South Asian Visual Arts Centre
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 450 M5V 3A8 Toronto, ON, Canada

Monitor 14 DEADLINE is at midnight tomorrow - 20 November 2020 - Send in your submissions! This edition of Monitor will be curated by researcher, writer and curator of art and film Rasha Salti. https://savac.net/monitor-14/

OPEN CALL - MONITOR 14 It's that time again! SAVAC is looking for artists and filmmakers to submit to MONITOR 14. This edition of our long-standing experimental film and video program asks applicants to consider the aesthetic and form of the moving image and its relation to narrative. We are so excited that researcher, writer and curator of art and film Rasha Salti will be programming MONITOR 14. For more details on how to submit your work check out the link below! https://savac.net/monitor-14/

We are really looking forward to tomorrow's screening of Nasir by director Arun Karthick at Rendezvous With Madness 2020. Nasir is a co-presentation with ANBU, Tamil World Initiative and the Canadian Tamil Congress. Online screening 6:30PM IST/9AM EST & 7PM EST... Virtual panel/Q&A 8PM IST/10:30AM & 7PM EST : 16, 9-11 ( ) : 16, 7-9 ( : ) : 16, 10:30; 16, 7 This gentle portrait from sophomore feature filmmaker Arun Karthick is based on a short story by Dilip Kumar. It follows Nasir, a Muslim family man in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, where Hindu nationalism has taken on more dangerous forms in recent years. Propaganda constantly booms from loudspeakers everywhere in public spaces. The owner at the textile store where he works makes little effort to hide his contempt for Muslims while customers treat Nasir as a doormat. In the meantime, Nasir starts worrying about his wife and wonders whether he would be better off as a migrant labourer in Abu Dhabi. With equanimous, stunning images of everyday life, Director Karthick brings us fully into Nasir’s prosaic world Still, off-screen news reports and casual conversations remind us of the violence that hangs in the peripheries. . . . . . . . . [[Join the Conversation]] Panelists for this film, in conversation with Director Arun Karthick, will address issues of art-making during the context of Right wing Hindu fundamentalism, Islamophobia and casteism in the Tamil speaking world. Panel in Tamil and English with translation. , . , , , , . . EVENT WITH ASL AND OPEN CAPTIONS

Make sure to check out Manar’s exhibition !

Make sure to check this out! Starting at 1pm today!

Apply by Wednesday 30 September 2020 ! Reclaim Data! Reposition Data! Rebuild Data!

SAVAC is looking to hire a full-time Communications Coorinator ! Apply by 18 September 2020 share widely ! Details: https://www.savac.net/about/opportunities/

The CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF SUBSTRUCTURED LOSS is now accepting applications for 2020. Artists, researchers, and other arts professionals are encouraged to appl...y (subject to capacity). Early applications are encouraged. NEXT DEADLINE: SHORT-TERM STUDY RESIDENCY PROGRAMMING 2020: London, UK Autumn Residency-3 (1 Mo. Prog.): 03 AUG 2020 PROGRAM DATES: SHORT-TERM STUDY RESIDENCY PROGRAMMING 2020: London, UK Autumn Residency-2 (1 Mo. Prog.): 22 OCT 2020 - 22 NOV 2020 Distant (online) residency programming curriculum’s are also available during travel restrictions. For more information on available programming and to apply please visit: https://www.substructuredloss.org/residencies/ To be notified of upcoming opportunities including new and existing programming, open calls, and initiatives, subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.substructuredloss.org/contact/ Follow, like, and share our page with fellow colleagues.

Call for submissions from Concordia’s Ethnocultural Art History Research group !

