Becoming Lithocene

Tsēmā Igharas is an interdisciplinary artist and a member of the Tahltan First Nation. She uses Potlatch methodology as the foundation for the creation of compelling performance work and installations. Her practice is informed by Northwest Coast Formline Design, her studies in visual culture but also time spent in the mountains. Her unique approach is a way to challenge the colonial value system and relation to the land, and to promote, through methods of care, strategies of resistance.

Igharas has a Bachelor’s degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and graduated from the Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design program at OCAD University, Toronto. She is a contributing member and representative for ReMatriate Collective, a group working toward the improvement of the way indigenous women are portrayed in the media. She has won the 2018 Emily Award for outstanding ECUAD alumni; she has shown and performed in numerous places in Canada, including Montreal Contemporary Native Art Biennial; internationally, she has participated in events in Mexico, the United States and Chile.

Suzanne Nacha is an artist working in painting, sculpture, installation and video. Her work is imbued with a unique visual language enriched by her experiences mapping the far-reaches of Canada, creating geologic maps that span the earth’s continents and the study of structural geology. She has exhibited her artwork in Canada, the United States and Europe and is represented in public and private collections, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa; the National Bank of Canada, Toronto; The Donovan Collection, University of Toronto; and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Born in Hamilton, she holds degrees in both fine art (BFA, University of Guelph; MFA, York University, Toronto) and geology (BA, Geology and Geography, McMaster University, Hamilton). She has taught in the Fine Art departments of OCAD University, Toronto; Sheridan/UTM, Oakville; and York University, Toronto. For the past fifteen years, she has pursued parallel careers in the visual arts and the geological sciences.

Meghan Price works in sculpture, print, video and textiles to explore ways of experiencing Earth’s timescale in the everyday. Price has exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at Fiberspace Gallery, Stockholm; AKA Artist-run, Saskatoon; Untitled Art Society, Calgary; the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, Asheville; the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon; and Blackwood Gallery, Toronto. She has held residencies at the Icelandic Textile Center, Blönduós; the Museum of the Flat Earth, Fogo Island; Artspace, Sydney; the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden; and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Price holds a degree in Textile Construction from The Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles (2003) and an MFA from Concordia University (2009). Price lives in Toronto where she teaches in the Textile studios of OCAD University and Sheridan College.

Hannah Rowan lives and works in London, and has exhibited across the UK and in the United States. She makes sculptural works that meditate on the relationship between the slow geological time of natural processes and the fast-paced, technology-driven frenetic activity of humans. She received her Masters in Sculpture from Royal College of Art London and her BA (hons) in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London. She has attended residencies at The Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden; Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity; The Vermont Studio Centre, Johnson; and The Wassaic Project. She is the recipient of the Gilbert Bayes Scholarship in Sculpture (2018) and the Arts Council England Grants for the Arts (2017) for her research in the Atacama Desert. Recent exhibitions include Site Work (2019), Experimental Gallery Cornell University, Ithica; I’m in the Bath on All Fours (2019), Well Projects, Margate; Bodies of Water; Age of Fluidity (2019), White Crypt, London; Oikos Logos (2018), Enclave Lab, London; Wild Within (2018), Guest Projects, London; Too Much Information, Seventeen Gallery, London, UK; and The Roger Ailes Memorial Show: Fair and Balanced? (2017), Yours Mine and Ours Gallery, New York. In June 2019 she will be part of the Arctic Circle: Arts and Sciences Residency in Svalbard.

Diana Hiebert is an independent curator and writer, and a Curatorial Research Practicum at Walter Phillips Gallery. Hiebert holds a MA Art History and concentration in Art Exhibition and Curatorial Practices from Carleton University, Ottawa and served as research assistant at Carleton University Art Gallery. She interned at the contemporary art department at the National Gallery of Canada and department of research at the Canadian Museum of History where she enjoyed working with creative teams in many aspects of exhibition-making. In addition, she has worked at The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford in a number of capacities including preparator and exhibition designer. In 2015, she also served as Curator of Programming at Emerge at The Reach, an organization associated with the gallery that serves young artists in the Fraser Valley.