Artist talk with Rajni Perera and friends right before the summer launch party

May 28, 2023

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

A unique take on an artist talk, with friends!

Come for an artist talk at 1:00 and stay for the launch party at 2:30 of our summer exhibitions! 

Join us for an informal, conversational walk around the gallery to visit Rajni Perera: Futures with artist Rajni Perera and three guests: exhibition curator Sarah Milroy, academic Anna Shah Hoque and science fiction author Suyi Davies Okungbowa.  

Rajni will field questions from Sarah, Anna and Suyi, offering insights into the work’s stories, themes and questions.  

Access: This event will require moving around the gallery space. Light chairs are available. A microphone will be used.  

Construction A big construction project at the north end of campus has changed the usual walking routes to CUAG. Here is a map to guide you. 

Parking Discount passes ($5.00 flat rate) will be available for purchase from 12:45 – 3:15 p.m. for parking in P18 (the big parkade built over the O-train tracks). Gallery staff will be standing on the sidewalk outside the P18 parkade, right before the entrance.

Or, buy a pass ($6.00 flat rate on weekends) at a “pay by plate” machine in the parkade. Please see the visiting page of CUAG’s website for directions.

Participants

Sarah Milroy is Chief Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The former editor and publisher of Canadian Art magazine, she served as lead art critic of The Globe and Mail from 2001 to 2011. Since coming to the McMichael, she has curated twenty exhibitions. Milroy was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2020. 

Anna Shah Hoque (she/they) is a South Asian-Persian bi-queer femme curator, producer, visual storyteller, educator, and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, University of Ottawa. Her dissertation examines the relationship between decoloniality, visual arts and archive-making among Indigenous and South Asian artists and curators in “Canada.” 

Rajni Perera was born in Sri Lanka in 1985 and lives in Toronto. In her work she explores issues of hybridity, futurity, ancestorship, immigration, cultural memory, monsters and dream worlds. Her paintings and sculptures are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, National Gallery of Canada and McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Perera is represented by Patel Brown, Toronto. 

Suyi Davies Okungbowa is an award-winning Nigerian author of fantasy, science fiction and general speculative fiction. He has published several novels for adults, the latest of which is Son of the Storm (Orbit, 2021), first in the epic fantasy trilogy, The Nameless Republic. The second book in the series, Warrior of the Wind, is forthcoming in 2023. Okungbowa is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa.