VANCUVER, B.C.- Independent curator and writer Joni Low will launch the anthology What Are Our Supports? at 2pm on Jan. 21, 2023 at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. The book, co-edited with art historian Jeff O’Brien, highlights the need to reinvigorate sustainable and alternative support networks for artists and art communities during times of uncertainty and change — from the infrastructural and funding supports that make art possible to the more intangible emotional and cultural supports that are at the core of all communities. The publication is a bold new look at how individuals can shape the future of living in diverse, complex societies through simple daily gestures, and what we can learn through the quests of art.

The anthology is both an archive and a continuation of the ideas that originated in the innovative 2018 project of the same name curated by Low, in partnership with Or Gallery and Richmond Art Gallery. Featuring over 20 contributors, with commissioned poems, essays, and artists’ reflections, What Are Our Supports? is co-published by partners that span the country: Information Office, Doryphore Independent Curators Society, Richmond Art Gallery, and Art Metropole.

“When the pandemic hit in March 2020, I realized that many of the urgent public discussions around the need for support networks during times of tumultuous change resonated strongly with what we had explored in What Are Our Supports?,” says Low. “This publication is composed of creative responses which make perceptible the supports that are core to staying connected: communication, exchange, cooperation, friendship, trust, care, and practice — which has resonances beyond the art world. I hope this book will motivate readers to imagine, sense, and enact new possible futures, as they recognize how integral the act of mutual support is within our social fabric. Ideally, this book will inspire people to participate in strengthening this fabric through small and collective actions — understanding that each moment and exchange in our lives is practicing what it means to be human.”

The 2018 project featured work from five artist groups — each of which took place in Home Made Home Boothy, a convertible, telephone-booth sized platform created by Germaine Koh — and was situated in downtown Vancouver’s Cathedral Square Park on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. The works addressed the question: What are our supports, amidst current conditions of environmental, social, political, and economic precarity?

The five artist groups featured were: Germaine Koh, Aron Louis Cohen, and Russell Gordon; Emily Neufeld and T'uy't'tanat-Cease Wyss; S F Ho and Elisa Ferrari; DRIL Art Collective with Elisa Ferrari, John Brennan, Justin Patterson, and Michele Helen Mackenzie; and Andrew Lee, Khan Lee, and Francis Cruz.




The book features each artist group’s projects and reflections, along with new poems by T’uy’t’tanat- Cease Wyss, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, and Charlene Vickers. Public artworks by Debra Sparrow, Chantal Gibson and Bitek — located near the project’s home in Cathedral Square Park — harken back to the locality of the original project. Artwork by Ron Terada reminds us how time is different now. The publication also includes reprinted texts from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s As We Have Always Done, and Céline Condorelli’s Support Structures and “Notes on Friendship,” which were original inspirations for the project.

The book launch on Jan. 21 will feature artist presentations, followed by a discussion and refreshments. To RSVP, visit bit.ly/WAOSlaunch.

Pre-orders are open now at i-o.cc/books/supports. Books retail at $45.

What Are Our Supports? is designed by Information Office, and co-published by Information Office, Doryphore Independent Curators Society, Richmond Art Gallery and Art Metropole. The original project in 2018 was organized in partnership with Or Gallery and Richmond Art Gallery. This project was made possible with the support of Canada Council for the Arts and the City of Vancouver’s Cultural Services.

Launch details
Saturday, Jan. 21, 2–5pm
SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, 2nd floor 149 W Hastings St, Vancouver, BC V6B 1H4

The Editors

Joni Low is an independent curator and writer whose practice explores interconnection, intercultural conversations, collaboration, and sensory experience. Currently a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, her research explores artists who are sensing otherwise towards different ways of knowing, and synaesthetic resonances across art, neuroscience, somatic therapies, and healing. Her writing is published in exhibition catalogues and in periodicals such as Artforum, Canadian Art, and ESPACE Art Actuel. She has organized exhibitions across Canada, featuring artists including Germaine Koh, Charles Campbell, Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau, Hank Bull, and Laiwan.

Jeff O’Brien is an art historian. His research explores the political and visual representation of displaced and disappeared populations in Lebanon and Palestine. From 2018 to 2019 he was a fellow in residence of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art at Darat al Funun in Amman, Jordan. In addition to publishing widely, he has presented his work and given lectures in Jordan, Palestine, the US and Canada. He holds a PhD in art history and works at the University of California, Santa Barbara.