EMBASSY CULTURAL HOUSE
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Conversation with Freda Guttman, artist & activist in support of Palestine: May 23, 2021 @ 16:00 EDT

5/18/2021

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Register for the online event here
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Freda Guttman, The Earth is Closing in on Us, 2005, this work was included in the March 8, 2021, ECH International Women's Day exhibit: Go; Rise and Strike. ​ From her artist statement: This work fuses archival images of the Nakba with lines of text in red from the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the great Palestinian poet (1941- 2008). The Nakba of 1948, (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic), created three quarters of a million Palestinian refugees who fled to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The haunting, iconic photographic images of the Nakba evoke the suffering they experienced and still do – imprinted forever are the forlorn lines of forsaken people moving over the horizon into the unknown, at the beginning of their long journey into dispossession and statelessness. Mahmoud Darwish himself shared that journey, having experienced imprisonment, statelessness and exile himself.
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Freda Guttman, The Right of Return
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Freda Guttman
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Salah D. Hassan

The ECH is appalled by the ongoing violence, rising tensions, and the devastating loss of life in Palestine and Israel. The toll —particularly on civilians, including women and children — has already been far too great. 
 
Please join us for a conversation with Freda Guttman, Montreal-based artist/activist and  Professor Salah D. Hassan, Director of Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities, Michigan State University, Lansing, Michigan on Sunday, May 23 at 4 pm EDT. 

Freda has been a constant voice of solidarity to Palestinian people over a lifetime of activism.  She lives in Montreal and has worked as a printmaker, photographer and  laterally, as an installation artist.

​She has been a longtime supporter of the Embassy Cultural House, participating in the 1984 International Women's Day exhibit, as well as our most recent online IWD exhibit: Go; Rise and Strike in March 2021.

Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States and internationally. Guttman has made her art practice and her political activism come together in a series of installations. 

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Among her installations that focus on Palestine/Israel are Diminish Your Cup and Two Family Albums: Canada Park, from 1994 to 2004.  

Join us in solidarity with all those who support a just peace in the Middle East. We are calling for an immediate ceasefire. 
 
As an artist-run project, the ECH condemns the May 15th unjustified ransacking and raid by Israeli Defense Force soldiers on Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art & Research, an independent art centre in Bethlehem. The raid, which destroyed computers and other office equipment, follows the burning of their urban farm earlier in the week. Attacks against cultural centres and other civil society organizations, including the media, are against international law.
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The Dar Jacir urban farm burnt to the ground. Photo: Aline Khoury, credit: Dar Jacir newsletter, May 17,2021

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ECH partner's with the Undergraduate Summer Research Internship Program at Western University

5/15/2021

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Matthew Dawkins
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Mary Helen McMurran
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The Embassy Cultural House welcomes two new contributors to our community: Matthew Dawkins and Mary Helen McMurran. 

Matthew Dawkins is an undergraduate studying English and Writing, with a double major in the interdisciplinary School for the Advanced Studies in the Arts & Humanities (SASAH) program at Western University. He is also the recipient of Western's Undergraduate Summer Research Internship (USRI). He has joined the ECH as a contributing editor. 

Mary Helen McMurran is the faculty supervisor for the internship and Associate Professor in Western's Department of English and Writing Studies. Their collaboration with ECH highlights the public humanities and its aim of connecting the university with the city of London as well as a national and international audiences.

As part of the internship, Matthew is creating new projects on anti-Black racism for Embassy Cultural House. His George Floyd Project features local Black communities and artists in a commemoration of one-year since Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police. The occasion prompts reflection on the dramatic and far-reaching impact of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The ECH is grateful for Western University's continued support. Established in 1983, the ECH was a community-driven gallery and hosted interdisciplinary programs. It closed its physical doors in 1990. In 2020, the ECH was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and community website. 
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The ECH and London's Old East Village BIA to promote local arts

5/11/2021

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Art by Simon Shegelman commissioned by the Old East Village BIA to promote the area.
​The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) and the Old East Village Business Improvement Area (OEV BIA) are pleased to announce a collaboration to support and promote local arts and culture in the historic Old East neighbourhood in London, Ontario.
 
The ECH, an online community arts and cultural space, has physical roots and history in east London going back to its original founding as the Embassy Cultural House in 1983, formerly located in the old Embassy Hotel on Dundas St. The site of the hotel is currently being developed by Indwell as the future Embassy Commons, an affordable housing project, to open in the spring of 2022.
 
The Old East Village BIA works to support businesses and cultural programming, alongside citizens of the area. Through the Old East Village Community Improvement Plan, they are a part of the continued development of a vibrant and much-loved part of London.
 
