AFA News

May is Asian Heritage Month, a time to celebrate and recognize the achievements and contributions of Asian and South Asian communities across the country, and throughout the province.

The AFA is pleased to recognize a few individuals that have enriched, supported and diversified the arts within our province.

Artists featured in Here & Now

We are pleased to share artist profiles of two of the 12 artists featured in the AFA exhibition, Here & Now, at the Royal Alberta Museum. 

Raeann Kit-Yee Cheung

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, Raeann Kit-Yee Cheung is a photographer who leans on a dual heritage to create work that is both personal and universal. Having immigrated almost five decades ago, Raeann has come to accept she is neither Chinese nor Canadian, but rather someone who embodies a rich ambiguity that helps her confront melded identities to resolve inner complexities.

Wei Li

Wei Li is a Calgary-based emerging Chinese Canadian visual artist, whose experience as an immigrant to Canada, provides her with crucial inspiration in her artistic practice. Her dual cultural background challenges her to integrate different cultural perspectives in her works and creates tensions through the contradictions inherent in forming a new hybrid cultural identity.

Get to know Wei as she shares the stories behind her new digital series, Vessels, and a bit about herself in her AFA Artist Spotlight.

AFA Board Directors

The AFA Board of Directors includes arts champions from across the province, appointed by the Government of Alberta.

Le Bo

Le Bo is the Vice Chair of the AFA's Board of Directors. He has a passion for learning and volunteerism.He actively organizes and leads community events and participates in cultural events and exhibits. Le Bo is a successful entrepreneur who founded and served as the CEO and Chairman of an oil and gas company that was eventually listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after 15 years of operation. In addition, Le Bo has founded multiple private companies in IT, robotics, and software.

Hear Le Bo speak on the importance of creating diversity in the arts. 
Watch

Nabil Malik

Nabil Malik a Member of the AFA's Board of Directors. A resident of the Wood Buffalo region, Nabil is a progressive and creative contributor to the cultural fabric of his community.  In his work as a community development planner by day and an active volunteer by night, he advocates for the vital role the arts play in placemaking, creating vibrant communities, and fostering a sense of identity and belonging. 

Hear from Nabil on the importance of the arts and the role of the AFA.
Watch

Shana Yang

Shana Yang is a Member of the AFA's Board of Directors. She is a passionate and active member of Calgary’s music and arts communities. Shana received the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, and has over 20 years of experience in vocal training and choral conducting. She is currently the Artistic Director of an Alberta registered non-profit choral organization she founded in 2004, and a music instructor at the Mount Royal Conservatory. Shana looks forward to helping local art communities strengthen and flourish.

Hear from Shana as she shares how the arts can grow in Alberta.

Watch

As we celebrate those that have supported and enriched the arts in Alberta, we encourage you to take part in any and all events recognizing and honouring Asian Heritage Month.

Learn more about how the AFA is addressing equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in and through the arts. 

A Message from AFA Board Chair Paul R. Baay

On February 29, the Alberta government announced Budget 2024. I am pleased to share that funding for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) was increased by $4.5 million, or by 18 percent from last year, to $30.1 million for 2024-25.

In addition to this year’s increase, the government has committed to incrementally increasing funding to the AFA so that it will reach nearly $40 million by 2026.

The AFA board is incredibly pleased with the government’s increased investment in the arts, and I know this will be good news for those in our arts community. We look forward to utilizing additional resources to continue to support the development of the arts in all corners of the province by funding artists, arts activities that engage audiences, and the organizations that bring them together. 

As usual, the AFA board will work on a plan for allocating its budget amongst our programs and services that will best utilize resources including the budget increase. Once that plan is approved, we will communicate our funding approach to the community. At this time, the AFA has not made any decisions related to program funding allocations.

The AFA board will work to ensure our spending plan is reflective of community priorities and continues to be informed by engagement with the sector. In line with our mandate, we will continue to prioritize and invest in artists, art, and cultural materials. 

As the government’s approach is incremental, the AFA’s will be as well: we will carefully and responsibly plan for increased resources as they are allocated to the foundation.

The board acknowledges the valuable feedback received from Alberta’s arts community over the past year. Alberta’s arts community is ready to thrive, not just survive, in a healthy and vibrant creative environment. Increased investment will help but we also recognize that collaboration and information sharing will be vital to support the sector to redefine success in a post-pandemic world.

We appreciate your continued engagement and look forward to sharing further updates with you soon.

