Sonali Menezes
May 1 - June 5
Sonali is a Hamilton-based multidisciplinary artist and writer. She holds an Honours BA in Studio Art from the University of Guelph and is the youngest of triplets. While her work spans many mediums, she has been most recently focused in zines, video and printmaking. In 2019 she was the recipient of the City of Hamilton’s Emerging Artist Award in Media Arts. Sonali’s cookbook zine Depression Cooking won Broken Pencil Magazine's Zine Award for best info zine in 2022. She loves the way zines take artwork off of the white walls of galleries and puts it directly into working peoples’ hands. Sonali is obsessed with food and finds herself making art work about it often. She makes art as a way to find meaning under the crushing weight of capitalism and the unending anxiety of the climate crisis.
While at Struts Sonali will be working on the manuscript for her book Depression Cooking: feeding yourself under the crushing weight of capitalism. Sonali will be expanding on her 2022 zine to include more writing, illustrations, tips and recipes for eating while depressed
Photo credit: Ariel Bader
Sarindar Dhaliwal
June 12 - July 17
Sarindar Dhaliwal was born in the Punjab, raised in London, England and has lived in Canada since 1968. Dhaliwal received her BFA with a concentration in sculpture at the Falmouth School of Art, Cornwall, UK, her MFA from York University and PhD from the Cultural Studies program at Queens University. Her solo show When I grow up I want to be a namer of paint colours is currently on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
While at Struts, Sarindar will be working on a new installment of her ongoing series “The Cartographer’s Mistake.”
Photo Credit: Craig Boyko
Ahreum Lee
October 16 - November 20
Ahreum Lee is a musician and interdisciplinary media artist from Seoul, South Korea, currently based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. She is interested in examining socio-political issues that have been embedded in everyday technologies, such as Google Maps, Predictive Text Algorithms, and AI virtual assistant voices. She uses a range of media including video, audio, performance, 3D-printing sculpture, 3D rendered images, stock images from online and web art.
She was a finalist for the Emerging Digital Artist Award held by EQ Bank and Trinity Square Video (Toronto) in 2019. She has exhibited and performed in Montréal at Arsenal Art Contemporain Montréal, Fonderie Darling, Ada x, Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Arsenal Contemporain Montreal, as well as Third Shift Festival (Saint John) and Axis Lab (Chicago). Additionally, she has participated in the Emerging BAiR program at Banff Art and Creativity Centre, the démART-MTL program at Eastern Bloc and Impression Residency Program at Musée des beaux-arts à Montréal. "
While at Struts Gallery, Ahreum will expand the "In the Name of the Moon, We Won't Forgive It!" project by developing an online platform for addressing microaggressions.
Photography and Artistic Direction: Camille Dubuc
Assistance: Joëlle Villeneuve Alexia Toman, Tomy Jo
Kriss Li
September 4 - October 9
Kriss Li is a multimedia artist who creates films, installations, and conceptual projects that explore structures of power. These works investigate the foundational divisions and hierarchies that maintain our social order—the ways these systems condition us in spite of our intentions, and the hidden sites of possibility that we can exploit towards greater collective capacities. Kriss's artistic practice is informed by extensive engagement with community organizing, especially at Prisoner Correspondence Project, a volunteer-run solidarity initiative for LGBTQ prisoners where they've been a collective member since 2009.
Kriss’s work has been shown at over 100 festivals globally, including screenings at DOC NYC, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Vancouver International Film Festival, Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, Videoformes International Digital Arts Festival, International Documentary Film Festival of Mexico City, Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, and Laceno d'Oro. Kriss has been selected for international residencies including Amant New York (USA), Villa Sträuli (Switzerland), Paper Machine (USA), Struts Gallery (Canada), Vidéographe (Canada), and Ada X (Canada). They’ve programmed for Vancouver Queer Film Festival and Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art.
Kriss is the recipient of multiple grants from Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In 2023, they were a finalist for the New Generation Award from the United Association for Labor Education for their work as a labour organizer.
While at Struts, Kriss Li will be working on their project 693, a hybrid film about the federal women's prison system in Canada.
Photo credit: Fiona Ainsworth