June 1 – August 31, 2023
Stride Gallery is excited to announce our very first studio residency taking place from June 1st to August 31st, 2023. We have converted our Main Gallery space into four studios to be used by our jury selected residents for the next 3 months.
The selected residents are Morgan Black, Honey Jalali, Michelle Ku, and Marsel Reddick.
Over the course of the residency, the public will have the chance to engage with the residents through various public events, as well as have the opportunity to schedule studio visits.
Morgan Black
Kalhwaalap. Morgannskwawtitsa. Tskwaylaxwmeckan.
As my artistic practice grows, I become preoccupied with processing and reframing memory. Memory exists on a personal or collective level. It can be captured, shared, and filtered through an emotion or specific point of view. Memory is embedded into the materials I work with and within my DNA. Memory becomes a story we tell.
My creations are stories involving many languages. I think language is so much more than the sounds that escape our mouths. The materials I work with have their own language. As I work, I ask myself, how can I communicate ideas such as softness, confusion, sorrow, discord, or connection? The simple expressions between various materials create complex narratives that speak to my fractured identity, my desire to defy oppression and colonialism and to reconnect to my culture.
Being a Ts’kw’aylaxw First Nations person, I am concerned with the histories of the materials I work with, how to honour the land they come from, how to take care of myself and other beings. I often choose repurposed materials and to create sustainably. The materials become safe sites of connection to my dreams, fears, spirituality, and play. I am also emboldened to question the government and social systems that have historically and continue to threaten my existence and the lives of others like me.
My research involves a decolonial approach that prioritizes relational connection, spontaneity, and meaning through unconventional methods of research. This includes listening to stories told by Indigenous kin, learning through experimentation, and disrupting methods centered around productivity and capitalism. It is not important that my work looks acceptable to the dominant culture. I prefer to focus on the time spent engaging with the concepts and materials explored in my practice.
Honey Jalali
Honey Jalali is an Iranian contemporary activist artist based in Calgary, Alberta since December 2020. She works in installation, digital and acrylic painting, poetry, collage, and photography. Her work is based on her thoughts, fears, and dreams.
She is a member of Iranian Graphic Designer’s Society (IGDS). She has a Master’s Degree from the Art and Architecture Azad University of Tehran. She has been teaching Graphic Design for 15 years at university level. Ever since her relocation to Calgary was quickly followed by the pandemic, she has continued with her art practice, including participating in Arts Commons’ RBC Emerging Artist Program.
She believes in art therapy that serves as a tool for healing. She explores memories, good and bad, through creative multimedia artworks. She wants to show stories about individuals, humanity, suffering, love, and real life all over the world.
Michelle Ku
Michelle Ku is an artist based in Calgary. She likes to balance serious subjects with cute characters and fun colours. She’s inspired by things like IFS parts therapy, mysticism, interception, and somatic healing. Along with illustration and painting, Michelle also creates murals and works in animation!
Marsel Reddick
Marsel Reddick is an artist and writer whose research focuses on the constitution and dissolution of the self. In their practice, they consider the ongoing entanglements of self and otherness through a variety of media such as claymation, spatialized sound, zines, and interactive performance/installation.