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November Updates with the Embassy Cultural House!

11/21/2024

Forest City Gallery's Members' Show and Sale:
In support of FCG and Embassy Cultural House

Forest City Gallery Members' Show and Sale
November 22, 2024 to December 20, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, November 22 from 7PM - 9PM
1025 Elias Street, London, ON

Forest City Gallery (FCG) is excited to announce the opening of its Members' Show and Sale, the longest-running annual exhibition at the gallery, in partnership with Embassy Cultural House. This highly anticipated event, taking place Friday, November 22 from 7-9 pm, serves as a cornerstone fundraising initiative for the gallery, supporting vital programming that fosters artistic innovation and community engagement.

The Members' Show and Sale is an important fundraiser that enables FCG to continue offering dynamic exhibitions, provide essential artistic resources, and cultivate meaningful dialogue between local, regional, and international artists. The funds raised through this event directly support the gallery's year-round activities and initiatives. This year's event will feature the work of over 50 talented local artists, including FCG members and contributors from Embassy Cultural House. It promises to be a vibrant celebration of creativity, showcasing a diverse range of artistic expressions that reflect the rich cultural fabric of our community.

Join the FCG and the ECH in celebrating the creativity and vision of our local arts community while supporting the continued growth of Forest City Gallery and Embassy Cultural House’s programming. This is an opportunity to connect with artists, discover unique works of art, and contribute to the cultural vitality of London. We look forward to seeing you at this year’s Members’ Show and Sale, in FCG’s 51st year!

For more information, please visit the FCG website or contact [email protected].

Museum London's 2024 Winter Launch Party!

Museum London Winter Launch Party
Thursday, November 21 from 7PM - 10PM
421 Ridout Street North, London, ON
Pay-what-you-can

Explore all three floors of the Museum, meet artists and curators, and get creative with hands-on activities. Grab refreshments and sweet treats from Culinary Catering and Yaya’s Kitchen. Enjoy performances by DJ Ames and Eleanor & more!

Gather with us to celebrate our latest exhibitions:

Baapaagimaak: Weaving Endurance is new digital artwork by Anishinaabe artists Katie Wilhelm and Summer Bressette that challenges colonial perspectives and embraces the radical endurance of nature itself.

Ukutula: Our Timeless Journeys is inspired by African dance and music. Curated by Qanita Lilla, the show invites us to move among an extraordinary diversity of traditional West African masks from the Justin and Elisabeth Lang Collection of African Art at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. They appear in chorus with five, multi-generational Canadian artists from the African and Asian diasporas: Winsom Winsom, Camille Turner, Jessica Karuhanga, Anthony Gebrehiwot and Jill Glatt.

Esmaa Mohamoud: Glorious Bones is a sculpture made of repurposed football helmets adorned with vivid African Kente patterns. These powerful works, which are part of a larger series that has been exhibited across the country, speak to issues of race, identity, gender and sports culture.

Fore more information about the launch, please visit the Museum London website.

RSVP HERE

Embassy Cultural House joins the 401 Holiday Open House

401 Richmond's Holiday Open House
Thursday, November 28, 2024, 5PM - 8PM
401 Richmond Street West, Toronto, ON

Start and finish your shopping at 401 Richmond this festive season including 20+ open artist studios, 17 galleries, 2 shops, and a licensed café with gourmet pantry! Find artwork, objects, books, toys, clothing, accessories, cards and much more. Embassy Cultural House will have publications and multiples available by ECH artists and contributors.

For more information, contact [email protected]. To learn more about 401 Richmond, please visit their website.

Looking for gift ideas? Give the gift of local history! Portraits of Sam Hallick: Modern Arab Presence in Early Twentieth-Century North America by Salah D. Hassan is currently featured at Attic Books in London, Ontario. Photo credit: Jamelie Hassan

Thank you to our newest ECH Contributors!

Over the past three months, the Embassy Cultural House has added three new contributing editors to our team through the internship program with Western University's Visual Arts Department. We are grateful to Jessica Joyce, Mireya Seymour, and Anna Da Silva for the significant work and energy that they have brought to ECH programs this fall.

Relevant and Related Links

From The Breach: "In Canada, UN expert slams Israeli cleansing of Gaza, 'They said it, and they've done it'"—Desmond Cole in conversation with Francesca Albanese
Obituary for Duncan de Kergommeaux (1927-2024)
From The London Free Press: "Longtime Indigenous Broadcaster Dan Smoke mourned: 'Transformative'" by Jennifer Bieman
From CBC News: "Murray Sinclair, former senator who led Truth and Reconciliation commission, dead at 73" by Peter Zimonjic
From A Space Gallery: In Loving Memory of Carole Condé
From Simon Fraser University, Department of English: "In Memoriam: Roy Miki, professor emeritus" by Clint Burnham
Obituary for Christopher Edward Smith Gittings (1962–2024)

Visit the ECH Website

Embassy Cultural House is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Chonnonton peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum and other treaties, colonized as London, Ontario. 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.

Copyright © 2024 Embassy Cultural House. All rights reserved.

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We Remember: Duncan de Kergommeaux, Dan Smoke, Murray Sinclair, Roy Miki, Carole Condé, and Chris Gittings

11/8/2024

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It continues to be a heavy year for the ECH community and beyond. With wars raging across the globe, criminals elected into office, and the passing of cultural icons and artists, it can be hard to find light and purpose. We are turning inward this week, closer to home, to reflect on the important work that has been accomplished by many legendary artists, writers, and Elders in our community.

We are mourning the passing of Duncan de Kergommeaux, Dan Smoke, Murray Sinclair, Roy Miki, Carole Condé, and Chris Gittings, but we are cherishing and celebrating their incredible lives lived.

Ron Benner's photographic/garden installation "As The Crow Flies" at Museum London,
November 5, 2024. Photo credit: Jamelie Hassan

Embassy Cultural House mourns the loss of Dan Smoke

Elders and Knowledge Keepers Dan and Mary Lou Smoke at Museum London for Ron Benner's Maiz Barbacoa/Corn Roast in September 2022. Photo credit: Studio Kuefner Photography.

Our sincere condolences to Mary Lou Smoke and family and all their relations on the recent passing of Dan Smoke. Dan was a good friend to us and always gave generously to all—sharing his knowledge to those who cared to listen.

Now he is making his journey to the spirit world. We are profoundly grateful for all the work he and Mary Lou have done together. The Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University is working on archiving the Smoke Signals Radio program beginning in the 1990’s, which will ensure that his voice will continue to be heard.

As Elders, they were both active in many communities and on university campuses and with the Wampum Learning Centre at Western. They were always happy and ready to work with us and our team at the Embassy Cultural House and our events were enriched by the knowledge he shared together with Mary Lou. May he rest in peace.

— Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner --

For information regarding the sacred fire and funeral details, please visit his obituary on the RHB Anderson Funeral Homes website.

Dan and Mary Lou Smoke attending the Embassy Cultural House publication launch for "An Alternative Cultural History of London, Ontario" at Museum London, September 22, 2024. Left to right: Ron Benner, Lorraine Klaasen, Olivia Mossuto, Dan Smoke, and Mary Lou Smoke. Photo credit: Jamelie Hassan

My heart goes out to the families, friends, and communities that today lost three amazing souls. I can only imagine how the loss of Amanda Kennedy, Dan Smoke, and Murray Sinclair is being felt in hearts and homes across this region and beyond. You are all in my thoughts—I am so grateful for the gifts of truth and knowledge that each of these leaders shared so generously.

