space makers: possibilities for other models | Panel Discussion

100 Years in the Making | This event is organized in support of ECU 100, Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s centennial anniversary.

Please join us for a panel discussion with Patrick Cruz of Kamias Triennial, and Kara Ditte Hansen, Scott Kemp, and Jordan Milner of Avenue/Duplex.

Established in 2014, Avenue and Kamias Triennial created space for distinctive artistic programming in Vancouver. The focus of both Avenue/Duplex and Kamias Triennial has always been incredibly community-facing, where challenging art shows, and a hospitable and convivial environment are a given. Firmly grounded in their respective local communities of artists and cultural practitioners, both Avenue/Duplex and Kamias Triennial also established significant artistic exchanges with other artist collectives and organizations both within Canada and abroad.

Biographies

Kamias Triennial: Patrick Cruz

Patrick Cruz is an artist, educator, and an albularyo, also known as a faith healer. Cruz considers the role of spirituality, improvisation, intuition, and play as emancipatory tools to reify embedded colonial frameworks and ideologies in art making and collective dreaming. His works are informed by the intersections of clown philosophy, magic, and the occult, and their syncretic manifestations and relationships in contemporary life. Most recently, Cruz has been making works using material retrieved from past-life regressions to navigate and side-step cultural and ancestral identity.

He is a cross-appointed Assistant Professor in Arts, Culture and Media in Studio Art at the University of Toronto Scarborough and Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. He is the founder and co-director of the Kamias Triennial, along with curators Su-Ying Lee and Karie Liao, co-curator of Ben Flores Fan Club Collective with Christian Vistan, collaborator at Boring Earth with Laila Fox, and one of the 19 members of the artist-run collective the Plumb.

Avenue/Duplex (2014 to 2019): Scott Kemp, Kara Ditte Hansen, Jordan Milner

Scott Kemp (b. unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations | Vancouver, BC) has shown artwork in solo and group exhibitions at galleries and DIY art spaces in Canada, America, Sweden and Germany. He holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and an MFA from the department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University. Prior to grad school he worked as a Plastics Fabricator, a Gallery Preparator and a Sign Maker. More recently he has worked as a Sessional Instructor teaching Sculpture and Extended Media.

Kara Ditte Hansen is an artist who works with film, video, collage and installation. Her artistic practice looks at human and non-human relationships with the material of the earth, systems of extraction and waste, and how these seemingly external materials collide with the interior worlds of individuals. She received her MFA from the Cinematic Arts program at University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee and her BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Her films have been screened at such venues as the 13th Seoul Media City Biennale, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, e-flux screening room, Prismatic Ground, Vancouver International Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, Cosmic Rays, Light Matter Film Festival, Onion City Film Festival, and Antimatter.

Jordan Milner received his BFA in Visual Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2013). He was a founding member of Duplex Artist Society, a collective space facilitating exhibitions, music events, and readings (2015-2021). Recent exhibitions include Grafting Perennial Phantom at Glass Box Projects (2019) and Boreal Chorus in Crossfade at Afternoon Projects (2021). His practice is divided between the psychoterratic impact of our living in the industrial world and the output of these felt experiences through painting, sculpture and sound. Jordan continues to live and work in Vancouver BC.