Please join us for the inaugural event Decolonising Futures Speaker Series, as a part of OCAD U's Strategic Foresight and Innovation BIPOC Speaker Series, featuring Monika Bielskyte and Prateeksha Singh. Strategic Foresight and Innovation Masters Program is launching a BIPOC Speaker Series to foreground the important and ground breaking work that has been taking place to challenge and question the primacy of dominant worldviews and practices.

Featuring:
Monika Bielskyte 
Founder, Protopia Futures

Prateeksha Singh
Equitable Futures
Researcher

In-person 6PM networking at 130 Queens Quay East, East Tower, Floor 4R, Toronto, ON M5A 3Y5

• In person event starts 6:30PM, register here.
• Online event starts 6:30PM, register here: 

ASL translation provided, the Waterfront has fully accessible and gender inclusive washrooms. Masks required. 

OCAD University Faculty of Arts & Science Speaker Series presents

Cats Rule the Internet : OCAD U LiVE Encore Presentation (Online: ocadu.ca/live)

Liberal Studies Talk with Naomi Kritzer, Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules & Dr. Sara Diamond

Thursday, June 9, 2022, 12 noon – 1:00 p.m. ET.

Cats Rule the Internet explores emerging dimensions of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning relevant to art and design thinking and practices. “Cats” is one of the most searched for terms on the Internet, and YouTube videos starring felines account for more than 26 billion views. The “LOLcat” meme holds its place as classic click bait. The panel takes a cat’s eye leap onto speculative imagining about non-human intelligence and the ways that social media and underlying machine learning technologies use and then structure our human agency. Cats Rule the Internet is moderated by Dr. Sara Diamond, Faculty of Arts & Science, and features speculative fiction writer Naomi Kritzer and new media artist and designer Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules, who present their work and engage in dialogue with Dr. Diamond and the audience.

Naomi Kritzer

naomikrtizer.com   ;  @naomikritzer

Many science fiction writers and novelists have imagined agents and robots with human-like emotion. In Naomi Kritzer’s Cat Pictures Please (Clarkesworld Magazine – Science Fiction and Fantasy), an intelligent agent struggles to analyze humans by their cat pictures and tries to improve their behaviours, raising questions about General Artificial Intelligence and machine compassion and human compulsion. In this and other stories, Kritzer, an accomplished speculative fiction, fantasy and science fiction writer and winner of the Hugo Award, contemplates the ethics and flaws of a caring agency in the context of contemporary challenges with data, privacy, behavioral analytics, human consciousness and machine learning. Kritzer’s most recent published book is the young adult novel Chaos on CatNet.  

Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules

desbiens-desmeules.com 

Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules is a Canadian media artist and designer working between generative art, live performance and interactive design in Europe, Canada and virtual space. Data labeling is the fuel that powers machine learning. Desbiens-Desmeules points out our role in supplying free labour for platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or Google’s Captcha Challenge in her I’m Not a Robot  project. She generates images that are impossible to identify, even for humans, feeding thousands of images of cats to an AI model specialized in identifying cars. Desbiens-Desmeules discusses her work with AI systems, and the use of AI to both subvert and critique AI

OCAD University Faculty of Arts and Science Speaker Series presents the Indigenous Visual Culture Program Talk

Dancing with Horses: Contexts and Embodiments 

A Talk with Kelsey Dayle John, Ph.D. (Diné) in conversation with Megan Feheley

Date: Friday, April 29

Time: 12:00 pm ET

Location: Online, Zoom 

Register for the event at: bit.ly/OCADUzoomregistration

or watch on OCAD U LiVE (OCADU’s 24/7 digital video channel): ocadu.ca/live

Kelsey Dayle John (Navajo) is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona with a joint appointment in American Indian Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. She studies equine/human relationships with a focus on how these relationships can be used to Indigenize education and research. She is particularly interested in the social, cultural, and historical narratives of equine/human relations. Alongside her work in Indigenous animal studies, Kelsey’s research interests also include: Indigenous feminist studies, American Indian Studies, and foundations of education. She is currently a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and is working on a book project about equine/human relationships in Indigenous methodologies. She has published in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Humananimilia, Edge Effects and several edited volumes including: Decolonising Animals, Indigenous and Decolonising Studies in Education, Transforming Diné Education, and Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes. Kelsey is certified in Equine Facilitated Learning through the HERD institute. She is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and, in her spare time, she runs with her dogs and hangs with her horses.   

