Whispers From the Vault: Curator Conversation and Reception
About
Join us in celebrating Head Curator Timothy Long’s remarkable 35-year career at the MacKenzie Art Gallery and his final exhibition, The Permanent Collection: Whispers From the Vault. Hosted by Curator Felicia Gay, this special event will feature Long sharing stories and insights on the Gallery’s collection and his extensive experience.
As Long prepares to retire later this year, this final show marks the culmination of over three decades of dedicated work in managing, preserving, and interpreting the Gallery’s permanent collection. Come celebrate Long’s extraordinary career and the exhibition The Permanent Collection: Whispers From the Vault!
Schedule of events
7:00 PM – Conversation
8:00 PM – Reception and exhibition viewing
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Timothy Long has over thirty-five years of curatorial experience at the MacKenzie Art Gallery where he has been Head Curator since 2001 and Adjunct Professor at the University of Regina since 2005. Working with curators and writers from across Canada, Long has helped write the art history of Saskatchewan through projects that include the nationally touring surveys Regina Clay, Superscreen (with Alex King), and Prairie Interlace (with Michele Hardy and Julia Krueger), as well as retrospectives of Jack Sures (with Virginia Eichhorn), David Thauberger (with Sandra Fraser), Wilf Perreault, and Victor Cicansky (with Julia Krueger). Long has spearheaded the application of René Girard’s mimetic theory to an anti-violence critique of aesthetics and spectatorship in several projects, including: Wanda Koop: Sightlines, The Limits of Life: Arnulf Rainer and Georges Rouault, Let Me Be Your Mirror, Double Space, My Evil Twin, After Presence, Masculin/Féminin: Ian Wallace and Jean-Luc Godard, and Atom Egoyan: Steenbeckett (with Elizabeth Matheson and Christine Ramsay).
His well-attended public lecture series, “The Rembrandt Code” and “…But Now I See,” provided an accessible point of entry to this theory. With Robin Poitras, artistic director of New Dance Horizons, he initiated the innovative MAGDANCE series, which since 2011 has regularly brought contemporary dance into the gallery. He has supported Indigenous curation through his work with several MacKenzie curators over the past twenty-five years.
An experienced editor, his publications and co-publications have been nominated for a number of awards, winning the Saskatchewan Book Award for Publishing (Jeanne Randolph, Joey Morgan: The Man Who Waits and Sleeps While I Dream, 1999), the High Plains Book Award for Art/Photography (Victor Cicansky: The Gardener’s Universe, 2020), and the Melva J. Dwyer Award for Outstanding Canadian Art Reference Book, Art Libraries Society of North America (Dana Claxton, The Sioux Project—Tatanka Oyate, 2022).
Deepening our knowledge of the MacKenzie permanent collection has been an ongoing interest; his recent work on the MacKenze Bequest resulted in new attributions for four previously unidentified early modern artworks.
ABOUT THE HOST
Felicia Gay has been working as a curator since 2004 and in 2006, Felicia was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Aboriginal Curatorial Residency with AKA Artist-Run in Saskatoon, SK. Felicia has also worked as a cultural worker with various arts-based organizations in the province and has been a sessional and guest lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan and First Nations University of Canada since 2008. Felicia has an MA and a BA Honours in art history with a focus on Indigenous contemporary art and curatorial praxis. She is currently a PhD candidate in the department of Media, Art and Performance at the University of Regina.
Felicia is the 2018 recipient of the Saskatchewan Arts Award for Leadership for her work with curation and advocacy for creating space with Indigenous art and artists. In 2006, Felicia founded and was the Artistic Director of the Red Shift Gallery, a contemporary Aboriginal art space, with Joi Arcand. The gallery was central in addressing issues around colonial histories and violence against Indigenous women and girls, and sharing Indigenous voices. Red Shift created a presence for Indigenous artists within the larger structure of the Canadian artist-run network.
Her insight and expertise has been featured in keynote presentations and essays at the Canadian Arts Summit, Canadian Art magazine and in various publications. In 2018 she curated PowerLines: The Work of Norval Morrisseau a retrospect with coinciding symposium at Wanuskewin Heritage Park, Saskatoon, SK. Currently, Felicia is guest curator for the Remai Modern, Saskatoon, SK for the 2020 Art Gallery of Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art.