The Studio is a place to meet innovative practicing artists from Kingston and across Canada, hear about their work and artistic practice and explore a creative project together.

Paste-ups for Social Change is a hands-on, activist-rooted workshop led by artist Abby Nowakowski. As seen in we are magic: a love letter to our tattoos, paste-up is the process of adhering paper onto a surface using starches and water, commonly used to seamlessly put up prints, bookbinding, and of course—troublemaking.

All materials are included in the workshop fee. A limited number of bursaries are available.

Biography

Abby Nowakowski (she/they) is a queer interdisciplinary artist and art educator currently living and working in Sharbot Lake and Katarokwi-Kingston. Through printmaking, illustration and handpoke tattooing, they spread advocacy for care, share stories, and make space for radical softness. Abby is drawn to the gentler pace of handpoke and takes a trauma-informed approach to tattooing which has fostered a safer and more empowering experience for clients. Driven by curiosity and kindness, their practice extends into art facilitation with a range of collaborations, workshops, and performances which radiate from queer ecologies and friendships.

Agnes's Open Secret: The Second Edition continues as a series composed of screenings, conversations, and workshops with guest curator, Jennifer Smith, and filmmaker, Jennifer Dysart.

Memory Keeper, the title of this iteration curated by Smith, is a look back at the work of Dysart who uses archives as a source material and pieces together stories of Indigenous life using archival material. The materials used were most often documentation taken by settlers of Indigenous communities. Jennifer’s films tell a story that was not intended when the original footage was taken, but that tells a narrative through an Indigenous lens.

Jennifer Dysart and Jennifer Smith co-host an afternoon of exploring the use of archives in filmmaking. Jennifer Dysart works with participants to think about the creative use of archives. Jennifer Smith talks about personal archives, accessing this content and caring for it.

Curated by Nasrin Himada

Memory Keeper is a partnership between Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition (NIMAC). This workshop is in partnership with Vulnerable Media Lab. Supported by the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund, Queen’s University.

Open Secret: The Second Edition continues as a series composed of screenings, conversations, and workshops with artist and guest curator Aman Sandhu.

Aman will discuss his research on improvisation, focusing specifically on the work of musician and scholar George Lewis. Anchoring the workshop will be Lewis’ articulation of Afrological improvisation, a movement through known-knowns unlike a chance-based mode characteristic of Eurological improvisation. Aman will facilitate close listenings to recordings by Julius Eastman, Cecil Taylor, and Jeanne Lee and invite participants to think with Afrological improvisation and what it offers for image-based practices.

Read more > https://agnes.queensu.ca/participate/talks-tours-events/open-secret-aman-sandhu/

Curated by Nasrin Himada

Sorry I’m late I didn’t want to come indulges a fascination with failure, something that queer folks have always done deftly and with elan. It brings scenes of refusal and futility and redundancy across several short videos together with live performances of rejections that have been reworked at our public workshop.

All are welcome.

This program is being presented as part of Agnes's Artist Residency Wee Bit Off Centre’s rethinking of art institutional practices, including how failure helps us articulate visions of working and being together unavailable under current logics of success.

Initiated by Tear Jerkers (Michelle Bunton and GHY Cheung), WBOC is co-stewarded alongside William Carroll, Em Harmsen, Faten Nastas Mitwasi and Mehvish Rather. The project is curated by Nasrin Himada, Associate Curator, Academic Outreach and Community Engagement, at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. WBOC takes up residence across Etherington House and other off-site locations from 1 January to 31 March 2024.

Co-presented with ReelOut: Kingston’s queer film + video festival.

We invite folks 16+ to join us for a free tour and studio activity. Located in Agnes’s galleries and the André Biéler studio, this program invites us to reflect on place, and the concept of making home, as we observe and explore artworks in Agnes’s current exhibitions. Led by Agnes docents this program includes a 45-minute tour and a 45-minute artmaking activity.

The docent program is generously supported by the Lloyd Carr-Harris Foundation.