CRITICAL ART WRITING MENTORSHIP

Presented in partnership with BlackFlash Magazine and funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, CARFAC SASK’s Critical Art Writing (CAW) Mentorship Program was piloted in 2018 to support writers as they grow critical art writing capacities. Through a combination of one-on-one mentorship and group workshops, writers will develop their ability to enliven the critical discourse of the province and beyond. The program provided professional support, editorial guidance, and opportunities for publication through the development of rigorous contemporary discourse, writing projects, practical skills, and editing experiences. This program is is offered bi-annually, pending funding and projected to resume in 2024.

HOW TO APPLY

Application deadline is TBA. 
Apply by emailing the following to programs.sask@carfac.ca:

• a brief letter outlining your proposed focus or project for the mentorship. What two or three goals do you wish to achieve? In what area(s) of art writing or criticism would you like to develop your skills? From our roster of mentors, which two would you most prefer to work with and why? (max 500 words)

• a brief bio (max 250 words)

• a resume/cv (max 2 pages)

• two samples of your writing (max 4 pages)

Please email all material as a single PDF document with the subject heading: ”YOUR NAME - CAW Submission”.
Please ensure the PDF document also includes your name. Digital or physical submissions in any other format will not be accepted.

2019-2020 MENTORS

2019-2020 MENTOR BIOS

BLAIR FORNWALD is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and writer based in Regina, SK, Treaty Four Territory, where she is Dunlop Art Gallery and RPL Film Theatre’s Curator of Moving Image and Performance. Her practices are united by a collaborative impulse and interests in the aesthetics of failure, the expression of vulnerability, and the use of humour to confront difficult truths. Fornwald has presented work across Canada, the United States, and in Germany, has curated over forty projects, including nationally-touring exhibitions, and has published writing for Dunlop Art Gallery, Black Dog Publishing, Neutral Ground, Vtape, the Organization for Saskatchewan Arts Councils and CARFAC Saskatchewan, and PUBLIC, BlackFlash, and Boulderpavement magazines. Fornwald holds a BFA (2002) from the University of Regina, and an MFA (2007) from Western University, London, Ontario, Upper Canada Treaty Territory.

AMY FUNG is a writer and organizer. She is currently a Doctoral student at Carleton University and received her Masters in English and Film Studies from the University of Alberta in 2009 with a specialization in criticism, poetics, and the moving image. Her art writing appears in monographs and publications nationally and internationally. Her first book, Before I was a Critic, I was a Human Being takes on Canada’s mythologies of multiculturalism and settler colonialism through the lens of a national art critic (Artspeak and Book*hug 2019). 

JOHN G. HAMPTON (they/them or he/him) is the Director of Programs at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. John holds a Masters of Visual Studies – Curatorial Studies from the University of Toronto; has contributed writing to the Journal of Curatorial Studies, Black Flash, Canadian Art, Border Crossings, Magenta Magazine, and various exhibition catalogues; has taught writing for visual arts as a sessional instructor at Brandon University, and has acted as a curatorial mentor for placements at Trinity Square Video, the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, the University of Toronto, and the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective. Their areas of interest include issues of identity formation, Indigenous epistemologies, aesthetics of attention, virtuality, ontologies of the non-human, and histories of gender, masculinity, and whiteness. He is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, the United States, and Canada, and grew up in Regina, SK.

NASRIN HIMADA is a Palestinian writer, curator and editor residing in Winnipeg, on Treaty 1 Territory. Nasrin’s writing on contemporary art has appeared in many acclaimed contemporary arts publications such as Canadian Art, C Magazine, and MICE. They have collaborated with film festivals and art institutions across Canada and the US, among them being The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain, and Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Nasrin has been the co-editor of several contemporary arts magazines, including the online platform contemptorary.org. Currently, they are the assistant curator at Plug In ICA.

JAS MORGAN is a Cree-Métis-Saulteaux curator, editor, writer, SSHRC doctoral scholarship recipient and McGill Art History PhD student. Nixon won the prestigious 2019 Dayne Ogilive Prize and has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, an Indigenous Voices Literary Award and several National Magazine Awards. They currently hold the position of Editor-at-Large for Canadian Art and previously edited mâmawi­-âcimowak, an independent Indigenous art, art criticism and literature journal. Their writing has appeared in Malahat Review, Room, GUTS, Mice, esse, The Inuit Art Quarterly, Teen Vogue and other publications. Nixon’s first book nîtisânak is out now through Metonymy Press.

SKY GOODDEN is the founding publisher and editor of Momus (momus.ca), an international online art publication and podcast that stresses “a return to art criticism.” Momus has been shortlisted for two International Awards for Art Criticism since its inauguration in 2014, and has attracted over 900,000 readers. Goodden was the Artist-in-Residence at Montreal’s Concordia University in 2018-19, and holds an MFA in Criticism & Curatorial Practice from OCAD University, which in 2016 awarded her with an "Alumni of Influence" award. She has published in Frieze, Art in America, Modern Painters, Canadian Art, C Magazine, the National Post, and Art21.

2019-2020 CAW WRITERS

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MENTEES

Simon Fuh

Danielle Corson

Paige Adrian

MENTORS

Sky Goodden

Gloria Hickey

Barbara Meneley

For more information about Critical Art Writing Mentorship opportunities, email programs.sask@carfac.ca or follow us on Instagram and/or Facebook. The Critical Art Writing Mentorship Program is supported by Canada Council for the Arts and the Saskatchewan Lotteries Trust Fund.