Visiting Artists Lecture Series: Michaela Bridgemohan

The Visual Arts Visiting Artist Series program brings in a diverse variety of artists for campus talks and public gallery presentations that include visual artists, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, playwrights, essayists, interactive and digital media artists. Each artist presents a talk to students in the BFA program and the public, as well as offering critiques to students in the 4th year of the Visual Arts Program.

The Visiting Artist Series will be held in-person on Mondays at 10am in the University Theatre (ADM 026) as part of the CCS 150 Creative and Critical Art Theory class. These talks are open to the public.

Join us on Monday, March 18th for a talk with Michaela Bridgemohan, an interdisciplinary artist of Jamaican and Australian descent who spent her formative years in Mohkinstsis, also known as Calgary, and now gratefully resides on Syilx territory, Kelowna, B.C. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of British Columbia—Okanagan and received her BFA in Drawing (with Distinction) from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2017.

Bridgemohan’s artistic research, deeply rooted in her paternal Caribbean heritage, aims to redefine Black identity in Canada, emphasizing its multiplicity and multi-dimensionality. She values cultural ways of making as a legitimate form of artistic expression and creative power. Wood, Indigo and familial objects transform these immaterial anecdotal memories into material shadows—manifesting as domestic spaces, brown bodies and fertile terrain. Theoretical and contemporary writings inform her work on Caribbean-Canadian thought, Black Feminism, Hauntology, Relationality, Indigenous Knowledge and Land-based practices.

Bridgemohan’s work has been exhibited across Canada and Australia and has been incorporated in many community-engaged performances, workshops, artist talks, conferences and panels. Exhibitions include but limited to Grunt Gallery-Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (Vancouver BC), Fort Gallery (Fort Langley BC), Lake Country Art Gallery (Lake Country, BC), Feminist Art Collective (Toronto ON), Diasporic Futurisms (Toronto ON), Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton AB), Stride Gallery (Calgary AB), The Marion Nicoll Gallery (Calgary AB), Whitebox Gallery (Brisbane QLD) and Jugglers Art Space (Brisbane QLD). Bridgemohan’s art practice wouldn’t be possible without the gracious support of the British Columbia Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.