Main gallery
Tokens of Appreciation
October 29 - December 4, 2021
Native Art Department International
Curated by Sally Frater
Untitled, Courtesy of the Artists
Native Art Department International | Tokens of Appreciation
Tokens of Appreciation features work made by Native Art Department International during their recent Incite Residency at Centre[3] for Artistic + Social Practice. Working primarily in silkscreen the duo have produced collective and independent pieces that are informed by their shared interests in place, memory, text, and design. The resulting prints, which are drawn from a range of sources such as photographic botanical studies, advertising, and their own archive of past works, showcase the wide-ranging themes and aesthetics that emerge in their practice in familiar and divergent ways.
Opening Reception: Friday, November 12, 2021 – 7:00 PM
Artist Bio
Native Art Department International is a collaborative long-term project created and administered by Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan. It is a separate endeavor from their individual professional art practices.
NADI was launched in Brooklyn in 2016, now also working out of Toronto since 2019. It focuses on communications platforms and art-world systems of support while at the same time functioning as emancipation from essentialism and identity based artwork. It seeks to circumvent easy categorization by comprising a diverse range such as curated exhibitions, video screenings, panel talks, collective art making, and an online presence, however all activities contain an undercurrent of positive progress through cooperation and non-competition.
Maria Hupfield is a transdisciplinary maker working with Industrial felt at the intersection of performance art, design and sculpture. She received the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Canadian mid-career artist. Hupfield belongs to and is an off-rez Anishnaabek belonging to Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, Canada, and is a Canadian Research Chair in Transdisciplinary Indigenous Arts with the Indigenous Creation Studio at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada.
Jason Lujan is originally from Marfa, Texas. As an artist, he creates tools for understanding and interpreting the processes by which different cultures approach each other as a result of travel and communication and later homogenized. Largely integrating visual components of commercial and political design rooted in Asia and North America, the work focuses on the possibilities and limitations of the exchanging of ideas, meanings, and values, and questions the concepts of authorship and authenticity. He is an Assistant Professor in Advertising and Graphic Design at OCAD U in Toronto.
Curator Bio
Sally Frater is interested in issues of space and place, migration, photography, and the art of the everyday. She has curated for the Art Gallery of Guelph, Ulrich Museum of Art, McColl Center for Art and Innovation, Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto, Project Row Houses, and Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice. A former resident in the Core Critical Studies fellowship at the Glassell School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Frater completed fellowships and residencies at the UT Dallas Centraltrak, Southern Methodist University, Project Row Houses and Art21. A recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, she is a member of the Association of Art Museum Curators and alumna of Independent Curators International.
Exhibition is generously supported by:
