ß÷ßäÉçÇø

Upcoming Speakers

VADF Fall 2025

23 September 2025, 9:30 a.m. | FAB 2-20

Tanya Lukin Linklater | Artist talk: _structural_flex_ 

Speaking in movements, Tanya Lukin Linklater situates her artistic practice within a lineage of Sugpiaq cultural workers undertaking customary art practices, repatriation, and knowledge transmission. She will discuss projects in relation to encounters with Sugpiaq belongings in museum collections since 2019 that are organized parallel to an analytic of felt structures. Lukin Linklater proposes that felt structures are simultaneously reparative, counter-conceptual, ephemeral, embodied, restorative, physiological and affective.

Tanya Lukin Linklater’s practice spans video, sculpture, and dance in museums. Sensation, embodied inquiry, scores, rehearsal, and being in relation to ancestral belongings and weather structure her work. She often cites Indigenous peoples’ lived experience and cultural work. view the poster

02 October 2025, 2 p.m. | HC L1-L2

Luis Jacob | The Order of Canada

Luis Jacob will speak about two recent exhibitions that thematized the repercussions of silencing in art institutions. A backlash is in progress within the Toronto arts community and beyond. How can we see erasure? How can we hear silencing?

Luis Jacob is a Peruvian-born, Toronto-based artist whose work destabilizes viewing conventions and invites collisions of meaning. Since participating in documenta12 in 2007, he has achieved an international reputation — with numerous important exhibitions internationally and across Canada. view the poster | Luis Jacob is a Lecturer at the University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design

About our Speaker Series

The Department of Art & Design hosts several visiting and local speakers annually. The Visual Art & Design Forum (VADF) is a speaker series for scholars, creative researchers, artists, and designers to discuss their projects with the ß÷ßäÉçÇø community. Presentation formats vary widely, from the traditional lecture to dynamic panel discussions.

Previous Speakers

2025 Winter

• 16 January 2025, 5:15 p.m. | FAB 2-20: Kelly Ruth – Reality Is Not As It Seems (view poster)
•  22 January 2025, 3:30 p.m. | Online: Shi Wenhua, Independent Filmmaker – The Act of Seeing (Something I Learned) (view poster)
• 10 March 2025, 7 p.m. | Timms Centre for the Arts: Elisa Harkins, Visiting Artist – Wampum / ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᎦᎫᏗ (view poster)
  11 March 2025, 5:15 p.m. | FAB 2-20: Elisa Harkins, Visiting Artist – Artist Talk (view poster)
• 13 March 2025, 10 a.m. | FAB 2-20: Christopher Swift, Visiting Artist in Printmaking (Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Design at Binghamton University (SUNY)) – Rethinking Design as a Collaborative Practice (view poster) 

2024 Fall

• 12 September 2024, 5:15 p.m. | FAB 2-20: Rachel Duckhouse, Visiting Artist: Printmaking – Same River Twice (view poster)
•  10 October 2024, 5:15 p.m. | FAB 2-20: Beth Frey, Visiting Artist: FAB Gallery / Sculpture & Expanded Media – Artist Talk (view poster)
• 17 October 2024, 5:15 p.m. | FAB 2-20: Zoë Heyn-Jones, Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow (2023-25), ß÷ßäÉçÇø, Department of Art & Design and Drama – Decomposition + Regeneration: Composting Art, Design & Performance in the Americas (view poster) 
• 21 November 2024, 5:15 p.m. | FAB 2-20: Dr. Erandy Vergara-Vargas, Assistant Professor of Art History, MacEwan University – Making Noise in the Public Space, Here and Over There (view poster)

2024 Winter

• 18 January 2024, 5:15pm  FAB 2-20: Emmanuel Osahor – Notes on the Garden (view poster)
• 01 February 2024, 2:00pm  Zoom Online (RSVP to gallery@ualberta.ca to receive event link): Niedzielski + Molina - From Here to There (view poster) 
• 07 March 2024, 5:15pm  FAB 2-20: Robin Alex McDonald (Assistant Professor, Department of Studio Arts, MacEwan University) – Pink Triangles, Blue Feelings: Representations of Depression in 2SLGBTQ+ Contemporary Art (view poster) 
• 14 March 2024, 5:15pm  FAB 2-20: Alicia Proudfoot (Artist in Residence, Sculpture)  –Somatic Archive through Sound and Form (view poster) 

2023 Fall

• 14 September 2023, 5:15pm  FAB 2-20: Agata Stronciwilk (Wirth Institute Scholar) –  (view poster)
• 28 September 2023, 11:00am Zoom Online: Kate Sellen (Health Design Studio, OCAD), Michelle Chan (Design Lead, Government of BC) and Christine Watridge (Health Communication Design Studio, St. Louis, Missouri) –  (view poster)
• 12 October 2023, 11:00am Zoom Online: Katie Dainty (North York General Hospital), Damyen Henderson (University of Toronto), Maria Cheung (Taboo Health, Founder and Creative Director), Joe Langley (Lab4Living, UK) –  (view poster)
• 19 October 2023, 5:15pm FAB 2-20: Raneece Buddan (Artist in Residence, sculpture) – Material Exploration: A Way Home (view poster)
• CANCELLED: 23 November 2023, 5:15pm FAB 2-20: Mary Kavanaugh (University of Lethbridge) – Trinity, Then and Now (view poster)

