The Gathering
Celebrating 10 years of showcasing, convening and support
for equity and pluralism in the Arts
The Gathering: A Conversation on Disabilities and Artistic Practice
Wednesday, May 29, 2019 | 1-4:30pm
CSI Daniel Spectrum
585 Dundas Street East, Toronto, ON M5A 2B7
In collaboration with Reelabilities, Workman Arts, and Tangled Arts.
Involving three of Toronto’s highly regarded arts organizations working with the Deaf and Disabled communities, this session will explore in depth the workings of such artists and the role these organizations play in presenting and advocating for increased recognition of Deaf and Disabled Artists, their arts practices and stories.
Participants: Andrea Thompson, Sean Lee and Cyn Rozeboom.
Performance by Cahoots Theatre.
Panel General Admission: $10
Register on Native Earth’s Box office.
Bios:
Andrea Thompson is a writer, educator and spoken word artist who has been publishing and performing her work for over twenty-five years. In 1995 she was featured in the documentary Slamnation, as a member of the country’s first national slam team. In 2005, her spoken word CDOne was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award, and in 2009 she was awarded the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s Poet of Honour. She is the author of the novel Over Our Heads and co-editor of Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out (both Inanna Publications). Thompson currently teaches at Workman Arts (CAMH), as well as through the Ontario College of Art and Design University and The University of Toronto’s Continuing Studies departments.
Sean Lee is a part of a new generation of artists, curators, and arts leaders bringing fresh perspectives to the contemporary art field through an intersectional disability arts praxis. His methodology reframes embodied difference as a distinct resource that resists aesthetic ideals. Orienting towards a “crip horizon”, Sean leads with disability in his curation for its transformative possibilities.
Sean is the Director of Programming at Tangled Art + Disability. Previous to this role, he was Tangled’s inaugural Curator in Residence (2016) as well as Tangled’s Gallery Manager (2017). In addition, Sean is an independent lecturer and holds a B.A. in Arts Management and Studio from the University of Toronto, Scarborough. He currently sits on the board of the8Fest, Creative Users Projects and is a member of the Ontario Art Council’s Deaf and Disability Advisory Group.
Cyn Rozeboom (Tangled Art + Disability Executive Director) has over 25 years experience in the non-profit arts sector as a fundraiser, communications specialist, artist, and administrator. Career highlights include founding the Art of the Danforth festival; serving as the inaugural Managing Director of East End Arts; helping establish the Next Stage Theatre festival during her tenure at the Toronto Fringe; and three years with Hospital Audiences Inc. a group which provides innovative arts-access services in New York City. She has an MA in Communications, a Certified Fundraising Executive designation, and a college diploma in Radio & Television Arts. Cyn is Mad-identified and is particularly interested in the contradictions of human nature, construction of identities through story-telling, and the fluid dynamics of power within social structures.
Performance by Cahoots Theatre:
Kirsten Kirsch
Gimpy was born out of frustration and what I felt was misrepresentation. I was tired of disability being seen as supplements or catalysts to other stories. We have stories too. It’s important to me because I think too often, we are an invisible minority, and because I can remember being small and not seeing myself in media anywhere and it really upset me. I wanted to write something for all the young aspiring artists who are looking for themselves.
I’d love to be in your stories and would totally be open to doing a takeover! I can take over Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday (or a combo… whatever you’d like)
Accessibility: Aki Studio Theatre and Regent Park Film Festival are wheelchair accessible. NIA Center for the Arts is partly wheelchair accessible.
We aim to host a fragrance-free event. Please do not wear perfume, cologne, or other scented products.
The Gathering on May, 21 and May 27-29 is in collaboration with:
Cynthia Lickers-Sage is a Mohawk, Turtle Clan visual artist from Six Nations and is currently the Executive Director of the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance. Following her graduation at the Ontario College of Art and Design she Co-Founded The Centre for Aboriginal Media, imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival and is the sole proprietor of Clickers Productions. She has spent the last 25 years working in the not-for-profit arts sector as the Executive Director at imagineNATIVE and ANDPVA and the General Manager at Kaha:wi Dance Theatre. She has also served as an arts officer at the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
Clayton Windatt is a Métis non–binary multi-artist working between Sturgeon Falls and Toronto, Ontario. Clayton holds a BA in Fine Art and is a certified Graphic Designer. With an extensive history working in Artist-Run Culture and Community Arts, Clayton now works as Executive Director of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective (ACC-CCA). Clayton works with arts organizations on national and global issues relating to relationships and the intersecting points between many peoples. Clayton maintains contracts as a critical writer and columnist for various publications. Clayton is an active film director with recent works featured in festivals such as ImagineNative and the Toronto International Film Festival. Clayton works with community, design, communications, curation, performance, theatre, technology, consulting, and is a very active writer, filmmaker and visual-media artist.
Camille Georgeson-Usher is a Coast Salish / Sahtu Dene/ Scottish scholar, artist, writer, and Director of Programming for the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective from Galiano Island, BC which is the land of the Pune’laxutth’ (Penelakut) Nation. Usher completed her MA in Art History at Concordia University and is currently a PhD student in the Cultural Studies department at Queen’s University. She has been awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarship for her research-creation work around urban Indigenous experiences within Indigenous communities, groups, and arts collectives through both little and big gestures that activating public spaces. She was awarded the 2018 Canadian Art Writing Prize and most recently has had work exhibited in Soundings: an exhibition in five parts at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, ON.
Cole Forrest is an Ojibwe artist and spoken word poet originally from Nipissing First Nation near North Bay, Ontario. He strives for compassion and acceptance within the arts. By always seeking new horizons and pushing to be the best he can be, Cole is forever learning new techniques to hone his craft.
Ryan Rice, Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawake, is an independent curator whose career spans 25 years in museums and galleries, including posts as Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and the Indigenous Art Centre. He received a Master of Arts degree in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University. His writing on contemporary Onkwehonwe art published in numerous periodicals and exhibition catalogues, and he has lectured widely. Rice is the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Faculty of Liberal Arts/School of Interdisciplinary Studies at OCAD University.
Steven Elliott Jackson is an award-winning playwright. His play, The Seat Next To The King won Best New Play and Patron’s Pick at The Toronto Fringe in 2017. The State Of Tennessee placed second in the same contest in 2007. The Seat Next To The King was published by Scirocco Press in April 2018. His new play, Statue Of Limitations will be premiering at Storefront Fringe in Kingston in July 2019 and The Seat Next To The King will be playing in Kitchener and Buffalo in June this year.
Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) 
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