If you are an emerging BIPOC curator or arts professional based in the Greater Vancouver Area who would like to participate in the mentoring session with Lee on the afternoon of Sunday November 21 at Or Gallery, please forward one or two lines about yourself and what you hope to develop or learn with the support of the mentorship session to the email address: mentorship@orgallery.org on or before Friday November 5, 2021.

Those selected for the mentorship will be contacted by end of day on November 8th and asked to prepare a short project description (max 500 words) geared towards an exhibition proposal. Descriptions will be circulated within the group for workshop purposes. There is no cost to participate, however willingness to speak candidly in the group is required.

For the second year running, Or Gallery has partnered with the Historic Joy Kogawa House (HJKH) to invite an established curator, with lived experience as a member of a BIPOC community, for a month-long residency in Vancouver. As part of the residency activities, curators are asked to mentor and network with local, emerging BIPOC curators and arts professionals in addition to working on their own curatorial research and writing projects.

This year’s Distinguished Curatorial Mentor Su-Ying Lee will be in residence at the Historic Joy Kogawa House throughout November and will develop and conduct mentoring sessions at Or Gallery for a limited number of local curators and creatives in the process of professionalizing their practice.

Lee (she/her) has developed her practice for gallery spaces in addition to self-determined platforms, remixing institutional contexts and engaging the possibilities within other sites. She is interested in employing the role of curator as a co-conspirator, accomplice and active agent. Querying what the presentation of art can contribute to creating “otherwise” underlines many of her projects and initiatives.

She has developed a prolific independent curatorial practice alongside past appointments as Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), Curator in Residence at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, and Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. She received her Masters Degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto and is an alumnus of the Toronto Arts Council/Banff Centre’s Cultural Leaders’ Lab. Her projects have been presented across Canada, in Hong Kong, Mexico City and Quezon City (Metro Manila, Philippines). She also writes creative non-fiction and social criticism.

Lee lives in Toronto/Tkaronto/Taranton/Gichi Kiiwenging, Canada, the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Which continues to be the meeting place and home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island.

Links:
www.su-yinglee.com
www.kogawahouse.com/wp