When: April 12, 2022 10AM-12PM

Register here: https://bit.ly/PandemicDesign

The event will feature guest talks, discussion and a Q & A session with Dr. Gary Bloch, Tai Huynh and Sophia Ikura. The Q & A will be moderated by INCD Student Japjot Singh and DHEA student Beverly Freedman. An ASL interpreter will be present for accessibility purposes. If you have any questions or require any accommodations, please contact Josh Paglione jpaglione@ocadu.ca or Meichen Waxer mwaxer@ocadu.ca.

Dr. Gary Bloch, Family Physician with St. Michael’s Hospital and Inner City Health Associates

Gary Bloch is a family physician with St. Michael’s Hospital and Inner City Health Associates, and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto.  His clinical, program innovation, education, research, policy and advocacy interests focus on the intersection between primary care, health equity and the social determinants of health.  He is an AMS Phoenix Fellow and a Senior Fellow with the Wellesley Institute.

Tai Huynh, Creative Director, UHN OpenLab and Editor, The Local Magazine

Tai Huynh creative director at OpenLab, a design and innovation centre at the University Health Network. He’s also editor-in-chief of The Local Magazine and co-founder of Choosing Wisely Canada. Tai has an MDes degree from OCAD University.

Sophia Ikura, Executive Director Common Solutions Lab 

Sophia launched Health Commons to dedicate space to building practical solutions that address health disparities. The mission and vision for the Lab is the culmination of 18+ years of learning in health and social policy. Prior to this, Sophia was the Senior Director of Strategy and Community Engagement for health services planning in Toronto. She served as Senior Policy Advisor to three Ministers of Health and as Senior Health Advisor to the Premier of Ontario.

President's Speaker Series

OCAD U is hosting one of the UK’s most influential curators Dr. Zoé Whitley and famed Star Trek Discovery costume designer Gersha Phillips, as part of the President’s Speaker Series featuring BIPOC leaders in art and design.

Sustaining Black Creativity:
A conversation with Dr. Zoé Whitley

January 11, 2022 - 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (EST)
Register for Sustaining Black Creativity: A conversation with Dr. Zoe Whitley

Join us for a conversation with one of the UK’s most influential curators and cultural leaders, Dr. Zoé Whitley on the future of Black art. The free-ranging conversation will cover the sustainability of diverse talent in the arts community, including how we can support the mosaic of artistic talent, while building a future where BIPOC artists thrive, including our galleries, monuments, street art and infrastructure. This includes the present and future of expanding art history and shifting institutional frameworks for artists. The talk will be hosted by Dr. Fatona, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Canadian Black Diasporic Cultural Production.    

About Dr. Zoé Whitley

Dr. Zoé Whitley is an American art historian and curator who has been Director of Chisenhale Gallery since 2020. Based in London, UK, she has held curatorial positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate galleries, and the Hayward Gallery. She is a Black leader in the arts and is at the forefront of empowering diverse voices. Her work promotes exceptional Black and BIPOC art through local activism that reverberates globally. Her research interests include contemporary artists and art practices from Africa and the African diaspora. The sustainability of diverse talent is in the minds of many in the artistic community.

About Dr. Andrea Fatona

Dr. Andrea Fatona is an independent curator, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University and a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Canadian Black Diasporic Cultural Production. She is concerned with issues of equity within the sphere of the arts and the pedagogical possibilities of art works produced by Black Canadians in articulating broader perspectives of Canadian identities. Her broader interest is in the ways art, ‘culture’ and ‘education’ can be employed to illuminate complex issues that pertain to social justice, citizenship, belonging and nationhood.  She is the recipient of awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and was the 2017/18 OCAD U-Massey Fellow.

Dr. Andrea Fatona will guide Dr. Whitley in free-ranging conversation on how she thinks we can sustain the multiplicity of artistic talent, while building the future where BIPOC artists thrive, including in our galleries, our monuments, street art, and art infrastructure.

How to Dress a Terran Emperor: A Respectful Dialogue with Costume Designer Gersha Phillips

Postponed. Check back to register for newly scheduled date/time (formerly scheduled for February 11, 2022 at 10 a.m)

Join us for a conversation with winning costume designer Gersha Phillips who will discuss the thinking and making of costumes for Star Trek: Discovery and her long list of film and television credits. Topics will include the role of 3D printing and other innovative technologies in costume design; diversity and inclusion in the film and television industry; and tips on where design students might find opportunities in the Toronto film and television industry. The talk will be hosted by OCAD University’s Dean of the Faculty of Design, Dr. Dori Tunstall. 
 

About Gersha Phillips

Gersha Phillips' merits an international eye for fashion. Born in England to parents of Caribbean and African descent, she and her family moved to Canada when she was twelve years old. Since then, her work has carried her all over the world. 

