Reverberations: 40 Years of MAWA’s Foundation Mentorship Program

Reverberations: 40 Years of MAWA’s Foundation Mentorship Program

Curated by Abigail Auld and Jenny Western

Opening party: Friday, Sept 6, 6 - 8 pm at MAWA

Exhibition continues Wed-Fri, Sept 11 - Oct 18, 10 am - 4 pm

Nuit Blanche: Saturday, Sept 28, 8-10 pm

MAWA, 329 Cumberland Ave, Suite 203

Featuring work by: Jo-Anne Balcaen, Francesca Carella Arfinengo, Sarah Crawley, Aganetha Dyck, Lita Fontaine, Vi Houssin, Laura Lewis, AO Roberts, Mélanie Rocan, Leslie Supnet and Lisa Wood.

To mark the 40th Anniversary of the Foundation Mentorship Program (FMP), MAWA asked us—Abigail Auld (mentee, 2019) and Jenny Western (mentor, 2010, 2019)—to curate an exhibition featuring work by past participants in MAWA’s core program since 1985. Over four decades, 400+ emerging and established artists have engaged in mentorship through this initiative. The breadth of FMP graduates is astonishing and artwork produced by this rich, multigenerational group could yield several distinct exhibitions. Yet, tasked with conceiving of a small exhibition, we wrestled with how to approach the dynamic cohort and the impossibility of condensing varied experiences. Instead, rather than encapsulating the program as a whole, presenting works by the eleven 11 artists in Reverberations connects with a founding motivation of the program—to foster resilience through interpersonal exchange.

From the outset, MAWA convened around mentorship, identifying intergenerational and peer-based learning as means to effect systemic change. Forty years later, reverberations across these relational networks have fundamentally altered the surrounding art ecology. In response, we found ourselves thinking about the significance of accessing and creating support systems. How are collective resiliencies and self-actualization nurtured? What kinds of exchange, correspondence and relationality allow divergent lifeforms to flourish and persevere?