This Conversation brings together GTA21 artists Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Azza El Siddique and Nour Bishouty in discussion with curators Daisy Desrosiers and Rui Mateus Amaral. Connected by the second floor’s theme Inheritance, the three artists’ artworks and research examine legacies worth carrying forward while acknowledging others as systems to undo.
Artist Biographies:
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (born 1980 in Mochudi, Botswana) has exhibited or performed at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; The Showroom, London; Wiels, Brussels; the Kunsthaus Zurich; Artpace, San Antonio, TX; the Michaelis School for the Arts at the University of Cape Town; and the Havana Biennial.
Azza El Siddique (born 1984 in Khartoum, Sudan) received an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2019 and a BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2014. She was a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2019. Past exhibitions include Begin in smoke, End in Ashes at Helena Anrather, NY; let me hear you sweat at Cooper Cole, Toronto; Material Tells at Oakville Galleries; and RAW at The Gardiner Museum, Toronto.
Nour Bishouty was a fellow at the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut. Her work has been exhibited in such venues as Darat Al Funun, Amman; Access Gallery, Vancouver; the Beirut Art Centre; Casa Arabe, Madrid and Cordoba; and the Mosaic Rooms, London.
Curator Biographies:
Daisy Desrosiers (born 1987 in Saint-Hyacinthe, QC; lives between Chicago and Gambier, OH) is the director and chief curator of the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College. She was previously the inaugural director of artist programs at the Lunder Institute for American Art, an incubator of research and artistic practice within the Colby College Museum of Art. She is trained as an interdisciplinary art historian and curator. Through the lens of cultural studies and postcolonial theories, her recent research is concerned with the role of commodities in contemporary practices, such as the usage of sugar.
Rui Mateus Amaral (born 1988 in Ponta Delgada, Azores) is adjunct curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA). Most recently Mateus Amaral co-curated Greater Toronto Art 2021, a triennial at MOCA. To date he has produced solo exhibitions with artists Carlos Bunga, Eduardo Basualdo, Eric N. Mack, Vajiko Chachkhiani, Iris Häussler, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Paul P., Ryan Gander and Eva Kot’átková. He has consulted on a number of cultural projects for The Power Plant, The Royal Ontario Museum, Hermès and Chanel. His writing has appeared in Artforum International and Momus, as well as several artist publications. In 2022, Mateus Amaral will be curating Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ first solo exhibition in Canada, as well as co-authoring a publication on artist Scott Burton’s final artwork, Garden Court (1989-93) on the occasion of Toronto’s Year of Public Art.