In its first Canadian iteration, the annual ArtMargins workshop will extend and expand ongoing conversations about the role of visual art and its institutions in struggles for decolonization, pursuits of freedom and emancipation, and articulations of alternative futures, by incorporating the dynamics of diaspora, indigeneity, exile, and the complexities of settler colonial nationhood.

Histories of visual art and decolonization have often focused on rupture, revolution, and resistance. Yet many artists work in the aftermaths and residues of such moments, confronting unfinished projects, deferred hopes, and unrealized futures past. This workshop is particularly interested in the quieter moments of artistic practice and the solidarities that follow periods of political upheaval, collective mobilization, and emancipatory aspiration.

How do we listen to the historical archive when its volume is turned down to a hum? How might we write histories that account for ambiguity, disappointment, elongated and endured struggles, and the uneven temporalities of political, social and cultural exchanges? What work do images perform amid conditions of incompletion, uncertainty, melancholy, and historical endurance?

With support from the Department of Art History, and the Deptartment of Art, Culture, and Media (UTSC).

Image: In Solidarity with Our Sisters of Indochina. Artist / Printer: Printed by Press Gang Printers for the Vancouver Women's Caucus. Date: April 1971Source / Repository: Digitized courtesy of the Rise Up! Feminist Digital Archive.

Schedule

Day One: Friday November 13, Massey College, University of Toronto

1:00-1:15pm: Welcome

Speakers: Elizabeth Harney and Sven Spieker

1:15-2:00pm: Opening Remarks

Speaker: Esmat Elhalaby

2:00- 3:30pm: First Session: Tracing Artistic Vocabularies of Struggle

Speakers: Megan Sullivan, Antawan Byrd, Hamed Yousefi, Raino Isto, Sanjukta Sunderason

Moderator: Iftikhar Dadi

3:30-3:45pm: Coffee Break

3:45-5:15pm: Second Session: Emerging Scholarship in the Field

Speakers: Lauren Barnes, Yasmin Nurming-Por, Ben Pulver, Ashley K. Raghubir

Moderator: Hamed Yousefi

Day Two: Saturday November 14, Massey College, University of Toronto

9:00-9:15am: Breakfast and Coffee

9:15-10:00am: Morning Session: Pursuits of Freedom, Diasporic Moments

Speakers: Maya Harakawa, Srimoyee Mitra

10:00-12:30pm: Final Session: Writing Histories of the Unresolved

Speakers: Jolene Rickard, Sven Spieker, Elizabeth Harney, Iftikhar Dadi, Douglas Gabriel

Moderator: Sanjukta Sunderason

ARTMargins University of Toronto Workshop November 13-14, 2026The Loose Threads of Liberation

ARTMargins University of Toronto Workshop
November 13-14, 2026
The Loose Threads of Liberation