PAST EXHIBITION
nichola feldman-kiss / refuge (SIREN)
Go to refuge (SIREN)
refuge (SIREN) is an immersive web exhibition and digital dissemination project created as an extension of nichola feldman-kiss’ solo exhibition Scapegoat, presented at the McMaster Museum in the Winter of 2022. This exploratory site is an output of the artist’s prosocial practice-based research that explores colonial paradigms and the globalized order’s effects on human life and the environment. Scapegoat and another recent exhibition project called Siren III take on new meanings as varied elements inspired by their visceral hybrid-media installations are designed into this compelling interactive landscape.
Reflecting on themes from migratory culture and forced displacement to geopolitics and climate crisis, refuge (SIREN) is an excursion through oceanic passages, diasporic imaginaries and existential transitions. Submerged into the unsettling depths of descent and ascension, accompanying texts, audio works and images are remixed together in this virtual space which acts as a portal through tenacious journeys into new possible cartographies, honouring life’s urgent will to survive and thrive.
nichola feldman-kiss creates across disciplines with emphasis on relational, lens and hybrid media technologies presented as social engagement, institution intervention and public installation. feldman-kiss’s process-rich research proposes identity as a fugitive concept while focusing on the body as a contested site of cultural production. The artist’s 25 year oeuvre is an ongoing critique of the Colonial paradigm (the violent ingestion of land, resources, peoples and cultures). Their artworks and installations lay bare the entanglements of globalised order that insist rights onto some while withholding the same entitlements from others, and ask us to reconsider difficult questions about what it means to be conscious social bodies within the contemporary moment. nichola feldman-kiss art and technology innovations and institution interventions have been hosted by the National Research Council of Canada, the Ottawa Hospital Eye Institute, Canada’s Department of National Defence, and the United Nations among others.
nichola feldman-kiss holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. feldman-kiss is a first-generation Canadian of the Caribbean diaspora and a repatriated citizen of Germany and Jamaica working between Toronto (Tkaronto) and rural Newfoundland (Ktaqmkuk).
Refuge has been produced to accompany the exhibition nichola feldman-kiss \ Scapegoat (February 9 – March 18, 2022) at the McMaster Museum of Art and curated by Pamela Edmonds and Mona Filip | Original words and artworks are courtesy of nichola feldman-kiss ©2021 | Site design by Toronto based digital design collective, feldman-kiss & Matheuszik with Spatial-esk for the McMaster Museum of Art, 2022 | Installation photography by Toni Hafkenscheid | precipice and panacea written and excerpts read by Spatial-esk, Toronto, 2022 | Dreaming with Sirens III, Dreaming with Water written and excerpts read by Anita Girvan, Victoria, 2022 | Considered the Censured (Fragments) written and excerpts read by Luther Konadu, Winnipeg, 2022.
The museum and the artist acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council.
Artists: nichola feldman-kiss & Matheuszik with SPATIAL-ESK
February 08, 2023 – May 08, 2023
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Arenhátyen tsi ní:tsi teyottenyonhátye’ kwató:ken tsi nī:tsi yonkwa’nikonhrayén:ta’s
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SUBMISSIONS & ASSISTANCE
SUBMISSIONS:
The McMaster Museum of Art is presently not accepting artists’ submissions for exhibitions at this time of leadership change at the museum. Our Interim Director will be undertaking a review of the museum’s forward exhibition schedule, as well as our policies and procedures, in the coming months. Our present focus is the ongoing maintenance of our permanent collection and storage needs for future collection activities.
The museum remains committed to our collecting priority in the continued support of early career, mid-career and established Indigenous artists, artists of the Black diaspora and racialized artists through purchases and commissions. Donations will be welcomed and reviewed at a future date which will be posted on our website.
ASSISTANCE:
The McMaster Museum of Art is a third party recommender for Ontario Arts Council (OAC) Exhibition Assistance Grants.
Please note that there has been a delay in the OAC opening the 2024-2025 program. This webpage will be updated with our deadlines as soon as possible.
Priorities:
Artists who demonstrate an interest and consideration of art as a medium for social change and action.
Please follow the guidelines established by the Ontario Arts Council, apply directly through their website, and submit the following with your applications:
Brief artist statement
Confirmation letter from the gallery/museum/venue
Budget
CV
Digital images of work