Phillips is currently designing for the feature film, “The Woman King” in South Africa, starring Viola Davis, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, scheduled to be released in 2022. Phillips is best known for her Costume Design work on the TV series Star Trek: Discovery (2017-2021), for which she won the Canadian Alliance of Film and Television Costume Arts and Design (CAFTCAD) award for Best Costume Design in TV Sci-Fi/ Fantasy in 2021. 

Phillips and her team have been nominated for three Costume Designers Guild (CDG) Awards, an Online Film and Television (OFTA) Award and a Canadian Alliance of Film and Television Costume Arts & Design (CAFTCAD) award. Alongside the seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, Gersha has designed eight Trek Shorts, also streaming on CBS All Access. Phillips was the Consultant on the first four episodes and Co-Designer of episode 101 of the eagerly anticipated Star Trek: Strange New World. After Star Trek: Discovery, rumour has it she’ll beam onto another Star Trek endeavour, keeping her creative energy in orbit for a while to come.  

Phillip's film credits include, but are not limited to, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2", “Miles Ahead'', "Life", and "The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones", which was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. Limited television credits include "Incorporated", "House of Cards" and “Falling Skies.” Gersha is a member of IATSE 892, 829, and 873 Toronto. Phillips is a founding member of CAFTCAD, the Canadian Alliance of Film and Television Costume Arts and Design in 2008. 

Her costume design work was shown in exhibitions such as Otherworldly: The Art of Canadian Costume Design (2001 – 2012) at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the 12th Annual Art of Television Costume Design Exhibition (2018) at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) Museum in Los Angeles and in 2022 (dates TBA), Phillips Star Trek Discovery fans will be able to view Phillips costumes live and in person at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC which is scheduled for 2022.

About Dr. Dori Tunstall

Dr. Tunstall is a design anthropologist, public intellectual and design advocate who works at the intersections of critical theory, culture and design. As Dean of the Faculty of Design at OCAD University, she is the first Black and Black female dean of a faculty of design. She is a recognized leader in the decolonization of art and design education.  

With a global career, Dori served as Associate Professor of Design Anthropology and Associate Dean at Swinburne University in Australia. She wrote the biweekly column Un-Design for The Conversation, Australia. In the U.S., she taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, organized the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative and served as a director of Design for Democracy. Industry positions include UX strategist for Sapient Corporation and Arc Worldwide. Dr. Tunstall holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University and a B.A. in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College.

OCAD U Faculty of Arts & Science Speaker Series Presents Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson

“Black Body Politics and Self-Care: Slave Dress as Resistance in Caribbean and Canadian Slavery”

Thursday, April 29, 2021
12:00PM – 1:30PM EST

This lecture pursues a comparative exploration of slave dress, cultural preservation, and self-determination in Canada and British Caribbean islands like Jamaica and St. Vincent. Recuperating the histories of three enslaved black women-- Dutchess, Florimell, and Cash-- and one enslaved black man, Andrew, it explores how they acquired the means and materials to adorn, protect, and beautify their bodies amidst endemic material deprivation, cultural prohibitions, economic disenfranchisement and pervasive physical violence. Drawing on Rebecca Earle’s concept of “clothing acts,” the lecture examines genre studies, portraiture and fugitive slave advertisements to explore the spaces between the imposition of cloth rations in tropical planation regimes like Jamaica, the use of European second-hand clothing in Canada and the preservation of African cultural dress practices like headwrapping across the Americas.

Charmaine A. Nelson is a Professor of Art History and a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) University in Halifax, where she is also the founding director of the first institute focused on the study of Canadian Slavery. Nelson has made ground-breaking contributions to the fields of the Visual Culture of Slavery, Race and Representation, and Black Canadian Studies.

Interlocutor:
Camille Isaacs, Associate Professor, English, Faculty of Arts & Science

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Image Credit: Agostino Brunias, Linen Market, Dominica (1780), oil on canvas, 49.8 x 68.6 cm., B1981.25.76, Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.  

Photo credit: Charles Michael

The CADN Speaker Series presents:

Bojana Videkanic, University of Waterloo (Fine Arts),

"Nonaligned Modernism: Tracing Transnational Artistic Ties Between Second and Third Worlds"

Friday, February 12, 2021

3:00pm – 5:00pm

Online event: https://ocadu.zoom.us/j/85040802436

There will be a social event following the talk.

Description: 

The term ‘nonaligned modernism’ is a part of a growing field of study that seeks to decenter canonical, hierarchical post-WWII art histories. It challenges the idea that Western art represented the epicenter of modernism by uncovering a system of what I term “transnational solidarities” established by artists, intellectuals, and arts managers of the Second and Third Worlds.  More specifically, I look at the exceptional role that the artistic diplomacy of the socialist Yugoslavia played in this process by examining Yugoslavia’s championing of various forms of modernisms: from politically engaged art, Naïve art, abstraction, to art referencing anti-Fascist struggle. 

