Gaëtane Verna, Director of the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, and Sara Saljoughi, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and English at the University of Toronto, present their responses to Shelagh Keeley’s exhibition, An Embodied Haptic Space. The response forms part of the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology’s Monday Night Seminars series, whose annual theme, Hot MessAge, explores how media and technology underlie today’s social, economic and environmental crises while at the same time offering us tools to address these challenges.

Presented in partnership with the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto.

Free with registration. Registration will open March 6, 2020.

Gaëtane Verna has been the Director of the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery since 2012. Previously, she was Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Musée d’art de Joliette, Quebec, Curator of the Foreman Art Gallery at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke, and has taught in the Art History department of Bishop’s University and the Université du Québec à Montréal. With years of experience in the arts, Verna has presented exhibitions by such Canadian and international artists as Terry Adkins, John Akomfrah, Vasco Araújo, Fiona Banner, Ydessa Hendeles, Alfredo Jaar, Luis Jacob, Kimsooja, Yam Lau, Oswaldo Maciá, Javier Tellez, Denyse Thomasos, Bill Viola, YOUNG HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES and Franz Erhard Walther. She is the President of the Board of Directors of the Toronto Arts Council. To recognize her contribution to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world, Verna was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) in 2017.

Sara Saljoughi is Assistant Professor of English and Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. She is co-editor of the volume 1968 and Global Cinema (Wayne State University Press, 2018) and of the journal Discourse. Her essays appear in Camera Obscura, Feminist Media Histories, Iranian Studies, Film International and Film Criticism. Her research concerns questions of aesthetics and politics in world cinema, film theory and migration. She is currently writing a book on Iranian art cinema in the 1960s and 70s.

At the core of Shelagh Keeley’s work lies a drawing practice based on her readings and research in poetry, politics, film and architecture. Throughout her international career spanning 40 years, her practice has expanded drawing beyond the studio to create on-site, ephemeral wall drawings. Keeley’s recent projects have been presented by the Vancouver Art Gallery (2017); IFA Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany (2017); National Gallery of Canada (2017); MoMA Library and Archives, New York (2015); Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2015); The Power Plant, Toronto (2014); and Ryerson Image Center, Toronto (2013). Her work is in many public collections and international museums including MoMA, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Les Musées de la Ville de Paris; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Bibliotheques Nationale de France, Paris; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Getty Museum, Santa Monica; Harvard Art Museums, Boston; The Library of Congress, Washington; Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach, Germany; and the Vancouver Art Gallery.