We are excited to welcome Joshua Schwebel as our next Open Studio Artist in Residence! Joshua is developing a long-term research project investigating the relationship between philanthropy and resource extraction. His residency will be divided into two parts with a second phase scheduled for 2023. The research in Sackville will focus on Pierre Lassonde, former chair of both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Musée Nationale de Beaux Arts in Quebec, art collector, and gold mining magnate.
Through meetings with the Sackville arts community, the project will explore the economic/cultural exchange involved in supporting the arts and the inherent conflict with the programmatic and symbolic form of taking involved with gold mining. The economic balancing at stake is shifting the symbolic responsibility for ecological destruction caused by resource extraction onto the shoulders of artists who accept these (necessary) gifts.
Joshua Schwebel is a trans artist based between Montreal (Tiohti:áke) and Berlin. Since graduating from NSCAD’s MFA program, Schwebel has become known for practicing a particularly direct form of site-specific institutional critique, undertaken through international exhibitions, fellowships and residencies.