The Hnatyshyn Foundation – Fogo Island Arts Young Curator Residency

Leo Cocar is a cultural worker from “Vancouver,” on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. His writing has appeared in e-flux, C Magazine, Momus, Autre and Numéro Berlin, among others. He holds a BA from the University of British Columbia and an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Cocar’s curatorial practice is marked by a socio-historical framing of contemporary art, reflected in an eclectic selection of subject matter. Recently, he has been interested in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in dialogue with performance art, histories of imperial violence, and the excess accumulation of the death drive within the national psyche. He is currently organizing a forthcoming exhibition of the work of Derya Akay at the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art.

Image: An Anathema Strikes the Flesh of the Laborer, curated by Leo Cocar. Work by Harry Gould Harvey IV. Image courtesy Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson. Photo by Olympia Shannon.

During his residency, Cocar looks forward to immersing himself in Fogo Island’s uniquely rich cultural and ecological environment, asking himself, “how can an artist's work engage with or reflect a specific history or place?”

“It has been striking to see how an international selection of artists can dialogue with the island itself as a means of engaging in historical inquiry, autobiography or community engagement, among others. As a Canadian, I have paid attention to Fogo Island’s programming since my earliest forays into art and paying attention to its exhibition history has been just as formative on my practice as any lecture and I would be elated to learn from its staff and residents. Additionally, much of my recent research has revolved around ecology and land ownership. Fogo Island (in all its complexities) would be an ideal place to situate myself for a period to work on these lines of thought […]. The island’s geography is enlivened by art making and in turn, enlivens the practitioner. This is to say that if Fogo Island draws in cultural workers who are interested in this sort of dynamic, my interest in turn lies not only in Fogo Island’s programming but the type of resident who chooses to make the journey.”

Find Leo on Instagram @Leo.Cocar

Exceptionally, there were two participants in 2023.

Katie Lawson

Katie Lawson attended the Residency in June and July of 2023. She has held curatorial and programming positions in Ottawa, New York, and Toronto, and was one of the curators of the Toronto Biennial of Art (2019, 2021). She is working towards her PhD in Art and Visual Culture at Western University.

Lawson’s research and time spent with a geologist on site contributed to curating her upcoming exhibition at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery: Erratic Behaviour, featuring the work of Telford Keogh, Diane Borsato, Kelly Jazvac, Laura Moore, Meghan Price, Robert Hengeveld, Tahir Carl Karmali, and Tsēmā Igharas.

“The Hnatyshyn Foundation Young Curator Fogo Island Residency was an incredible experience that I am certain will fuel my work for years to come. The unique context of the island and warmth of the local community contributed to my ongoing research around contemporary art, climate change, island ecologies, waste, and more recently, our relationship with geological forms. I look forward to seeing the ways that the connections I developed will continue to grow, and ideas to flourish,” said Lawson.

Find Katie on Instagram @sprngchckn and at www.katieblawson.com

Tak Pham

Tak Pham attended the Residency in October and November of 2023. Previously based in Regina as associate curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, he was recently appointed as Curator of Alberta University of the Arts’ Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Calgary. His writing has been widely published in Canadian and international art publications. His current research focus is on immersive experiences in contemporary art.

“I had a very enjoyable time on the island. I was there during the off-season, so the island was much quieter, but the program manager, Iris Stunzi, made a lot of effort to make sure I was introduced to the community and other residents when they were still on the island. I had a lot of time to take advantage of the multiple hiking trails on the island and used the activity to reflect and think. The limited convenience on the island also allowed me to learn to be more resourceful and self-reliant and grow as a person. These are some of the unexpected outcomes I got from this experience.

I primarily worked on my book research project about immersive art. During the residency, I took the time to do close reviews of essential theory books that I brought with me to the island. The result was an hour-long public lecture about the research featuring several case studies. I presented the talk for the first time to a small audience in Fogo towards the end of my residency. Since then, I have given it again to a lecture hall of art history students at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary. I plan to finesse the material in the lecture and convert it into two sample book chapters and a query to prospect potential publishers.”

Find Tak on Instagram @takpham and at www.takpham.com

Eli Kerr

Eli Kerr is a curator and writer based in Montréal. He is focused on artistic practices that consider the implications of technological histories within unfolding social modalities. Beyond his research interests, Kerr’s exhibition and writing activity is prompted through a constant dialog and commitment to artist’s ideas.

In 2016 he cofounded VIE D’ANGE with Daphné Boxer. The project exists as a broad framework for curatorial activities which both emanate from, and extend beyond an old auto body garage, that serves more as an apparatus than a site for their initiatives. With a focus on supporting new, intimate and experimental artist’s projects, their exhibition programme exists as an episodic series of sequential, yet nonlinear narratives. Kerr has been awarded curatorial residencies at International Studio and Curatorial Program (New York; 2017) and at Rupert (Vilnius, Lithuania; 2018). He holds a BFA in Design from Concordia University.

Janique Vigier

Janique Vigier is a curator and writer from Winnipeg based in upstate New York. She is the Assistant Editor at Semiotext(e), Los Angeles, and has held positions as Curatorial Fellow at Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and as Assistant Curator at Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg. She has curated projects at The Kitchen, New York; Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson; and RAW Gallery, Winnipeg. Her writing has appeared in Border Crossings, Portikus Journal, Animal Shelter, and Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts, among others. With Chris Kraus and Hedi El Khoti, she recently co-edited the fifth issue of the journal Animal Shelter. She is currently a MA Candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Corrie Jackson

Corrie Jackson is the RBC Associate Art Curator, overseeing the management and growth strategy of the RBC Corporate Art Collection and developing engagement surrounding RBC’s support of the visual arts. A recent graduate of the Master of Visual Studies, Curatorial Practice program at the University of Toronto, Corrie’s curatorial interests focus on cross-generational dialogues and developing the role of collections as accountable and inclusive narratives. Previously she worked at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto, at Sotheby’s Canada, and as an independent curator. She is on the board of contemporary art centre Mercer Union and the Gardiner Museum, and is the senior advisor to the Hart House Art Committee at the University of Toronto.

Steven Cottingham

Artist and curator Steven Cottingham lives and works in Vancouver. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Alberta College of Art and Design and has studied and carried out international residencies in New York, Madison (Maine), Berlin and St. Louis. Cottingham is the founder of the Calgary Biennial.

His curatorial projects include Atlas Sighed: The Calgary Biennial of Contemporary Art, United Congress: Reconvenience and Soft Movements in the Same Direction at The New Gallery, Calgary. His solo exhibitions and projects have been presented at Niagara Artists Centre, St. Catharines, Ontario; ZK/U, Berlin, Germany; Galerie Tiers-espace, Saint John, New Brunswick to name a few.

At the time of his residency, Darryn Doull, of Sarnia, Ontario, was Assistant Curator at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery.

Darryn came to the residency in late winter with a preliminary concept for an exhibition. He found the landscape and cultural heritage of Fogo Island to be aligned perfectly with his research on magic, myth, and superstition in contemporary Canadian art. Darryn engaged and shared stories with members of the community, which subsequently guided his research and helped shape his own understanding of the function of myth and superstition in society. He left with a fully formed plan for an exhibition.

“One of the first hikes that I went on was to go to the spot of the Witches Foot. Though obviously covered in snow, the idea that this spot has some sacred energy or potential (if the foot fits) was very interesting to me in relation to my research.”

“I have not travelled a lot, so the cultural and social experience of life on Fogo Island was remarkable on its own. The landscape and people of the island shaped my experience in significantly positive ways.”

Kari Cwynar

Kari Cwynar is from Vancouver and works in Toronto. She is Director at Kunstverein Toronto, and has held positions as a curatorial researcher at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Banff Centre. She also works as an international correspondent for Metropolis M magazine, Utrecht. Kari holds an MA in art history from Carleton University and a BA in art history from Queens University. She has also studied at Independent Curators International in New York, and in the de Appel curatorial programme in Amsterdam.

Darryn Doull

Darryn Doull is a curator, musician, artist, and gardener currently based in Sarnia, Ontario. He was part of the curatorial team that managed the transformation of the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery, moving to a historically significant purpose-built facility in 2012. Recent curatorial credits of contemporary and historical art exhibitions include: James Kirkpatrick: Sculpting Sound (2013); Making Methods: Mark Stebbins, Samantha Mogelonsky, Becky Ip (2013-14, with Linda Jansma); It Isn’t Either Or: The 70s in Ontario (2013); and Ron Martin: Activating Absence (2014). Writings have been included in the monograph Adad Hannah: The Diversions (2012), in exhibition materials for Andreas Rutkauskas: Petrolia (2013), and numerous other exhibition publications. Darryn graduated with distinction from the Studio Art program at the University of Guelph in 2010.

Photo: Fera Elise Kennedy Photography)