The Friday Files - news to inform and inspire

Our inspiration this week comes from Justine Gosling, and the impressive array of talents and interests she has.  Until 5 years ago she enjoyed a full time career as an acute and critical care NHS physiotherapist in central London. She left her full time contract to travel and volunteer in areas of urgent need, including with refugee camps and natural disasters around the world.  She has volunteered with Team Rubicon, Handicap international and UKmed/DIFID.  She has also travelled and written about her experiences for publications such as the Guardian, Sunday Times and numerous adventure travel magazines

We were pleased to support Justine in a research project, undertaken in collaboration with the Global Health Program at University College London, and in collaboration with the community of Pond Inlet. Justine proposed to work with local women in the school system to more deeply understand the impact and causes of gender-based violence among adolescents. The goal was then to work with the teachers and students to develop solutions in reducing the prevalence of violence.  Her proposed study creates a rare opportunity for the voices of the Pond Inlet community to be heard and aligns with endeavours to advocate for the marginalised with the aim to improve health and wellbeing. There has been very little research undertaken in this community due to its social complexities, remoteness, and travel costs. We greatly value the place-based approach to learning and research, and honour Justine's commitment to focus on natural environments and sustainability, alongside local heritage and customs.

Due to the pandemic she has had to reschedule her travels to Pond Inlet, and has instead moved to London and returned to the NHS to lend a hand as a critical care worker during these unsettling times. For more information about Justine and her collaborative endeavours, you are warmly welcomed to be in touch.

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Manuel Mathieu: World Discovered Under Other Skies, exhibition at The Power Plant, Toronto. Image courtesy the artist

Building Bridges in Art and Beyond. Haitian-born, Montreal-based artist Manuel Mathieu has had an exceptional year. Named a 2020 Sobey Award winner in April (Canada’s most prestigious contemporary art accolade, which this year was shared among the 25 long-listed artists with no single winner), he currently has simultaneous shows at both The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and The Power Plant in Toronto (TPP). The TPP show, World Discovered Under Other Skies – the artist’s first show in Toronto – surveys paintings, drawings and ceramics (see YouTube interview for a digital overview and TPP virtual walkthrough). The MMFA exhibition, Survivance – the artist’s first North American museum show – focuses primarily on paintings and features an arresting site-specific sculpture, Ouroboros (see YouTube interview for a digital walkthrough).

Installation view (detail) of Manuel Mathieu’s Ouroboros (2020) and (on wall) St Jak (2018). Courtesy Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Mathieu seamlessly creates semi-figurative abstraction with palpable fluidity. Much of his work is rooted in a reflection on the history of his native Haiti but viewed through a global collective lens. The artist centers his practice on ‘creating bridges’, historical and cultural to create a new language, a new dialogue. And the bridges extend out beyond his artistic practice. Upon learning in 2018 that the MMFA’s purchase of his painting was its first by a Haitian-Canadian, Mathieu donated the money from the sale to set up a special fund for the museum to acquire pieces by artists under-represented in the collection. This “big picture” perspective denotes admirable agency and initiative.

One could connect this perspective from his educational background. After getting his BFA from the Université du Québec à Montréal, he pursued his MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London. Mathieu shares, “My experience at Goldsmith was memorable. It was very fulfilling and eye opening to spend time with artists from around the world. I understood being constantly surrounded by passionate creators that, regardless of where you are from, making art is an act of faith. The city itself also played a big role in my development since I was exposed to so many transformative art shows. These years definitely contributed to my understanding of the global world and my place in it.”

Mathieu has a forthcoming conversation with Emilie Croning, a Toronto-based artist, scholar, and emerging curator on 29 November hosted by TPP and NIA Centre (Canada’s first professional multi-disciplinary Black Arts Centre). Click here for more information

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Canadian Musicians and Performers to Watch This Week. First up some exciting new content as part of the British Museum's Arctic Climate and Culture exhibit. On December 3, join Borders Crossings ORIGINS Festival, for Magnetic North, voices from the Indigenous Arctic. The evening is billed as a "special online event to celebrate the cultural diversity of the Arctic and its importance to us all." We're looking forward to three Canadian performers -- Caitlyn Baikie an Inuk author and policy advocate from Nain, Nuntsiavut, Laakkuluk Williamson-Bathory a Greenlandic mask dancer and a rising star in contemporary Indigenous theatre and Inuit performance, and Taqralik Partridge a writer, spoken word poet and curator hailing from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik. Click here for free tickets.

The other online Canadian content of note next week is the last installment of the CanadaGoesDigital series, Honour Songs put on by the Sakihiwe Festival. We're fans of William Prince, who is featured on December 1. Juno nominee Prince won accolades as aboriginal singer of the year, and songwriter of the year in 2016 and 2017. His newer work evokes the bluesy gospel greats of the 1930s, but you be the judge! To hear this great Canadian artist, join CanadaGoesDigital and the Festival, with complementary RSVPs here

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This week we spotlight Canada-UK Foundation Board Director and Emeritus Fellow at Oxford University, Reverend Dr. Allan Doig.  We've timed the spotlight to coincide with  the publication of his new book, A History of the Church through its Buildings. 

Allan was educated at the University of British Columbia then read Architecture at King’s College, Cambridge where he also completed a PhD. After several years as a university lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Kent at Canterbury, he was ordained, and during his curacy at St Helen’s in Abingdon was responsible for the restoration of the fourteenth-century painted ceiling in the Lady Chapel. After his curacy, he was appointed Chaplain of Lady Margaret Hall in the University of Oxford and was elected to a Fellowship in 1996. He has served on the Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches, the Council for the Care of Churches, English Heritage’s Places of Worship Advisory Committee, and the Fabric Advisory Committees of Salisbury and Ely cathedrals. He has also published extensively on the history of church architecture. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society.