she talks of harnessing experimentation and rejecting the confines of the status quo. Emelie’s lived experience of cultural mixing and of negotiating multiple worlds allows her to open up curatorial practice to non-Western traditions but also to bring together forms that might not have a natural affinity. She describes her practice as scrappy, experimental and unexpected worldmaking that started in a bright yellow kitchen.

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In set design class, I had this profound experience of collaboration, of working across differences, of building something as a team together, and of being able to understand that collaboration is about bringing together individuals with different strengths.

Still image from the film RISE featuring Nasim Asgari and Timaaj Hassen.
RISE, still (Nasim Asgari and Timaaj Hassen). 2K, colour, 5.1 sound, 20 min. Ba?rbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, 2018. Executive Producer: Emelie Chhangur. Image: courtesy of Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Documentation of a 300-person street procession in downtown Toronto on August 10, 2015.
Marlon Griffith, Ring of Fire, 2014-15. Documentation of a 300-person street procession in downtown Toronto on August 10, 2015. Produced in collaboration with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Capoeira Angola, Picasso Pro, and young spoken word poets from Malvern, Regent Park and Jane-Finch. Curated by Emelie Chhangur. Photo Credit: Anthony Gebrehiwot. Courtesy of the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto.
Documentatio of a participatory collaboration between the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Parkour.
Humberto Vélez, The Awakening/Giigozhkozimin, 2009-2011. Performance Documentation. A participatory collaboration between the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Parkour. Curated by Emelie Chhangur. Performance staged at the Art Gallery of Ontario on May 14, 2011. Photo: Len Grant. Courtesy of the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto.

Meet our guest

Emelie Chhangur

Emelie Chhangur, is a curator, writer, and artist, and the Director and Curator of Agnes Etherington Art Centre. Chhangur has emerged as a leading voice for experimental curatorial practice in Canada and is celebrated nationally and internationally for her process-based, participatory curatorial practice, the commissioning of complex works across all media, and the creation of long-term collaborative projects performatively staged within and outside the gallery context. Distinguishing herself as a cultural worker dedicated to questioning the social and civic role of the public institutions of art, Chhangur has developed a curatorially-engaged approach to working across cultural, aesthetic, and social differences through a practice she calls “in-reach”—a methodology that has since transformed engaged institutional practice in the arts across Canada.

Community Voices

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Listen to a community response related to the themes of this episode from a student in the Screen Cultures and Critical Curatorial Studies seminar  (SCCS828 Fall 2022).

Francesca CaraNdang

Francesca is a student with Queen’s Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies. She has spent her undergrad studying film, but has recently taken interest in studying curators’ roles in opening conversations on museums.

Francesca Carandang
Francesca Carandang speaks about the opportunities in curatorial practice and museums to open conversations with audiences.
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Transcript

Francesca Carandang
Francesca Carandang speaks about the opportunities in curatorial practice and museums to open conversations with audiences.

Credits

With Opened Mouths: The Podcast is hosted by Dr Qanita Lilla and produced by Agnes Etherington Art Centre in partnership with Queen’s University’s campus radio station, CFRC 101.9 FM. 

Recorded at and distributed by CFRC 101.9 FM, Queen’s University
Production by Dr Qanita Lilla, Danuta Sierhuis and Evan Wainio-Woldanski 
Original music by Jameel3DN, produced by Elroy “EC3” Cox III and commissioned by Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2021
Episodes are edited and mixed by Chancelor Maracle, CFRC 101.9 FM
The graphic for the podcast is created by Vincent Perez
The podcast is supported by The George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund, Queen’s University; the Justin and Elisabeth Lang Fund; and Young Canada Works Building Careers in Heritage, a program funded by the Government of Canada.
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