These two organizations have ambitious plans for a community arts program  that will both engage local artists as well as future residents of the Embassy Commons, adding to the cultural life of Old East Village. A number of exciting projects  are in the planning stages: from storefront displays of art linked to QR codes (#cloudtostreet), to an online exhibition of the art murals of OEV on the ECH website. There are also discussions for a potential  arts festival, linked to the reopening of Dundas St., in spring 2022. Stay tuned for updates. Please contact us for more information. 
Read the essay 'at the Ech' by Marwan Hassan on his memories of art and culture

The old Embassy Hotel was located at 732 Dundas Street East at the heart of the Old East Village. The Embassy Cultural House was established in 1983, as a community-driven gallery and hosted interdisciplinary programs. It closed its physical doors in 1990.  In 2020 the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and community website. 
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Read the catalogue on the Embassy Cultural House publish in 2012 for an exhibition at Museum London curated by Bob McKaskell.
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Rendition of the affordable housing project "Embassy Commons" to be built on the old site of the Embassy Hotel, 2020. The façade of the building will include a three floor high replica of Jamelie Hassan 1978 watercolour "embassy at nite".
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Jamelie Hassan, Embassy at Nite. The watercolour was donated to the Museum London's permanent collection by the former Embassy Hotel owner and Jamelie's sister Helen Haller in 2019.

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The ECH is deeply saddened to learn of the death of Susanna Heller

5/10/2021

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Susanna Heller (1956-2021)
On Oct 13, 2020, Susanna Heller  wrote to ECH editor Tariq Hassan Gordon:

Hey Tariq it’s Susanna reaching out to you! Wyn shared your email and told me you were setting up the embassy cultural house website. Feel free to use my entire website or any part of it. It is simply SusannaHeller.com
Also if you need any other info just ask. I’m so pleased it’s YOU who is doing this! Damn I wish we could meet in person with your mom and dad too of course! For now I’m just sending a giant hug and kiss and all my love.
Susanna
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The Paris Vision ECH tabloid issue Sept./Oct./ Nov. 1984, page 6, Susanna Heller in conversation with Jamelie Hassan...

The Embassy Cultural House is deeply saddened to learn of the death of the remarkable painter Susanna Heller, who passed away on May 5, 2021.

Many of Susanna’s paintings involved elaborate installations made up of assemblages of smaller paintings on paper and were based on her walks around the city.  Her love of painting and her love of walking were intricately connected. Her sketch books were the notes that reflected her curiosity and intense observation of her surroundings, whether walking around the metropolis of NYC or the cities of Europe.

ECH co-founder Jamelie Hassan first met Susanna in 1984 when they were both living at La Cité internationale des arts in Paris through the Canada Council for the Arts. Jamelie remembers her time with Susanna:

"Over the months that we overlapped, we enjoyed many conversations about culture and numerous wanderings around the city, so conscious of the way the city and its abundant museums and galleries, parks and gardens, kept us outside walking, rather than working inside our respective studios.

"Our group in Paris at the time included my young son Tariq, age 11, Ron Benner, Wyn Geleynse and his daughter Mara, age 11. The Paris Vision ECH tabloid issue from Sept./Oct./ Nov. 1984 records this unusal collection of creative people in dialogue with Susanna over that period.  In 1986, Susanna came to London to present a solo exhibition of her recent works at the Embassy Cultural House. Her connections with the London community of artists, writers and curators deepened at that time.

"Recently, in October 2020, she reconnected with us and the ECH, presenting one of her startling paintings, Eyes in a Bleak World, 2020 for the open call online exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight coordinated by Ron Benner. In her communications to us she expressed her pleasure to be involved with our reinvigorated collective.

Susanna was an inspiring artist, a generous colleague, and a warm and supportive friend. Her death leaves an enormous gap in the arts community both in Canada and the United States, where she had made her home and studio in Brooklyn, NYC."

 
Here is a revealing conversation from Feb. 6, 2020 with her longtime friend Medrie MacPhee that conveys the genuine spirit, humour, intelligence and beauty of our friend and artist Susanna. May she rest in peace. Her website is  online here.
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October 15, 2020, photo from Susanna Heller, "Tonight’s sunset over the East river looking at manhattan !! Xoxo susanna"
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Susanna Heller, "Eyes in a Bleak World", 2020, oil paint, mixed media on canvas
Artist Statement for the work by Susanna Heller "Eyes in a Bleak World" for the ECH's inaugural online exhibit Hiding in Plain Sight launched on October 30, 2020: “Eyes in a Bleak World “ is a recent painting completed in 2020.  The sky and earth in this oil painting are dominated by the intensity of two eyeballs wrenched from some creature and which soar comet-like through a scorched and haunted landscape. The power of sight in this painting is menacing and speaks to the destructive state of the world which we are witnessing.

