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JOB CALL: Mural/Exhibition installation Assistants for Jordan Bennett, Mi’kmaq artist and designer

Mural image credit: Ktaqmkuk- Msit No'kmaq, 2018, Mural for the City of St.Johns, Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) in collaboration with Eastern Edge Art Gallery for the Identify Festival of Indigenous Arts & Culture. Photo by: Eastern Edge Gallery

Mural/Exhibition installation Assistants for Jordan Bennett, Mi’kmaq artist and designer

https://www.ocadu.ca/event/jordan-bennett

https://www.jordanbennett.ca/

Position Type: Freelance Contract

Desired Skills: Painting Muralist Installation

Description: Onsite Gallery is excited to be working with Mi’kmaq artist, Jordan Bennett on two upcoming projects.

Souvenir

A solo exhibition at Onsite Gallery with Jordan Bennett

Jordan Bennett’s solo exhibition Souvenir draws upon his inspired intentions to visit, activate and respond to the innovative heritage embedded, woven and veiled in the richness of Mi’kmaq material culture and design. His interdisciplinary and intuitive approach grants new vitality to overlooked cultural expressions that carry elaborate Mi’kmaq cosmologies interpreted through customary geometric motifs embellished in a highly valued era of porcupine quillwork and basketry souvenir trade commodities that was thriving in the 19th century. The exhibition brings together Bennett’s newly designed site-specific work, museum collection loans, and installation to celebrate the vitality and influence of Indigenous aesthetic as contemporary practice. Curated by Ryan Rice, Curator, Indigenous Art, Onsite Gallery

pi'tawita'iek: we go up river

A large-scale outdoor mural by Jordan Bennett 

pi'tawita'iek: we go up river on the south wall of OCAD University’s main campus, adjacent to Butterfield Park, will ground the space in Indigenous material culture. This new, public artwork is rooted in Bennett’s relationships with Mi’kmaq porcupine quillwork. He brings forward and reimagines their graphic patterns, bright colours and inspiring stories. In visiting with these cultural objects Bennett connects with their visual language and furthers this visual conversation through his contemporary influences and experience. Curated by Lisa Deanne Smith, Curator, Onsite Gallery

Job Description

OCAD University’s Onsite Gallery is requesting applications from current Indigenous OCAD U students and recent alumni (2018-2021). 

The selected student artists will work closely with Jordan Bennett painting the lower areas of pi'tawita'iek: we go up river and/or indoor murals and exhibition installation at Onsite Gallery as part of his Souvenir exhibition.

Qualifications

  • Painting skills
  • Please mention any mural painting skills (as possible)
  • Current Indigenous OCAD U students and recent alumni (2018-2021). For this position, “Indigenous” refers to people who self-define as a First Nations (Status or Non-status), Inuit, or Métis person of Canada. Onsite Gallery recognizes Indigenous peoples are the original inhabitants of what is now known as Toronto, which has great historical and cultural significance as a place for ceremony, gathering, trade, and exchange.

Paid: Yes

Available Positions: 3

Division: Onsite Gallery, OCAD University

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Desired Start Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Duration: May 24 to June 15, 2022

Approximate Hours Per Week: Lump sum payment of $1,200 for approximately 55 hours (max.) over 3 to 4 weeks.

Payment:  $20+/per hour

Apply

Please send CV, 1 to 3 images of your artwork as well as a short cover letter describing your mural and/or painting skills as well as how you identify as Indigenous. 

Please apply via email, directly to Lisa Deanne Smith, ldsmith@ocadu.ca

Application Deadline: Monday, May 16, 2022