2023 Winter

• 17 January 2023, 5:15pm  FAB 2-20: Jill Miller – FUTURE PERFECT (view poster)
• 26 January 2023, 5:15pm  FAB 2-20: Riaz Mehmood – Poetic Resistance: Reflections on Ghazal: Songs for Home (view poster)
• 14 February 2023, 2:15pm  FAB 2-20: Richard Boulet and Yvonne Mullock – Panel Talk chaired by Professor Sean Caufield (view poster 1; view poster 2)

2022 Fall

• 22 September 2022, 2pm online:
• 26 September 2022, 5pm online:
• 05 October 2022, 4pm online:
• 16 November 2022, 2pm online:  (Live Q&A/Artist talk pre-recorded)
• 29 November 2022, 10am online:

2022 Winter

• 24 March 2022, Howie Tsui: "Artist Talk"
• 10 March 2022, Panel discussion with Aijie Shi, Anran Tu, Yi Liu, and Yiyin Xue: "The Double Life of Objects: Nature, Nation, Narratives and Their Material Incarnations in Twentieth-Century China"
• 09 March 2022, Cinthia Sifa Mulanga: "Artist Talk"
• 17 February 2022, Juliana Cerqueira Leite: "Public Lecture"
• 03 February 2022, Heather Leier: "Public Lecture"

2021 Fall

• 12 October 2021, Takeshi Takeno: ""
• 23 September 2021, Lori Blondeau: ""

2021 Winter

• 25 March 2021, Lisa Silverman: "Rethinking Jewish Space in Vienna before 1938"
• 04 March 2021, Jackson 2bears: "Studio and Research Practices"
• 11 February 2021, Ellen Lupton and Bon Ku: ""
• 28 January 2021, Christina Battle: ""

2020 Fall

• 19 November 2020, Owen Mundy and Joelle Dietrick: ""
• 22 October 2020, Camille Turner: ""
• 01 October 2020, Lindsey V. Sharman: ""
• 22 September 2020, Paul Coldwell: ""

2020 Winter

• 12 March 2020, Andrea Pinheiro: ""
• 06 February 2020, Catherine Crowston: ""
• 23 January 2020, Shafraaz Kaba: ""

2019 Fall

• 21 November 2019, Marta Filipová: “Global, Post-imperial, or National? Austrian, Hungarian and Czechoslovak Pavilions at Interwar World’s Fairs”
• 07 November 2019, Mitch Mitchell: ""
• 17 October 2019, Yvonne Mullock: ""
• 10 October 2019, Leigh Bridges: ""
• 03 October 2019, Ouri Scott: "Indigenizing Design: Practice, Process, Product"
• 26 September 2019, Jose Martinez: “”
• 12 September 2019, Tom Rice: ""

2019 Winter

• 13 June 2019, Denise Costanzo: ""
• 04 April 2019, Sadiq Javer: ""
• 02 April 2019, David Gibson: ""
• 19 March 2019, Kelli Anderson: "The Hidden Talents of Everyday Things"
• 17 January 2019, Ruthann Godollei: ""

2018 Fall

• 22 November 2018, Matthew Witkovsky: "Štyrský, Toyen, Heisler: Between the Private and the Popular"
• 08 November 2018, Allen Ball: ""
• 25 October 2018, Brad Necyk: "Telling Stories Otherwise"
• 11 October 2018, Jane Fine: ""
• 27 September 2018, Jesper Alvær, ""
• 25 September 2018, Jonathan Shaughnessy, "The Contemporary as Global: Collecting and Exhibiting the “Art of Our Time” at the National Gallery of Canada"
• 20 September 2018, Miguel A. Aragon: ""

2018 Winter

• 12 April 2018, Sandra Bromley: ""
• 05 April 2018, Sean Caulfield: ""
• 29 March 2018, Hong Kal: "Visual Images that Witness the Sewol Ferry Disaster in South Korea"
• 15 March 2018, Monica Tap: "To see how the land lies"
• 14 March 2018, Namiko Kunimoto: "Anxious Bodies in Postwar Japanese Art"
• 08 February 2018, Kim Dorland: ""
• 01 February 2018, Blair Brennan: ""
• 18 January 2018, David Candler: ""

2017 Fall

• 07 December 2017, Susanna Barlow: ""
• 30 November 2017, Liz Ingram: ""
• 09 November 2017, Tanya Harnett: ""
• 02 November 2017, Marilene Oliver: ""
• 26 October 2017, Etienne Zak: ""
• 19 October 2017, Kristoffer Neville: "s"
• 18 October 2017, Chrispin Elsted: ""
• 21 September 2017, Naomi Potter: ""

2017 Winter

• 16 March 2017, Jason Urban: ""
• 09 March 2017, Jude Griebel: ""
• 16 February 2017, Cindy Baker: ""
• 26 January 2017, Scott Rogers: ""

2016 Fall

• 03 November 2016, Eric Waterkotte: ""
• 30 October 2016, Laura Prins: ""
• 27 October 2016, Annea Lockwood: ""
• 20 October 2016, ""
• 06 October 2016, Josip Zanki: ""