Paul Baay
Chair, Alberta Foundation for the Arts 

Budget 2024 information

• Budget 2024
• Alberta Arts, Culture and Status of Women 2024-25 Business Plan (PDF) – English | French
• Government of Alberta 2024-27 Fiscal Plan (PDF) – Schedule 21: Allocation of 2024-25 Net Gaming / Lottery Revenue to AFA on page 161

Patch Portraits

February 3, 2024 to April 6, 2024

Patch Portraits showcases the work of Michelle Sound and Raneece Buddan, two artists who employ fabrics and materials of cultural heritage to explore the genre of portraiture and identity.

Stitching, patching and collaging together found and fabricated textiles, the resulting bodies of work by each artist showcase multiple ways in which threads and fabrics can be deployed in contemporary art practices. 

TREX Space is located in downtown Medicine Hat, #2 - 516 Third Street SE

www.esplanade.ca/esplanade-exhibitions-programs-and-shows/patch-portraits

Curated by Genevieve Farrell

Cat's Cradle

February 3, 2024 to April 6, 2024

The travelling exhibition Cat's Cradle features work by Alberta artists Sondra Meszaros, Jane Ash Poitras and Angeline Simon.

Work by each artist employs photomontage, a collage technique involving the collecting, organizing, arranging and fixing of photographs and other media into new arrangements.

The resulting artwork can be understood as attempts to dissect and reveal hidden or peripheral histories of identity, emotion, social norms and other cultural-political arenas of both personal and civilizational significance.

TREX Space is located in downtown Medicine Hat, #2 - 516 Third Street SE

www.esplanade.ca/esplanade-exhibitions-programs-and-shows/cats-cradle

Curated by Genevieve Farrell

Cradle presents the work of three artists, currently residing in Edmonton, who originally come from regions associated with some of the cradles of civilization mentioned above. Arriving in Canada as economic immigrants or refugees from war and conflict, each of these artists is a story teller, sharing in their artworks ancient and rich cultural histories and legacies.

While concerned with specific places and people in their works, however, these artists also strive to address more universal concerns to demonstrate that, regardless of where people come from, we are all one people with similar dreams and desires.

This exhibition features works by Hanny Al Khoury, originally from Palestine; Riaz Mehmood, originally from Pakistan; and Aboud Salman, originally from Syria and was organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition program.

Curated by Shane Golby

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) Travelling Exhibition, Women Gone Wild! explores the subject of wild creatures and the natural world as expressed in the work of three contemporary women artists from Edmonton. Featuring works by Cynthia Fuhrer, Jenny Keith and Samantha Walrod, the depictions of wild creatures presented by these artists range from realistic representations to more abstract and surrealistic impressions. These artists also demonstrate diverse reasons for choosing their subjects. Whatever their artistic approach and intentions, however, all three artists reveal a love and respect for nature in their works and through them invite viewers to ‘go wild‘ as well.

Featuring works by Cynthia Fuhrer, Jenny Keith and Samantha Walrod, the depictions of wild creatures presented range from realistic representations to more abstract and surrealistic impressions.

These artists also demonstrate diverse reasons for choosing their subjects.

While Samantha Walrod emphasizes materiality in her imagery, both Jenny Keith and Cynthia Fuhrer are more concept driven, addressing personal concerns and the relationship of humanity to the natural world in their paintings. 

Curated by Shane Golby, Art Gallery of Alberta (TREX Region 2)

Education guide

A dot is a point in space. A series of dots in a row draws a line. A line can signal an interruption or an end, but it can also extend infinitely in either direction from any point. A flat, two-dimensional surface that has the potential to extend indefinitely between points or lines is a plane. A point, a line, a plane, each is a basic building block of a visual composition. A set of parallel, intersecting lines on a plane is a grid. A grid is a system.

MARY SHANNON WILL dot.dot.dot. exhibits the artist’s use of the dot or pixel, the line, and the grid to make artworks that explore chance colour combinations and nonrepeating patterns within rule-based systems. The exhibition includes twenty-six colourful abstract paintings, drawings, digital prints, and mixed media works on paper produced by the artist between 1987 and 2017.

Together, they provide an intimate glimpse into the artist’s life and work; bright gems oscillating with concentrated energy drawn from her experience of the world.

Curated by Diana Sherlock

Education guide

Land Eater - A Travelling Exhibition of Artworks by Jude Griebel

September 7, 2023 - August 28, 2024

Jude Griebel’s solo exhibition Land Eater invites reflection on human interactions with land and our impact on natural ecologies. While the art conceptually explores consumption and degradation, each work invites whimsical and open-ended curiosity about how we define land and our relationship to it.

There is uncanny tension present in Griebel’s anthropomorphized landscapes and protesting-insect sculptures, which prompt important questions regarding who is truly holding the proverbial “talking stick” in our current conversations around climate change and consumerism. If the various organisms we share Earth with are bearing signs of resistance, what specifically is at the root of their dissent? If the land is speaking to us, what is it saying?