Bojana Videkanic is an Associate Professor of contemporary art and visual culture in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on the 20th-century socialist art in Yugoslavia and its contributions to the rise of global modernisms.

This talk is presented by the MA program in Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Art Histories (CADN) at OCAD U.

Canadian poet Lillian Allen, the “godmother of dub,” has been chosen as VIU's 2020-21 Gustafson Distinguished Poet.

Reading/Performance and Q&A:
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 10 a.m. Pacific / 1 p.m. Eastern

Gustafson Lecture:
Thursday, February 11, 2021 5 p.m. Pacific / 8 p.m. Eastern

Register and the link to the event will be sent to your email address.

Allen’s talk will discuss the history and practice of dub poetry (& spoken word) as it speaks to resistance, resilience, transcendence and revolution. “Dub poetry & spoken word calls for embodied poetics that go beyond the page,” says Allen. “It says art matters; poetry is consequential and must be implicated in the ecology of human obligation to each other, to all living things, and in transforming self and the world.”

Speaker Series | February 16 – 18, 2021
Schedule & RSVP Links Below

The annual  Design Career Fair at OCAD University is going virtual in 2021! We’re planning a week of virtual programming relevant to emerging designers.  

From February 16 – 18, 2021 attend the DCF Speaker Series to hear from industry partners as they profile their companies and deliver presentations on specific topics of interest within design and creative entrepreneurship.

On February 19th, 2021 attend the virtual fair on the OCAD U Talent Network to connect with industry professionals, get feedback on your portfolio and build your professional network. 

Day 1 | DCF Speaker Series | Tuesday, February 16, 2021

• 2pm – 3pm | Scotiabank Keynote: The Future of Design as a Practice
  Pamela Hilborn, SVP, Global Head of Design, Digital Banking
  RSVP

• 4pm – 5:30pm | How Much? ! Demystifying Pricing for Designers
  Julian Brown, Jess Leong, Rebecca Wilkinson, moderated by Graham Nhlamba
  RSVP

Day 2| DCF Speaker Series | Wednesday, February 17, 2021

• 10am – 12pm | Your Creative Career: Preparing for the Design Career Fair
  Presented by RBC CEAD staff
  RSVP

• 1pm – 2pm | Tax 101 for Freelancers & Small Businesses
  Shantae Cunningham, Founder and Senior Associate, Cobella Financial
  RSVP

• 3pm – 4pm | Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training: OCADU Info Session
  Jessica Tabak, Job Developer, Miziwe Biik
   RSVP

Day 3 | DCF Speaker Series | Thursday, February 18, 2021

• 11am – 12:30pm | Shopify Career Journeys: From Intern to Full-Time Designer
  Komal Javed, Jessica Tam, Amanda Spilchen, Patrick Kidney, Steph Shin, Ellie Jeon; Moderator: Sarah Tranum (OCAD U / TrickleUp Design)
  RSVP

• 2pm – 3pm | Doing Better: Diversity & Equity Hiring Practices
  Stephanie Small (Black Taxi), Judy McLean (GroupM) and Stephanie McRae (Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi); Moderator: Zviko Mhakayakora (RBC CEAD)
  RSVP

• 4pm – 5pm | Critical Mass: Digital Storytelling: How to use data to create better ads
  Cam Benedict, Associate Creative Director, Critical Mass and Chantal Miyagishima, Copywriter, Critical Mass
  RSVP

Day 4 | Virtual Career Fair | Friday, February 19, 2021, 11am-3pm

Open to OCAD U Students and Alumni online via the Talent Network > Events & Advising > Virtual Fairs
. Watch a video preview of the Job Seeker experience.

RSVP BY CLICKING "ATTEND"

Banished Bodies, Birds, Bowels and Babies: Humorous Acts of Resistance and Subversion in the Dutch Republic

In the Dutch Republic, the use of humour was seen as an effective way of presenting didactic and moralizing messages. Humour and the use of hidden or double meanings was also one way that particularly sensitive topics could be addressed without causing overt offence or generating reprimand. This talk will consider the role of humor and double meanings in seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture as one of the ways that people were able to register their resistance to assertions of authority by civic officials. In particular, it will highlight select images of banished criminal bodies, to demonstrate some of the playful ways that authority over criminality could be subverted or disregarded.

Anuradha Gobin is an Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Calgary. Her research specialization is early modern visual culture of Northern Europe and its colonies in the Atlantic world.

This webinar is presented by the Visual and Critical Studies BA Honours program with the support of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and School of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Art Histories MA program.

Space is limited. Please register at bit.ly/vcslecture2021