Public Events for the 2025 Goldfarb Summer Institute at York University

It’s Time to Laugh Again: Feminist Approaches to Humour in Art

The Department of Visual Art and Art History at York University presents the 2025 edition of the Goldfarb Summer Institute, an intensive two-week graduate course that invites emerging scholars and artists to explore pressing and timely themes in contemporary art. This year’s institute, titled It’s Time to Laugh Again: Feminist Approaches to Humour in Art, will explore the radical and transformative power of humour using a feminist lens.

The 2025 Goldfarb Summer Institute will run from June 9 – 19, 2025, at York University, Keele Campus. We are pleased to announce that four events in the seminar series will be open to public.

Playing and Reality: A Discussion with Allyson Mitchell, Anne Sullivan, and Emilia White
Wednesday, June 11 | 3:00 – 4:30pm
The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery, York University (Accessible venue)
Full event information and RSVP here

Bringing together three artists and York faculty members whose work spans between performance, installation, textiles, comics and game design, this discussion will address the important role that play fulfills in each of their practices and worldviews.

Dr. Allyson Mitchell’s individual and collaborative art practice uses sculpture, performance, installation and film to explore feminist and queer ideas. For the past decide Mitchell has collaborated with Deirdre Logue. Mitchell and Logue presented Killjoy’s Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House (Toronto, London, Los Angeles and Philadelphia). Current they are developing FAR Feminist Artist Residency on 64 acres of conservation protected land in Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Anne Sullivan is Assistant Professor in Computational Arts at York where she focuses on gaming. She has over a decade of software engineering experience, mainly with Electronic Arts (EA). Her research connects various fields and communities through a humanistic, artistic and technical lens, focusing on critical game design, co-creative AI and human-computer interaction.

Emilia White is a performer, theatre-maker, multi-media artist, and producer residing in Toronto, Ontario. Her extensive experience engaging with artists and audiences worldwide informs her commitment to dismantling elitism in art and fostering genuine, shared experiences between audiences and performers. Her work invites public participation through interactive performances that use humor and play to explore deeper social themes.

“Hell is Empty; All the Devils Are Here”: A Performance by Bridget Moser
Thursday, June 12 | 2:00 – 4:00pm
Updated Location: McLean Performance Studio, Room 244 ACE (Accolade East Building), 83 York Blvd (Accessible venue)
Full event information and RSVP here

Bridget Moser is a performance and video artist whose work combines strategies associated with prop comedy, experimental theatre, performance art, absurd literature, existential anxiety and intuitive dance.

Whose Museum Is It? Inclusion and Exclusion in Museums Talk by Dr. Maura Reilly
Friday, June 13 | 3:00 – 4:30pm
The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery, York University (Accessible venue)
Full event information and RSVP here

Dr. Maura Reilly is Director of the Zimmerli Art Museum and Professor of Art History at Rutgers University. She is the Founding Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she developed and launched the first exhibition and public programming space in the USA devoted entirely to feminist art.

In Conversation: Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) and Vivek Shraya
Wednesday, June 18 | 5:00 – 6:30pm
Joseph G. Green Studio Theatre (151 CFT), York University (Accessible venue)
Full event information and RSVP here

Multidisciplinary artists Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) and Vivek Shraya will discuss the roles of feminism and humour in their work. Both artists challenge the boundaries between the personal and political, often through a lens of irony, contradiction, and humour.

Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) was born in 1989 in Dallas, TX, and currently lives and works in New York City. Kuriki-Olivo’s work is rooted in a conceptual practice that takes many forms including performances, installations, sculptures, drawings, paintings, and community organizing. The artist’s work questions standard notions of what is and isn’t art, blurs lines between the personal and public, and explores the performance of identity as it’s mediated through the commodities and media we consume and surround ourselves with.

Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, TV, film, and fashion. A three-time Canadian Screen Award winner, Vivek is the creator and writer of the CBC Gem Original Series How to Fail as a Popstar, which had its international premiere at Cannes. She was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize and has collaborated with musical icons Jann Arden, Peaches, and Jully Black. Vivek has been a brand ambassador for MAC Cosmetics and Pantene, a guest host on The Social and CBC’s q, and she is a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation.

The Goldfarb Summer Institute is organized by the Department of Art History and Visual Culture, the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design, and Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology at York University

Contact Information:
Helen Lee – Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology at York University Coordinator
helen2@yorku.ca

Facebook | Instagram

Vivek Shraya headshot by Vanessa Heins