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Join us for a casual conversation with Duncan deKergommeaux on May 16

5/9/2021

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Join Embassy Cultural House Advisory Circle Member Judith Rodger for a conversation with Duncan deKergommeaux on May 16, 2021 @ 1:30 pm EST.  

 Painter Duncan deKergommeaux has had a distinguished career that spans seventy years. Judith is a former student of Duncan’s, colleague and friend for fifty years, and their conversation is sure to bring back many memories.

For twenty-three of those years—1970 to 1993—Duncan taught drawing and painting at Western University in London, Ontario, with sabbaticals and leave spent in New York City and Paris.

Since 1953 deKergommeaux has had over fifty solo exhibitions from Victoria, British Columbia to St John’s, Newfoundland. His works have been included in over one hundred group exhibitions.

​During his time in London, his work was exhibited in many different venues, from the McIntosh Gallery and Museum London to alternative spaces such as Trajectory Gallery, Forest City Gallery and the Embassy Cultural House, where his paintings were exhibited in 1983, its first year of operation.

He currently lives in Ottawa where he is still making his marks in his home studio. For further information see Duncan's website. 
REGISTER FOR THE ONLINE EVENT May 16 @ 1:30 HERE

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ECH welcomes Ira Kazi as a Contributing Editor

5/7/2021

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Iraboty (Ira) Kazi
We are pleased to welcome Ira Kazi as our newest contributing editor to the Embassy Cultural House.
 
Iraboty (Ira) Kazi (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario, studying Art History and Visual Culture. She is the current editor of Western’s Visual Arts Department’s graduate students' journal, tba: Journal of Art, Media, & Visual Culture.  Ira divides her time between London and Hamilton and works part-time at the Hamilton Public Library
 
Ira is currently leading a project to celebrate and feature Asian Canadian artists in our community.

Ira joins the ECH's growing team of contributing editors including; Andreas Buchwaldt, Matthew Dawkins, Charlotte Egan, ​Shelley Kopp, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi, Mackenzie Smith, Michelle Wilson, and Jade Williamson.


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Virtual Tour of “Hiding in Plain Sight” for Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival: NOW LIVE!

5/6/2021

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For the 2021 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) is proud to highlight the digital, photo-based, and photo-related artworks from this exhibition in an immersive 3-D format, produced by contributing editor Andreas Buchwaldt. The virtual tour can be viewed below, or at the Hiding in Plain Sight exhibition page. 

The virtual tour re-imagines the Embassy Cultural House in the present, where it was originally located at the Embassy Hotel on 723 Dundas Street. Andreas Buchwaldt visualizes an alternate future for the ECH by inserting an archival image of the building’s facade into its original location with an online panoramic mapping tool. In actuality, the Embassy Hotel was destroyed in 2009 following a large fire. In addition to the sympathetic treatment of the facade, the inside of the building has been mapped to match the original interior of the Embassy Cultural House. The expresso bar and booths remain fixed in their same orientation, surrounded by works of art. 

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In October 2020, the Embassy Cultural House presented its inaugural virtual exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight, organized by Ron Benner, inspired by the 2020 book of the same name by St. Louis-based journalist Sarah Kendzior. In her book, Kendzior describes the former US President Donald Trump’s administration as “a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government.” 

View the ECH's Scotiabank Contact page here. 


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EDITORIAL TEAM

ONLINE FOUNDER
Tariq Hassan Gordon

COFOUNDERS & CURATORIAL ADVISORS 
 
Jamelie Hassan 
& Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Marnie Fleming, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou and Dan Smoke,  and Lucas Stenning 

COORDINATING EDITORS
Tariq Hassan Gordon & 
Olivia Mossuto

WEB DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA 
Tariq Hassan Gordon, Ira Kazi, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi,  JoAnna Weil 

VIRTUAL TOUR
Andreas Buchwaldt

PRINT PUBLICATIONS
Blessy Augustine, Shelley Kopp, 
Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Andreas Buchwaldt, Blessy Augustine, Anahí González, Ira Kazi, ​Shelley Kopp, Ashar Mobeen, Niloufar Salimi,  Jenna Rose Sands, JoAnna Weil & Michelle Wilson. 

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OUR STORY
Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. Other former members of the board were: Debrann Eastabrook, Henry Eastabrook, Sharron Forrest, Wyn Geleynse, Janice Gurney, Jean Hay (1929 - 2008), Doug Mitchell, Kim Moodie, Gerard Pas, Peter Rist, Wanda Sawicki, Jean Spence and Jennie White. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website. 

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program.
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Thank you to our partners

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E M B A S S Y  C U L T U R A L  H O U S E . C A

The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) is located in London, Ontario, Canada on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties. The ECH strives to create meaningful relationships between the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island and our contributors. The ECH honours the stewardship of the many Indigenous peoples who have resided on these lands since time immemorial. 

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