SOTA Artist in Residence Series
Curatorial Project
The School of the Arts
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON
2023-2024
The 2023-2024 SOTA artist-in-residency program included four Queer and Trans artists from across Turtle Island whose practices rely heavily on material exploration, weaving form and concept within the framework of Queer / Trans histories and aesthetics. Each artist will give a SOTA-wide artist talk and host a workshop with students. Artists will be available to give class talks and workshops specific to studio-based courses that are being offered during their residency.
Each residency culminated in a solo exhibition by the artist at Orchid Contemporary. The exhibitions served as pedagogical tools for students and were paired with artist talk and class field trips and tours.
Oct 1-14
Dana Buzzee (b.1986) is a visual artist and educator currently based in Mohkinstsis/Calgary, AB. Buzzee’s practice is rooted in queer ecology, disability justice discourse, internet studies, and visual/material culture, particularly engaging with both the “stuff” and desires of counter-culture communities, composing an interdisciplinary gathering committed to re-wilding the sculptural field. Buzzee’s recent fascination with plastics—a hallmark material of the Anthropocene epoch—reflects a nuanced exploration of consumerist fetishism tied to extractive capitalist economies, while also serving as a narrative medium for deep-time storytelling and speculative thought.
Buzzee’s recent exhibitions include solo and group exhibitions at: HOT*BED, Philadelphia (2022); Ditch Contemporary, Springfield (2022); Eugene Contemporary (2021); The Plumb, Toronto (2021); Xpace, Toronto (2020); Harcourt House, Edmonton (2019); and Stride Gallery, Calgary (2018). Buzzee has received grants from the Calgary Arts Development Authority, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Buzzee’s recent residency participation includes the Banff Centre (2021), The Icelandic Textile Center, Blonduos (2019), and Artscape Gibraltar Point, Toronto (2016). Buzzee holds a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts), Calgary (2012), and an MFA from the University of Oregon, Eugene (2022).
Oct 27 – Nov 10
Arjun Lal (he/they) is an multidisciplinary artist based in Kijipuktuk. Working in sculpture and performance focusing around contemporary queer themes of identity, colonialism, fetish culture, and cultural fetishization. They are inspired by their lived experiences as a queer Indian diasporic person who has lived in cities on Turtle Island and in Berlin.
Jan 8-31
Tyler Matheson is a queer interdisciplinary research-based artist, educator, and culture worker residing in the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. Matheson received his BFA from York University and his MFA from the University of Waterloo. He recently held positions at the Blackwood Gallery, The Toronto Biennial of Art, and Visual Arts Mississauga at Riverwood. Currently, Matheson is the Marketing and Development Assistant at Oakville Galleries, is a resident artist and fellow at Mississauga’s Living Arts Centre, and serves on the Board of Directors at Hamilton Artists Inc. His work has been exhibited at Small Arms Inspection Building, Mississauga; Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Sudbury; The University of Waterloo Art Gallery; Hamilton Artists Inc.; Art Gallery of Mississauga; Art Mûr, Montreal; and the plumb, Lonsdale Gallery, Gallery TPW, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Trinity Square Video, in Toronto. Matheson was the recipient of the Shantz International Research Scholarship and Superframe Framing Award and has participated in residencies at Plug In ICA Summer Institute and Artscape Gibraltar Point. Matheson’s work has been published in Femme Art Review, Off Centre, Peripheral Review, and dArt Magazine. Matheson’s practice has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts funding.
Feb 1-29
Sheri Osden Nault is an artist, community worker, and Assistant Professor in Studio Arts at the University of Western Ontario. Their work spans mediums including sculpture, performance, installation, and more; integrating cultural, social, and experimental creative processes. Their work considers embodied connections between human and non-human beings, land-based relationships, and kinship sensibilities as an Indigenous Futurist framework. Methodologically, they prioritize tactile ways of knowing, and learning from more than human kin. Their research is grounded in their experiences as Michif, nêhiyaw, and Two-Spirit, and engages with decolonizing methodologies, queer theory, ecological theory, and intersectional and Indigenous feminisms. They are a member of the Indigenous tattoo revival movement in so-called Canada, and run the annual community project, Gifts for Two-Spirit Youth.
Recent notable exhibitions include Kwaatanihtowwakiw – A Hard Birth, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2022; Hononga at Hoea! Gallery in Aotearoa (New Zealand), 2021; Where the Shoreline Meets the Water, the ArQuives, Toronto, 2020; Off-Centre at the Dunlop Art Gallery, 2019; Fix Your Hearts or Die at the Art Gallery of Alberta, 2019; and Li Salay at the Art Gallery of Alberta, 2018. Their short film, maachi kashkihtow, was part of the official selection for both the 2023 Images Festival and the 2023 Toronto Queer Film Festival.
Sheri currently lives and creates near the Deshkan Ziibing, on the lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lunaapéwak, and Chonnonton Nations, also known as ‘London, Ontario.’ They are colonially displaced Michif of the Charette, Bélanger, and Nault families, registered with the Métis Nation of Ontario, and with familial connections to the Red River, Duck Lake, North Battleford, and Rocky Mountain areas.