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The following were the artists in residence in 2017:
Robin Richardson – writer and visual artist from Toronto, Ontario
Robin Richardson is the author of two collections of poetry, and is Editor-in-Chief at Minola Review. Her work has appeared in Salon, Poetry Magazine, Hazlitt, Tin House, Partisan, Joyland and The North American Review, among others. She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and has been shortlisted for the CBC, Walrus and Lemon Hound Poetry Prizes. Richardson’s latest collection, Sit How You Want, is forthcoming with Véhicule Press. Poems from the collection have been adapted to song by composer Andrew Staniland for The Brooklyn Art Song Society, and premiered in 2016 in New York. Richardson’s memoir, “Like Father,” is forthcoming.
Steven Beckly – visual artist specializing in photography from Toronto, Ontario
Steven Beckly’s images fluidly take the forms of photographs, books and sculptures. Cultivating a poetics of desire, he explores the epistemology of intimacy and its value in our increasingly interconnected lives. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include solo projects at Daniel Faria Gallery, Art Metropole, Bunker 2 (all Toronto), AKA artist-run (Saskatoon), VU (Québec) and Eastern Edge (St. John’s). His images have been published in the Hart House Review (University of Toronto), Magenta Magazine (Magenta Foundation), and American Chordata (American Chordata Foundation). He received his MFA from the University of Guelph. He lives and works in Toronto. For more information, visit http://stevenbeckly.com.
Amanda Rhodenizer – painter from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, currently based in Waterloo, Ontario
Amanda Rhodenizer’s work calls on figure painting’s ability to conjure both contemporary and historical narratives. Her constructed scenes exist in “liminal” spaces, and engage with ideas of home and permanence, invasiveness and temporality. By taking cues from Canadian real estate and rental practices, her work explores the tensions in relationships that we have with place – colonially, commercially and emotionally. Rhodenizer holds a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Waterloo. She was the Nova Scotia winner of the BMO 1st! Art Award (2006), and has since received several other bursaries and awards, including from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2016) and the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund (2016). Exhibitions of her work have been held most recently at Rotunda Gallery and Open Sesame in Kitchener, and in June 2017 a solo exhibition of new work will be presented at ARTsPLACE Artist-Run-Centre in Annapolis Royal (Nova Scotia). Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at Art Mûr (Montréal), the Orillia Museum of Art & History (Orillia) and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax). For more information, visit www.arhodenizer.com.
Dr. Afua Cooper – writer, poet, academic and community leader from Toronto, currently based in Halifax
A scholar, novelist, historian, poet and social and cultural commentator, Dr. Afua Cooper’s expertise in, and contributions to, the arts, history and education have been widely recognized and acclaimed. She holds a PhD in history from the University of Toronto; her expertise includes African Canadian culture, Black women’s history, gender, slavery, abolition and freedom, Black literatures and education. Her co-authored publication We’re Rooted Here and they Can’t Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History won the Joseph Brant prize for the best history book. Her ground-breaking book on Canadian slavery, The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Slavery in Canada and the Burning of Old Montreal was nominated for the Governor General’s award. Dr. Cooper has helped to centre dub poetry in Canada and beyond, co-founded the Dub Poets Collective and has been instrumental in organizing several international dub poetry festivals. She has published five books of poetry, including the critically acclaimed Copper Woman and Other Poems and two historical novels that have garnered Canadian and American awards. In recognizing the tremendous multidisciplinary contributions she has made to Canadian society and life and internationally, Essence Magazine named her as one of the 25 women who are shaping the world. In 2011, Dr. Cooper was appointed the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University, Halifax. She is also the chair and founder of the Black Canadian Studies Association and the Dalhousie Black Faculty and Staff Caucus.
Stanzie Tooth – visual artist from Bath, Ontario, currently based in Berlin, Germany
Stanzie Tooth is an artist who works primarily in painting, though her practice also diverges into sculpture, collage and installation. Her recent work illustrates feelings of familiarity and/or alienation from place. Tooth holds a BFA from the Ontario College of Art & Design (2007) and an MFA from the University of Ottawa (2015), where she was awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Tooth was the 2015 recipient of the Joseph Plaskett Award for Painting, through which she spent 2016 travelling and creating a new body of work, completing residencies in Berlin and Iceland, as well as self-directed research in Greece and Italy. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including solo exhibitions at General Hardware Contemporary, Galerie Karsh Masson and the Howard Park Institute. Stanzie’s third solo exhibition with General Hardware Contemporary, “The Distance of the Moon,” opens in March 2017. Tooth currently divides her time between Ontario and Berlin.