Tracing Labor Territories
January 25, 2024 to March 30, 2024
Exhibition Location: Sur Gallery, 39 Queens Quay East, Suite 100
PROGRAMMING:
Opening Reception
Thursday, January 25, 7pm – 9pm, In-person
Curator Tour In Spanish: Mariza Rosales Argonza
Saturday, January 27, 2pm – 3pm, In-person
Artist Talk: Martín Rodríguez and Anahí González
Thursday, February 8, 7pm – 8pm, Online
Curator Tour with Tamara Toledo
Thursday, February 22, 7pm – 8pm, Online
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The artists in the exhibition deconstruct the politicized spaces that lie between territory and labor, outlining the imperial and colonial relationship of the North and the South. Four artists listen and interpret migratory flows between borders, they shift the margins and narratives with various artistic proposals and mediums. From photography to video installation to sound art, the artists Anahí González, María Hoyos, Martín Rodríguez, and Victor Vargas offer counter-narratives and a perspective of the migrant worker who is often marginal, silenced, and exploited, within a settler colonial state that profits of their labor force while making their presence invisible.
For more than fifty years, Canada has relied heavily on seasonal workers to fill labor shortages to ensure food self-sufficiency. The artists in Tracing Labor Territories allude to the various impacts that result out of this geopolitical phenomenon. Victor Vargas depicts the alienating experience of temporary agricultural workers separated from their loved ones, while María Hoyos denounces the physical harms caused under poor working conditions. Martín Rodríguez depicts human migration through the immateriality of sound, and Anahí González reminds us of the geopolitical implications and effects of a neoliberal economic model and reveal the impact of globalization. The artists delve into the multiple nuances that permeate territory within nation state building, while exploring cross-border thinking at its core. The profit of land and of people mark a site of complicity, through renewed forms of human exploitation, and through the perpetuation of privilege. The artists assume the responsibility of exposing its reality and truth.
The artworks in Tracing Labor Territories highlight the social, economic, political and health challenges faced by migrant workers, and point to its underlying inequality. Most importantly, the artists foreground the experiences of underrepresented subjects within a predominantly White and elitist arts industry, and insert the image and voice of migrant workers to the imaginary of contemporary Canadian art with an emphatic and ethical approach.
Curated by Mariza Rosales Argonza and Tamara Toledo
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Anahí González is a Mexican photographer based in London, Canada. She holds a BA in Communication from the Universidad del Valle de México, an MFA from Western University and is currently an Art and Visual Culture Ph.D. candidate at Western University. González was selected to be part of the AGO X RBC Emerging Artist Exchange program (2022) and was a grant holder of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte Grant (Jóvenes Creadores) in Mexico, Generation 2021-2022. Her work has been included in exhibitions and screenings in countries such as Mexico, Canada, the United States, Norway, Spain, and France. Selected exhibitions include: Para Seguir Adelante at the Lionel Romach Gallery (Canada, 2023); Hacia Arriba / Upwards at Xpace Cultural Centre, a Core Exhibition of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival (Canada 2023); The Other Side of the Loonie at Whippersnapper (Canada, 2023); SHOW.21 at Cambridge Galleries (Canada, 2021); The Other Nehibour of El Otro Lado at the Artlab and the Nodo (Canada and Mexico, 2021); the VI Festival Video nodoCCS at 51K Arteriet/Art Gallery (Norway, 2020); Donde Se Limpia at the Museo el Centenario and the Escuelas Pías de San Fernando Gallery (Mexico and Spain, 2017).
Montreal based artist Martín Rodríguez is a transmission and sound artist whose work emerges from his Chicanx upbringing along the Arizona-Mexico border. Rodríguez employs performance, intervention, and installation as a process for deciphering aural histories and entangled identities. Rodríguez approaches his work from the Chicanx concept of rasquachismo; this type of methodology utilizes pragmatic ways of remaking and hacking material and objects to reimagine their function. This is a process born from adapting, merging, and creating something practical and new from scarcity. His work has been presented by the Musée d’art contemporain Montréal, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, Darling Foundry in Montreal, Walking Festival for Sound in the United Kingdom, Spektrum in Denmark, and has shown his work in the cities of Berlin, Krakow, and Edinburgh, as well as across Canada and the United States.
Victor Vargas was born in Mexico City and is currently based in Montreal. He received a BSc in Actuarial Sciences at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). After working for five years in actuarial related positions, Vargas decided to shift his focus towards photography. In 2005, he studied photography and cinema and took workshops at the Casa del Lago in Mexico City. He immigrated to Montreal in 2008, where he studied Photography at Dawson College. His documentary Paal won several awards and prizes in film festivals across the world and it was nominated for the Mexican Academy Award in 2013. His still photography has been recognized worldwide including a first prize at the Sony World Photo Awards in 2012. Vargas has exhibited his work in Canada, France, Mexico, China, and the United Kingdom. He received the Vivacite Montreal grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) for his project La Mitad Lejana. Victor is represented by The Print Atelier.
María Hoyos is a Cali born Colombian artist currently based in Montreal since 2002. She studied video and explored moving images in Bogotá, Madrid, and Havana. Her interest shifted to installation art when she pursued studies in Art and Art Education at UQAM (University of Quebec in Montreal) and completed her master's degree in creation in the same institution. Within her installation she explores the geopolitical history of sugar and the working conditions of its industry. Her master’s work has been exhibited in the Galerie de l’UQAM. She received the Prix d’Excellence Irène Senécal in 2022 in recognition of her commitment to teaching and pedagogical work. She recently joined the artist collective Intervals, which was co-founded by Maria Ezcurra, Dominique Fontaine, Romeo Gongora, and Miwa Kojima. Maria Hoyos is the recepient of the Intersections 2023-2024 residency, awarded by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the OPTICA contemporary art center and UQAM’s École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’université de Québec á Montréal.
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Mariza Rosales Argonza is a visual artist, independent researcher, and cultural mediator. She received her Bachelor of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) and went on to complete a master’s in art history and a PhD in Modern and Contemporary Art from the Universidad Autónoma de Quéretaro/Centro de Cultura Casa Lamm in Mexico City. She received a postdoctoral fellowship at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and was coordinator for the research centre Cultures-Arts-Sociétés (CELAT) at UQAM. Rosales Argonza published the 2018 edited volume Vues transversales: Panorama de la scène artistique latino-québécoise (Cross-sectional views: Panorama of the Latin-Quebec artistic scene) a collection of essays on visual and literary arts, published by CIDIHCA-LatinArte and has written various essays among them “Representations of the Latin American Diaspora in Quebec: Latino-Québécois Visions” for the edited volume Latin America Made in Canada published by Lugar Común Editorial.
Tamara Toledo is a curator, scholar, and artist based in Toronto. She is a graduate of OCAD University, with an MFA from York University, and is currently a PhD candidate in Art History and Visual Culture. Her research focuses on hemispheric connections, decolonial methodologies and practices, diasporic histories, and the legacies of the Cold war era in contemporary art. Toledo is recipient of various grants, scholarships, and awards and has been published by ARM Journal, C Magazine, Fuse, Canadian Art, and Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture Journal of the University of California. She has participated in various conferences and symposiums across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Toledo is currently the Director/Curator of Sur Gallery.
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday to Friday: noon-6:00PM
Saturdays: 11 AM-5 PM