OPEN CALL: The Practice of Art 10 July 2020 The current global health crisis and movements for racial justice provide an opening to engage the possibilities and limitations that arise for artistic practice during states of emergency. They have us asking: How do we practice art and to what end? What does it mean to continue, to insist on making art now? What changes? What doesn’t? Through this open call, SAVAC is seeking proposals that reflect on the practice of art and th...e art of practice. We are looking for works that center practice, for projects that confront it, surrender to it, undo it, cheat it, insist on it, or disregard it all together. We want to imagine artistic practice in a multiplicity of forms (production of works, research, works-in-progress, durational projects, etc.) and interrogate the act of practice itself (as labor, repetition, rehearsal, preparation, play, failure, collective action, etc.). Building on our artistic vision, we encourage works that are paced, imaginative, and inquisitive in method and content. SAVAC invites artists, writers, performers, filmmakers, curators and multi-disciplinary creatives to submit proposals for projects/interventions/gestures that consider artistic practice in response to states of crisis and emergency either directly or indirectly. Ideas could be implemented offline or online, in public or private space. Given the physical restrictions we are currently under, we encourage proposals that are creative yet accessible, nuanced yet easy to produce. Research proposals are also accepted, as well as proposals that involve interaction and participation with others. We hope that this open call will support artists under these new conditions for artistic production. We recognize that the questions we pose above are broad, and we are open to collaboratively developing project ideas and conversing with artists around what artistic practice could look like at this moment. Accepted artists will be awarded an artist fee and a production fund in line with CARFAC recommendations. A total of 6 projects will be selected. Deadline for applications is 10 July 2020, with projects commencing over the summer. To apply, email the following to [email protected] with the subject line OPEN CALL 2020 and including the following separate documents as attachments: Document 1: A project proposal, 500 words max. Please include a preliminary timeline and a list of (practical) requirements for your project if necessary. Document 2: Your bio (250 words max) AND a link to your website OR portfolio OR CV

SAVAC stands in solidarity with movements for Black power. The ebbs and flows of urgency in the public sphere have transformed into a tidal wave over the past week. As protestors responding to police violence, racial injustice and white supremacy mobilize across Canada, the US and the globe, we are reminded of the extent of systemic racism; from police brutality directed at black and indigenous people to the plight of occupied peoples and of undocumented migrants and farmwork...ers. Enough is enough. Defund the police. Abolish prisons. End racial capitalism. As an organization dedicated to building up artists of colour, we commit to dedicating resources to Black and Indigenous artists. Within the scope of our on-going project Ishtar’s International Network of Feral Gardens, we continue to learn and be led by Black Feminist and Indigenous artists, thinkers and activists that have inspired this project. We will continue to grapple with the racial and class inequalities within the food industry by sending out dispatches that consider race and food security, while sharing resources on Black-led urban gardens and food sovereignty initiatives in North America. Over the next year, we will be expanding the lines of inquiry of this project by collaborating with front-line labourers who work within global food supply chains in Toronto and across Ontario. // The global movement for Black power and Indigenous sovereignty have challenged modes of anti-colonial discourse across the global South, compelling artists, curators and activists to reckon with the comparative, radical trajectories of Dalit liberation, Palestinian resistance, Adivasi movements for land rights and protection of natural resources, and Kashmir’s Azaadi, among other movements for self-determination. In tandem with these movements, this particular moment is pushing us to renew long-standing conversations about race, representation and identity within our own organization. It is pushing us to think again and more deeply about how anti-Black racism functions in the art world and within our communities of colour. It is pushing us to reckon with our work and our choices, both personally and professionally. To that end, we at SAVAC commit to thinking more deeply about the many encounters between blackness, indigeneity and brownness. We commit to recalling our histories of intercommunity relations, learning from these lessons and from our elders. We commit to revealing these intimacies, solidarities, betrayals and contradictions in our programming and the artists we work with. We commit to exposing the seen and the unseen. We commit to acting imaginatively for a free present and future. // Photo Icon: Yarrow cyanotype sun print on indigo cotton sateen. In our shared garden space, the Yarrow runs wild, growing all over the ground. It is a herbal medicine that holds and protects one through grief. In these hard times, it has guided us in thinking slowly and with care.

TONIGHT at 8:30pm // We're excited to be co-presenting the Closing Night of the 33rd Images Festival Live Stream featuring NIMTOH (INVITATION) by Saurav Rai on April 22 at 8:30pm. Set in a remote mountain village that lies between Darjeeling and Kalimpong, Nimtoh (Invitation) follows 10-year-old Tashi and his grandmother, who guard their landlord’s cardamom orchard at night. Featuring an amateur cast of Rai’s family members and residents of his home village, the film’s realism summons a patient eye to observe how ordinary conversations and social transactions between Tashi and his neighbours transpire as subdued moments of kinship and mischief. This feature will be followed by a Q&A with Saurav Rai moderated by artist and co-founder of Toronto Nepali Film Festival Surendra Lawoti. More information: bit.ly/2VkIsBq