Artist-in-Residence

Artist: Alexandra Hong | Image: Life after Utopia Installation View | Photo by: Brendan Albert

MAST YEAR COLLECTIVE – JULY, 2021

RESIDENCY PROJECT

All that Sustains Us is a participatory project created by Mast Year Collective that invites Port Hope community members, particularly first and second generation residents to share stories of meals and recipes that evoke a vivid connection to a particular environment. They are curious to explore how food – from making, to sharing, to eating – is entwined and grounded in our physical environments both past and present. Through this exploration, a deep connection between environment and community can be revealed through food, whether it be the ingredients used, the occasions that we eat, or how recipes adapt and transform in response to our present surroundings. 

Participants of All that Sustains Us will have the opportunity to share their own experiences by responding to a series of prompts and will be invited to join us over a virtual campfire and meal to continue the conversation. In addition, they hope to engage with local restaurants to discuss how a dish from their menu is connected to Port Hope in a variety of ways including how it’s changed over time, how it elicits a memory of a specific place, and how it connects to different landscapes. A zine publication will be created at the end of the residency bringing together these stories.

ARTIST BIOS

Mast Year Collective consists of contemporary artists Alexandra Hong and Farihah Aliyah Shah. As diaspora artists, their collective practice explores identity, belonging, the notion of changing homelands, and the complications that arise when trying to preserve cultural inheritance.

“Mast year” refers to a term in botany when trees in a forest collectively and mysteriously produce an abundance of fruit. This unified act ensures the animals that rely on the fruit will have a bountiful year, but also that there will be enough to sprout the next generation of trees.

Alexandra’s work presents access points to complex issues, and suggests alternative frameworks to think about and experience the world. She is interested in exploring the borders of experience, questioning ways of gaining knowledge, and creating spaces for dialogue amid hardened ideologies. Alexandra’s work has been shown in Nuit Blanche Toronto, Luminato Festival, the Ryerson Image Centre, and presented internationally in South Korea, China, and Finland.

Farihah utilizes photography, video and sound installation, exploring identity formation through the colonial gaze, race, land and collective memory. She seeks to challenge the lack of representation of disenfranchised bodies in the photographic cannon and representational art, encouraging others to take agency of their image. She is a board member of Gallery 44 and a member of Women Photograph and has exhibited internationally in North America, Asia and Europe.