A Walk by Dylan Miner
Tuesday May 23rd, 6:30 PM
Meet at Gallery 44
‘To the Landless’ – an artwork commissioned by WalkingLab – borrows its title from words spoken by eminent anarchist Lucia Gonzáles Parsons (commonly known as Lucy Parsons) at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of World. As a womxn of African, Mexican, and Indigenous ancestry born in Texas, Gonzáles Parsons employed intersectional, anti-state, and anticapitalist activism throughout her life. In her writing and in her organizing, Gonzáles Parsons was often at odds with better-known anarchist Emma Goldman, herself born in Russia.
‘To the Landless’ asks people to join together on a casual walk through Chinatown and Kensington Market, traveling from Gallery 44, 401 Richmond St. W, toward Goldman’s former house on Spadina. During the walk, we will imagine Gonzáles Parsons joining Emma Goldman, who died in Toronto in 1940, for dinner near her house. Unable to separate history from the present and future, Miner asks us converse with, walk with, and eat with, the ideas of these two contentious and important activists and thinkers. By doing so, this provisional action visits with Lucy and Emma and discusses contemporary conversations on the politics of settler-colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and immigration.
Presented as part of the exhibition What does one do with such a clairvoyant image?, hosted by Gallery 44 and Trinity Square Video, and curated by Leila Timmins, cheyanne turions and Jayne Wilkinson.
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Dylan AT Miner is a Wiisaakodewinini (Métis) artist, activist, and scholar. He is currently Director of American Indian and Indigenous Studies and Associate Professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. Miner is also adjunct curator of Indigenous art at the MSU Museum and a founding member of the Justseeds artists collective. He holds a PhD from The University of New Mexico and has published approximately sixty journal articles, book chapters, critical essays, and encyclopedia entries. In 2010, he was awarded an Artist Leadership Fellowship through the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution). Miner has been featured in more than twenty solo exhibitions – with many more planned in the near future – and has been artist-in-residence or visiting artist at institutions such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, École supérieure des beaux-arts in Nantes, Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, Rabbit Island, Santa Fe Art Institute, and numerous universities, art schools, and low-residency MFA programs. His book Creating Aztlán: Chicano Art, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Lowriding Across Turtle Island was published in 2014 by the University of Arizona Press. Miner is currently completing a book on Indigenous Aesthetics: Art, Activism, Autonomy and writing his first book of poetry, Ikidowinan Ninandagikendaanan (words I must learn). In 2016, Miner has had solo exhibitions in Ontario and Vancouver, conducted a workshop in Chile, done a residency at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, and exhibited work in Sweden and at the Banff Centre.
