Harbour (v): To provide harbour or a safe place for; to take refuge or shelter in a protected expanse of water; to hold or persistently entertain in one’s thoughts or mind.
The act of harbour intrinsically considers transitions, shorelines, and in-between spaces; it considers shelter as a necessary moment of retreat for safety, rejuvenation and reflection within the process of journey-making; and it considers the state of thinking as reflection and meditation in motion, ready to create transformations.
Working within the media and visual arts, Harbour Collective seeks to create process-based works, artistic interventions and professional programming that positions at the forefront the importance of personal connections and relationships to triggering artistic growth and transformation. It considers the connection of self to community and place, and artistically examines what occurs in the liminal space between these things.
Harbour Collective programming places special attention on developing opportunities for Indigenous and racialised art practitioners working at all levels in their careers.
HARBOUR COLLECTIVE
LIZ BARRON |Winnipeg
One of the original founders of Urban Shaman Gallery, a contemporary Indigenous artist run centre based in Winnipeg, Liz Barron has been working within the arts sector for over 20 years. Her skills in managing large scale projects with various Indigenous cultural practices has developed through two major historic initiatives. Liz was the Director for the Metis 10, a Vancouver Olympic project featuring ten Metis artists and a permanent installation and was the program manager for Close Encounters: The next 500 years, an exhibition featuring more than 30 Indigenous artists from around the world and working with four curators.
CECILIA ARANEDA |Winnipeg
Chilean-Canadian filmmaker and curator Cecilia Araneda came to Canada as a child as a refugee together with her family. She is one of Manitoba’s most accomplished filmmakers, having been the recipient of various national and international awards, recognitions and residencies. She is also an internationally recognized media art curator. In 2019, she became the first-ever curator from the prairies to be awarded the Joan Lowndes Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts, for independent curatorial practice in visual and media arts. As a cultural worker, Araneda served as Executive Director of the storied Winnipeg Film Group / Cinematheque from 2006 to 2017, a period widely recognized for its increased diversity, technology expansion and financial stability. | ceciliaaraneda.ca
JASON BAERG |Toronto
Jason Baerg is an Indigenous curator, educator, and visual artist. He currently is teaching as the Assistant Professor in Indigenous Practices in Contemporary Painting and Media Art at OCAD University. Dedicated to community development, he founded and incorporated the Metis Artist Collective and has served as volunteer Chair for such organizations as the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition. Creatively, as a visual artist, he pushes new boundaries in digital interventions in drawing, painting and new media installation. Recent international solo exhibitions include the Illuminato Festival in Toronto, Canada, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and the Digital Dome at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
HOWARD ADLER | Ottawa
Howard Adler holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Indigenous Studies from Trent University, and a Master Of Arts Degree in Canadian Studies from Carleton University. He is an award winning writer, and an artist that has worked in diverse mediums, including visual art, stained glass, theatre, video editing, and film. In 2009 he won the Canadian Aboriginal Youth Writing Challenge, and his video work has been exhibited in both gallery settings and film festivals, such as ImagineNATIVE (Toronto), Weengushk (Sudbury), Biindigaate (Thunder Bay), and SAW Video’s annual Resolution screening (Ottawa). Howard works as a freelance Videographer and video editor and is currently the Co-Director and Programmer for the Asinabka Festival, an annual Indigenous film and media arts festival in Ottawa. Howard is Jewish and Ojibwa and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation in North-western Ontario.
COOPER | Ottawa
Cooper’s artistic practice is based on the exploration of the moving image and pushing its mediums into the unknown. Cooper is known for using the technique of manipulating film emulsion prior to photographing images. They have buried black and white and colour 16mm film stocks in soil, bathed it in baking soda, berg colour toner, household bleach and photographic bleach all before photographing the film’s images. They also explore the science behind film emulsion making, organic film developer recipes and tinting and toning using household ingredients. Cooper also explores alternative cinema practices and has created a number of unique and new ways of viewing the moving image. As an award winning film artist, Cooper’s films have screened at festivals and art galleries across Canada and Internationally.
PENNY MCCANN | Ottawa
Penny McCann’s contribution to the media arts spans over 25 years. As a media artist, Penny’s films and videos have been exhibited widely at festivals and galleries nationally and internationally. A veteran arts administrator, Penny served as Director of SAW Video from 2004 to 2018. In that role, she wrote countless grants, successfully increasing SAW Video’s operational funding, as well as earning for the centre two back-to-back Ontario Trillium Foundation grants in 2017. As an artist, she has received numerous grants and was recently awarded a Canada Council Research and Creation grant as well as a City of Ottawa A grant in Film and Video.
