Art and Climate Change
This fall Dundas Valley School of Art (DVSA) is hosting a series of free panel talks presenting thematic conversations on art and the environment with guest artists, scientists and climate experts. The talks are sure to be full of information and inspiration about how artists and environmentalists are facing today’s environmental challenges.
Registration Required.
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Location
Schedule
About the Speakers
Location
Dundas Valley School of Art
21 Ogilvie St.
Dundas, ON
Schedule
Sunday Oct. 5 – 1:00-2:30
Local Ecology
with Mita Giacomini and Jackson Hudecki
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Sunday Oct. 19 – 1:00-2:30
Community Collaboration
Tom Cull and Dr. Michelle Wilson
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Sunday Nov. 2 – 1:00-2:30
Art & Science
with Gail S. Fraser and Cole Swanson
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Sunday Nov. 23 – 1:00-2:30
Talking Earth
with Santee Smith
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Sunday Nov. 30 – 1:00-2:30
Artist talk
by Judy Major-Girardin
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About the Speakers
Sunday Oct. 5 – Mita Giacomini and Jackson Hudecki
Our Art and Climate Change public panel series commences this Fall with Mita Giacomini and Jackson Hudecki. This open forum discussion will explore the many ways we can cherish and serve wild creatures and habitats. Local, creative actions may seem a “drop in the bucket” of need for climate-level changes; as Hudecki and Giacomi will explore, however, these actions nudge things in the right direction and possess the special magic of being meaningful — with the power to encourage and inspire others. An intricate web of commitment grows in our community when we celebrate our local birds and their crucial ecological habitats. The impacts may be serendipitous, but they can also be profound.
Mita Giacomini is a Dundas fibre artist whose practice contemplates and responds to our coexistence with birds. She will share her recent work, explaining how she creates her bird portraits, and reflecting on how art can support devotion to the natural world, as well as to its protection and its healing. Her images respond to the mystery and familiarity of birds as individuals, living their lives among ours. She developed her technique of “surface weaving” to create painterly images rich with texture, colour, and intricacy unique to fibre. Surface-woven textiles exhibit complexity at every visible scale – from across the room, to up-close, to under a microscope. Giacomini’s surface weavings have been exhibited at art galleries and museums across Canada, and in the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia, and have won awards for excellence and originality.
Jackson Hudecki – Vice President of the Board of the Hamilton Naturalists’ Club – will share complementary stories, photos, and videos highlighting his recent work with staff and volunteers at the HNC as it pertains to some of our protected nature sanctuaries in Southern Ontario. Hudecki hopes to connect people to the places and inspire individual action to mitigate the effects of climate change. As a lifelong Hamiltonian, he has spent countless hours immersed in nature and growing alongside the flora and fauna with which we share this Earth. Hudecki is an avid birder and spends his working hours with the Bruce Trail Conservancy as their Land Securement Specialist.
Sunday Oct. 19 – Tom Cull and Dr. Michelle Wilson
In our second Art and Climate Change public panel, Tom Cull and Michelle Wilson will discuss how ecology, activism, and community building inform both their separate art practices and their collaborations.
Michelle Wilson is a queer, neurodivergent artist and mother who develops community-based programs that integrate the creative arts with health and wellness. By sharing stories and images from her collaborative work, she will highlight how these projects challenge colonial systems and create models for caring, ecologically stable, and socially just worlds. Wilson is an organizing member of both the Coves Collective and the Unsettling Conservation Collective. Her work is featured in the group exhibition “Reworldings” this September at the Art Gallery of Guelph. She is eager to discuss how art can embody both critical perspectives and care, a philosophy she describes as “hope punk.”