— Tom Cull --

ECH Delegation to the Woodland Cultural Centre, May 12, 2022. Left to right: Lucas Kopp, Shelley Kopp, Bruno Sinder, Ira Kazi, Dan Smoke, Jamelie Hassan, Ron Benner, Patricia Deadman, and Mary Lou Smoke. Photo credit: Olivia Mossuto

Beneath the Sun: A Public Celebration of Artist Carole Condé

Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, Carole's Garden, 2021

A Space Main Gallery
401 Richmond St W, Toronto, ON
November 9 – December 7, 2024
Public celebration of artist Carole Condé November 9, 2024, 2:00 pm–5:00 pm

Join A Space for a public celebration of the life and work of Carole Condé (1940 – 2024) on Saturday, November 9, 2024, 2 – 5 pm at A Space Gallery in Toronto. The exhibition runs November 9 – December 7, 2024 in the Main Gallery.

Carole Condé was a visual artist who, along with partner and collaborator Karl Beveridge, challenged the assumptions and practices of contemporary art and the international art market. Over the past 50 years she worked in collaboration with various trade union and community organizations in the production of her elaborately constructed narrative photographs portraying the lives and issues faced by working people.

Carole was among the founding members of the Mayworks Festival in Toronto in 1986 and the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1996. She was also active in A Space Gallery over the past 40 years.

Carole received the Cultural Award, Ontario Federation of Labour, in 1997, honourary degrees from OCADU in 2010, and NASCAD in 2015, the Prix au mérite artistique, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) in 2013, and the Governor General’s Award in the Visual and Media Arts (Canada), in 2022.

For more information, please visit the A Space website.

As we prepared to send out this newsletter, we also received the sad news that artist, dear friend, and educator, Duncan de Kergommeaux passed away in Ottawa. Duncan was born in British Columbia in 1927. From 1970–1993 he taught in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Western Ontario where he was Chair of the Department from 1981–1984. During his years working in London, Ontario, Duncan was a dedicated supporter of artists and became involved in the ECH when our programs began in 1983 at the Embassy Hotel. He continued his enthusiastic connection when the ECH relaunched the 2020 online initiative.

Duncan had maintained a rigorous studio practice since 1953 with over 60 solo exhibitions and several major museum retrospectives and over 100 group exhibitions since 1953 including exhibiting at various Biennials of Canadian Art and a solo show at the National Gallery of Canada. His work is in the Ottawa Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Museum London, McIntosh Gallery and the Canada Council Art Bank. Duncan de Kergommeaux lived and maintained a studio in Ottawa. He was appointed to the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA) and in 2023, Duncan was awarded a life-time achievement award from the Ottawa Art Gallery which celebrated the influence of 5 established artists and their impact on the Ottawa art scene and beyond.

More details to follow in our next ECH newsletter.

Relevant and Related Links

From The London Free Press: "Longtime Indigenous Broadcaster Dan Smoke mourned: 'Transformative'" by Jennifer Bieman
Smoke Signals Radio Show Archive: A Welcome by Dan and Mary Lou Smoke
From CBC News: "Murray Sinclair, former senator who led Truth and Reconciliation commission, dead at 73" by Peter Zimonjic
From Lake Chapala Artists: Duncan de Kergommeaux and "Winter Days" in San Juan Cosalá, Lake Chapala by Tony Burton
From A Space Gallery: In Loving Memory of Carole Condé
From Simon Fraser University, Department of English: "In Memoriam: Roy Miki, professor emeritus" by Clint Burnham
From London Review of Books: "Lest We Forget" by Loubna El Amine
Obituary for Christopher Edward Smith Gittings (1962–2024)
From Democracy Now!: "Genocide as Colonial Erasure": U.N. Expert Francesca Albanese on Israel's "Intent to Destroy" Gaza
From n+1: "The Last Days of Mankind" by Pankaj Mishra
From The Walrus: "In Gaza, Language is All We Have Left" by Pacinthe Mattar

Visit the ECH Website

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November Updates with the Embassy Cultural House!

We Remember: Duncan de Kergommeaux, Dan Smoke, Murray Sinclair, Roy Miki, Carole Condé, and Chris Gittings

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