Gallery Talk with Eddy Firmin

This program is presented as part of the International Ceramic Art Fair (ICAF).

Join featured artist Eddy Firmin for an in-person discussion about his work, which explores identity, heritage, and resistance.

ABOUT EDDY FIRMIN

Originally from the French Caribbean (Guadeloupe), Eddy Firmin is an artist-researcher and speaker who lives and works in Montréal (Canada). He holds a PhD in Arts Studies and Practices from the Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) and a master’s degree from l’École Supérieure d’Art et Design le Havre-Rouen (France). Firmin coordinates the publication of the decolonial magazine Minorit’Art. His visual artwork questions the transcultural logics of his identity and the power imbalances at play. On a theoretical level, he works on a Méthode Bossale, a proposal for the decolonization of the imaginary in art.

Firmin takes a particular interest in the politics of knowledge sharing and the epistemic conflicts that they create for the colonized artist. He strives to remediate the codes of a Caribbean ancestral custom, le Gwoka (at the crossroads of dance, song, storytelling and music). Le Gwoka is part of the very large family of Afro-Caribbean customs created to resist colonial violence, such as Paracumbé, Guineo, Bèlè, Calenda, Bomba, Tambú and many more.

ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CERAMIC ART FAIR

The International Ceramic Art Fair (ICAF) makes its highly anticipated return to the Gardiner Museum, featuring works by emerging and established ceramic artists from a wide range of backgrounds, and an exciting slate of online and in-person programming.

ICAF 2022 celebrates connections between body, identity, and land. Global mythologies have long connected the human body to the earth, from a Nubian deity fashioning humans from clay to scientific explorations of clay as the first carrier of life. The human body is symbolically if not literally connected to clay, helping us understand who we are as individuals, a society, and a species.

As we navigate global health and environmental crises, understanding our bodily connection to the earth becomes increasingly urgent. Likewise, the experiences of being, or being in, a particular body defines many aspects of our lives, from health and ability, to experiences of discrimination and trauma. Our bodies help construct our identities, mediating, filtering, and generating our experiences.

Figurative ceramic sculpture is one of the most dynamic areas of practice today. Artists from across the spectrum are exploring new approaches, representations, and voices to help us see ourselves in ways that generate compassion, empathy, truth telling, and beauty.

This year’s Honorary Patron is internationally renowned Kenyan-born British studio potter, Magdalene Odundo.

Presenting Sponsor

Lead Sponsor

Supporting Sponsors

David Binet
Margaret McCain

Contributing Sponsors

Tamara Rebanks & James Appleyard

Hotel Partner