Holding Space Series – Artist Feature: Chantal Gibson

Visit LOMAA’s Instagram page from Monday, October 26 to Saturday, October 31, 2020 to view the work of Chantal Gibson. In addition, please head over to https://vimeo.com/471803892 to watch “The Other James Baldwin Project” by Chantal Gibson and Mily Mumford. The work will be available to the public from Sunday, October 26 to Sunday, November 1, 2020.

Chantal Gibson is an award-winning poet-artist-educator living on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Working in the overlap between literary and visual art, she reuses everyday objects–from academic history books to kitchy souvenir spoons–to confront colonialism head on. Her art has been exhibited at the ROM, MBAM, the AGNS and Open Space Victoria. Her work Who’s Who?: A Historical In(ter)vention is installed in the Senate of Canada until June 2021.

As a facilitator, Chantal works with individuals, groups, and institutions to unpack hegemonic mechanisms persistent across the Canadian landscape. Her altered book workshops, including “The Other James Baldwin”, imagine BIPOC voices in the silences and omissions left by cultural and historical erasure.

Her debut book of poetry, How She Read (Caitlin Press, 2019) explores the representation of Black women in Canadian history, art, and literature. It won the 2020 Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the 2020 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Award, and it was shortlisted for the prestigious 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. Chantal teaches writing and design communication in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University.