Locals Only

×

Expand

Justin Langlois, "An incomplete glossary of sustenance, AKA artist-run," 2017

billboard: Wind Song by Sarah Burwash.

Locals Only Justin Langlois (Lead Artist)

With Alana Bartol, Vanessa Kwan, Lisa Hirmer, Holly Schmidt

Additional participating Saskatoon and Canadian artists to be announced

September 2017 to June 2019

Curated by Tarin Dehod, organized with Yvonne Hanson AKA artist-run and CHEP Good Food Inc.

Developed by Justin Langlois, for AKA artist-run in collaboration with CHEP Good Food Inc., Locals Only is a large-scale multi-year art project that explores food security, community-led resource development, and intergenerational exchange in Saskatoon’s core neighbourhood of Riversdale. As one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city, Riversdale hosts some of the most diverse and culturally rich communities in the region, and yet is simultaneously facing unprecedented pressures from encroaching gentrification along with long-standing challenges related to accessing locally-sourced sustenance. The project responds to these critical issues in the form of a mobile food service truck that deploys socially engaged art, local knowledge, and long-form hospitality to cultivate a community-based exploration of reciprocity by redeploying symbolic representations of gentrification into the hands of longtime community residents.

Locals Only will operate as an elder-guided, artist-designed, and youth-operated mobile programming space, and will serve as a platform for intercultural dialogue and intergenerational capacity building by sharing traditional knowledge around food, hospitality, and community development. Beginning in 2017, the project extends until June 2019, and will encourage meaningful participation from community-based youth and elders, as well as deep collaboration with local and national artists.

Justin Langlois is the co-founder and research director of Broken City Lab, an artist-led collective working to explore the complexities of locality, infrastructures, and participation in relation to civic engagement and social change, and he is the founder of The School for Eventual Vacancy and curator of The Neighbourhood Time Exchange. His practice explores collaborative structures, critical pedagogy, and custodial frameworks as tools for gathering, learning, and making. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Culture + Community at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

AKA artist–run supports the creation and development of artist driven initiatives and emerging practices that speak to, reflect and encourage dialogue in our culturally diverse communities. This includes work in all media by local, national and international artists. Their venues consist of a street-level gallery, billboard and multi-use screening and performance event space; they also source off-site locations for site-specific projects. AKA is committed to acting as a centre for risk-taking and artistic self-determination produced by a diversity of voices; engaging in critical discourse and intersections with related cultural practices.

CHEP Good Food Inc. is a 27-year old charitable organization based in the Saskatoon neighbourhood of Riversdale with significant expertise in food-based community development through working with children, families and communities to improve access to good food and promoting food security. CHEP believes that food is a basic right and that a community development approach that brings people together around good food is essential.

Locals Only is one of 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35 million initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada. Locals Only was developed with preliminary research funding from the Saskatchewan Arts Board Artists in Communities grant. Thank you to Saskatoon residents, small businesses, artists and academics who generously gave of their time and knowledge in the first research stage of Locals Only. Special thanks to Cory Schewaga.