How do we respond in turn? Each of the artworks in Land Eater contemplates incredibly complicated and nuanced relationships that humans are currently navigating related to environmental stewardship.

The questions raised within these works allow viewers to speculate on possibilities and encourage curiosity about what the future may hold — not just for humans, but for all natural organisms and the living Earth.

Curated by Ashley Slemming

Eduction guide

September 7, 2023 - August 28, 2024

The exhibition ReconciliACTIONS reminds us that reconciliation is an ongoing process, a chain of care and repair, not a one-and-done event. Decolonizing our relationships with one another and drawing new pathways of understanding based on mutual respect is empowering for all of us.

Indigenous, settler, immigrant, and refugee alike all play an integral role in enacting reconciliation. Dominique (T8aminik) Rankin and Marie-Josée Tardif explain in the quote above that what matters most for everyone, regardless of beliefs, is that we free ourselves from suffering by learning to dance on the path that has not been burnt by the modern world.

We are being encouraged to rebuild balance and harmony into our lives together – a dance free of the shame, self-importance, greed, and noise of modern life.

These modern world attributes have clouded our ability to truly see each other, inhibiting the repair of our relationships, individually and collectively. We cannot move forward in reconciliation if we do not listen and dance with patience and vulnerability.

ReconciliACTIONS is an invitation to contemplate how we can show up with care in actively carrying reconciliation forward. All persons have agency to create ripples of change, and the Indigenous artists who are included in this exhibition are contributing to this change by educating the public and sharing their knowledge and experiences through their art.

As you look at each artwork, consider the artist, their experiences, and what message each artwork might be conveying. Consider how your own actions can be instruments of change in the ongoing process of reconciliation.

This exhibition features artworks by:

• Madeline Belanger
• Kalum Teke Dan
• Delree Dumont
• Michael Fatt
• Em Forbes
• Flora Johnson
• Saila Kilabuk
• Donna Langhorne
• Christiana Latham
• Aloysius Manybears
• Shelley May
• Tracey Metallic
• Audra/Keevin Simeon-Rider
• Tamara Shepherd
• Gordon Wesley
• Ryan Jason Allen Willert
• Lana Whiskeyjack
• Autumn Whiteway
• Three youth artists from Stardale Women’s Group – Kory, Jaylena, and Mazzy

Education guide

George Littlechild
Cross Cultural Examination #2 
2007
ink jet print on paper
Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

The AFA is pleased to share the virtual exhibition, Cross Cultura, curated by Indigenous curator, visual artist and archaeologist, Autumn Whiteway (Night Singing Woman) is now on Google Arts & Culture.  

Tour the online exhibition now!

About the artist

Autumn Whiteway (“Night Singing Woman”) is a Saulteaux/Métis visual artist, traditional craft worker, curator and archaeologist based in Calgary, Alberta. She explores Indigenous themes from a contemporary perspective through painting, digital art and photography.

Her painting and digital art is primarily focused on the heavily symbolic Woodland Style of Indigenous art, while her photography is used as a form of activism to highlight Indigenous issues. Her work has been exhibited at locations such as Arts Commons, cSpace King Edward, ATB Branch for Arts and Culture, and Calgary Public Library.

Autumn recently joined the Glenbow Museum as their new Curator, Indigenous Art.

Autumn’s degrees include an M.A. in Anthropology from University of Manitoba (2017), a B.Sc. in Archaeology, and a B.A. in Greek and Roman Studies.

Her curatorial work has focused on elevating the voices of Indigenous creatives through a series of Indigenous focused exhibitions. Autumn’s curatorial repertoire includes three group exhibitions held at multiple Calgary venues between 2020-2022, known as “Indigenous Motherhood and Matriarchy.”

About the exhibition

Cross Cultura is a group exhibition comparing Indigenous and non-Indigenous aesthetics and epistemologies, with the latter centered on Eurocentric settler colonial perspectives. Download the exhibition catalogue.

The exhibition comprises 13 artwork pairings (one for each moon of the lunar calendar that is traditionally utilized by Indigenous peoples). Each pairing features an Indigenous and non-Indigenous artist portraying conceptually similar subject matters from different worldviews.

Subject matters range from community and family relations, to work and social life, the cosmos and human-animal interactions. Additional pairings focus on gender-based representation in portraiture, and the medium of stone carving.

Through the Fellowship for Emerging Curators, the AFA invites individuals and/or groups of individuals to submit a proposal for an online exhibition of Albertan visual art. Funded exhibitions are uploaded to Google Arts & Culture. Autumn was the AFA's 2021-22 Emerging Curator Fellow. 

Watch Autumn describe her exhibition in "Curating from the Collection"

Autumn describes the Cross Cultura starting at 6:25 of the video below: