One of These Things is Not Like the Other

Monika Deol photographed by Dick Loek, from the Toronto Star Archives, 1989

One of These Things is Not Like the Other
Pamila Matharu with Sister Co-Resister

Exhibition runs March 15 – April 20, 2019
Opening: March 15th from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
With accompanying text by Sajdeep Soomal
Curated by Vicky Moufawad-Paul
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 13th, 1:00pm

The exhibition is proudly presented by A Space Gallery and Images Festival

One of These Things is Not Like the Other explores the politics of archives, decolonial aesthetics, and self-preservation. Pamila Matharu has created two installations that incorporate new media, archived texts, and a site-specific installation – a collaborative shraddhanjali (Panjabi/Urdu/Hindi word for homage) and baithak (Panjabi/Urdu/Hindi word for lounge).

Using discarded videotapes from the archives as a starting point for a critical analysis to examine the role of institutional critique, institutional memory, systemic erasure, and cultural safety, Matharu works through these two projects to ask how do we survive in archives and how are we erased. Simultaneously, they explore the impact of the absences of non-hegemonic cultural production in the ongoing project of archives.

Keywords: institutional critique / erasure / memory, decolonial aesthetics, counter-response / narrative / archive, difference, otherness, inclusionism exhibition-as-medium

Returning the Gaze salon series organized by Sister Co-Resister

Returning the Gaze Salon Series draws on honouring ancestral wisdom to queer ‘care’ forward in the name of feminist cultural production, radical hospitality as an act of returning the gaze. As an intentional act of care, space-making and redistribution, Sister Co-Resister hosts a roster of artists, activists and thinkers to take up space in the Dear Amrita baithak – meditating on coexistence and co-resistance with a weekly gathering space to connect, investigate, unlearn, and recharge through relational dialogue, conversations and tea:

March 23, 3-5pm
Queering Tkaranto: Beyond Performative Allyship Natalie King, Fallon Simard, and Solskin Brask

March 30, 3-5pm
Indians from All Directions: Anupa Mistry

April 6, 12-3pm
An invitational response by Project Chroma: Archiving BIPOC Artists in Canada: April Aliermo

April 10, 7-9pm
Can We Talk About The Kardashians and Khalistan? Rachna Raj Kaur

April 13, 3-5pm
Who’s home on native land? South Asians and their role as non-Indigenous treaty partners Nishant Upadhyay with Binish Ahmed, Sabina Chatterjee, Rinchen Dolma & Mita Hans

April 20, 3-5pm
An afternoon with @ southasia.art: Noor Bhangu with Misbah Ahmed, Fysal Amirzada, Amrit Brar, Harmeet Rehal

BIOGRAPHIES

Pamila Matharu (Canadian, 1973-) is an immigrant-settler of South Asian descent, born in Birmingham, England, based in Tkaronto / Toronto. Pamila is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural producer who explores counter-hegemony and feminist strategies through installation art, social practice and lens-based strategies. She completed her undergraduate degrees in Visual Arts and Fine Arts Education from York University, and has been grant recipient from the Toronto, Ontario and Canada Art Councils, awarded the Marion McMahon Award (2003 Images Festival), Best Up and Coming Toronto Film/Video Maker (2003 Inside Out Festival), and Untitled Art Awards’ Jury’s Choice Awards (2004) for Toronto Alternative Art Fair International (2004-2006). Recently she’s participated in group exhibits with the collective formerly known as Bonerkill and Sister Co-Resister at the Art Gallery of York University, Gallery 44, Art Gallery of Ontario, Xpace Cultural Centre, Younger Than Beyonce Gallery and the Big on Bloor Festival. One of These Things Is Not Like The Other at A Space Gallery is her first solo exhibition.

Sister Co-Resister is a feminist art collective focused on collaborative art making and trans-disciplinary exchange. Crisscrossing public pedagogies and social practice with intersectional feminism and contemporary art as an act of solidarity building; projects have been activated through; installation, performance art and publishing, and are utilized as platform projects to make and share space with underrepresented women and non-binary voices; particularly queer/trans, Indigenous, Black and racialized artists and thinkers working and living on Turtle Island.

Sister Co-Resister’s Dear Amrita collaborative salon baithak includes works by Misbah Ahmed, Justin Aranha, Amrit Brar, Bonerkill, Yan Wen Chang, Emelie Chhangur, Heidi Cho, Annanda DeSilva, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Jatinder Singh Durhailay, Amandeep Singh Gill, Jasjyot Singh Hans, Ayqa Khan, Zahra Komeylian, Ness Lee, Sab Meynert, Allyson Mitchell, Zinnia Naqvi, Jacqueline Quaresma, Andrew Reyes, Alasua Sharkey, Zanette Singh, SAD ART STORE, Annie Wong and Curtia Wright.

Contact
Vicky Moufawad-Paul
Director/Curator • A Space Gallery
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 110
Toronto, ON, M5V 3A8, 416.979.9633

For more information about the exhibition and about the gallery please visit www.aspacegallery.org