Tom Cull is a writer, teacher, artist, and environmentalist. Born and raised in Huron County in Treaty 29 territory, Cull now resides in London, near the banks of Deshkan Ziibi. He works at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, teaches creative writing at Western, and was London’s Poet Laureate from (2016-2018). He is the author of two poetry collections: Bad Animals, (Insomniac Press, 2018) and Kill Your Starlings (Gaspereau Press, 2023). Cull is also the director of Antler River Rally, a grass roots environmental group he co-founded in 2012 with his partner Miriam Love. Antler River Rally organizes monthly cleanups of local waterways and advocates for ecological justice and education.
Sunday Nov. 2 – Gail S. Fraser and Cole Swanson
Ecologist Gail S. Fraser and artist Cole Swanson will be leading the discussion for our third Art and Climate Change public panel. Through an examination of Toronto’s double-crested cormorant colony against wider scientific, social, political, and cultural narratives, Fraser and Swanson will discuss how bringing art and science together can help navigate sites of human-animal conflict. A n overview of their collaboration will demonstrate how working across disciplines encourages growth within their respective fields while stoking meaningful relationships along the way.
Cole Swanson is an artist and educator based in Toronto/Tkaronto. Through a materially focused art practice, he explores the complex relationships that create emergent ecologies. In his research and artistic practice, Swanson explores multiple ways of knowing; he works alongside craftspeople, conservationists, scientists, community partners, and non-humans to shape his creative process. Swanson is a professor in the Faculty of Media, Creative Art, and Design at Humber Polytechnic and is undertaking PhD research in Environmental Studies at York University. A 2023 Vanier scholar, his multispecies research project examines Toronto’s massive and maligned double-crested cormorant colony.
Gail Fraser is a professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, where she teaches ecology and conservation science. Fraser has worked on waterbirds for over three decades and currently has a monitoring program on double-crested cormorants in Toronto. Driven by an interest in seabird conservation, she also works on policy-oriented research on the environmental management of offshore oil and gas extraction.
Sunday Nov. 23 – Santee Smith
In this public panel, Santee Smith will reflect on art as a way of knowing, a vessel of survival, and a pathway to renewal—inviting audiences to consider creativity as a vital force connecting land, ancestors, and future generations.
From her grandmother’s revival of pottery traditions on Six Nations to her family’s deep ties to storytelling and material culture, Smith carries forward a lineage deeply rooted in cultural memory and lived experience. Weaving dance, design, and performance as contemporary vessels for Rotinonhsón:ni worldviews, she illuminates enduring principles of reciprocity, respect, and our shared responsibility to sustain nature’s delicate balance.
Santee Smith, Tekaronhiáhkhwa (Picking Up the Sky), is a multidisciplinary artist and cultural leader from the Kahnyen’kehàka (Mohawk), Ohswé:ken/Six Nations of the Grand River. Internationally recognized for her contributions to Indigenous performance, she blends Indigenous knowledge systems with contemporary practice to create transformative works rooted in identity, land, and the human spirit.
Smith is the granddaughter of Elda “Bun” Smith, who revived pottery making practice on Six Nations in the 1960’s. Until 2018, Santee worked on pottery design with her family at “Talking Earth Pottery”. She is the founder and artistic director of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, a member of the Order of Canada, a Board of Governor for the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, and is currently completing her 2nd term as the 19th Chancellor of McMaster University.
Sunday Nov. 30 – Artist Talk with Judy Major-Girardin
Judy Major-Girardin received a BFA from the University of Windsor and an MFA from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She is Professor Emerita from the School of the Arts at McMaster University where she taught for thirty-nine years. She lives in Cambridge Ontario and has served as Co-Chair of the Cambridge Sculpture Garden since 2005. Her studio work includes an integrated practise of painting, printmaking, drawing, artist books, and hanging fiber-based works that raise awareness for the preservation and celebration of wetland environments. Employing environmentally responsible studio practices is central to her work. Judy has exhibited in Canada, USA, and internationally and has attended artist residencies in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Quebec, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Portugal, New Zealand, France and most recently in Bali.
The Art and Climate Program is made possible through the generous support of incite Foundation for the Arts.
