A split image with a serene water reflection beneath a bridge on the left, and a shiny silver material draped over a human figure on the right, who is huddled in a space underneath the bridge and surrounded by concrete columns.

REPORT: Access Working Group

June 22, 2021 - February 15, 2025
an inter-organizational research platform with Critical Distance Centre for Curators, Carleton University Art Gallery, and Tangled Art + Disability With funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, from 2021 to 2023, Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC) initiated and steered an inter-organizational research platform, whose purpose was to advance an understanding of the creative possibilities of accessibility strategies in exhibition-making and live events. In conversation with our two committed partners, Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) and Tangled Art + Disability, the Access Working Group (AWG) evolved over the years as a consortium of voices, perspectives, and practices thinking together about access in contemporary art through a range of organizational structures, curatorial methodologies, and presentation formats. A spirit of invention guided…Find out more

Dancemakers Dance Curation Working Group

January 27, 2025 - July 31, 2025

Critical Distance is excited to partner with Dancemakers’ on their inaugural Dance Curation Working Group. Bringing together a group of independent dance curators to attend Dancemakers’ programming as well as other relevant programs across the GTA, we will experience, reflect, discuss, and engage with dance curators working in the field. The inagural cohort includes (top left across to bottom): Lukas Malkowski, abisola oni, Natalia Arancibia, Wai Liu, Kiera Forde, Kin Nguien, Roxy Menzies, Sarah Koekkoek, Holly Chang, Kage Wolfe, Meek & Bryce Taylor.

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DIRECTORY SPOTLIGHT> Peer-to-Peer: The First Circle

October 18, 2024 - December 31, 2024

Critical Distance is thrilled to launch our latest initiative to support curatorial practices across Canada and beyond. Titled Peer-to-Peer, this Directory-based program shines a spotlight on emerging, midcareer, and established curators whose projects and practices have attracted the notice of colleagues in the field.

Please join us in congratulating the First Circle curators, namely:

Amin Alsaden
Fatma Hendawy Yehia
Genevieve Wallen
Kate Whiteway
Lillian O’Brien Davis
Liz Ikiriko
Noor Alé
Sean Lee
Swapnaa Tamhane
Zoë Chan

All curators featured through this program receive an updatable profile in a special section of Critical Distance’s searchable online Directory, through which researchers and potential collaborators can search by location, specialization, and interest in order to connect on opportunities in curating, writing, speaking, teaching, consulting, studio visits, and more.

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EXHIBITION: Garden of Broken Shadows

June 24, 2023 - August 5, 2023

Garden of Broken Shadows, curated by Fatma Hendawy Yehia, features works by Lamis Haggag, Katherine Melançon, Ahmed Naji, Anahita Norouzi, and El Rass. In a transglobal world, race and class are the basis of any immigration system. Through the use of organic material, text, sound, and technology, these artists manifest the ways in which one could survive and adapt within new environments. The exhibition interweaves these practices, producing a temporal space in which visitors can experience the possibilities of being both here and there — in both Canada and the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) — simultaneously. 

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Performance documentation (still), Ivanie Aubin-Malo in response to work by naakita feldman-kiss at SAW Video (Ottawa), 2018.

EXHIBITION: Public Syntax

February 7, 2019 - March 31, 2019
PUBLIC SYNTAX: SAW Video at CRITICAL DISTANCE Opening Reception: Saturday, February 9th from 2–4 pm Curated by Neven Lochhead and presented in partnership with SAW Video Media Art Centre, Ottawa. Featuring work by naakita feldman-kiss, Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Henry Andersen, Mara Eagle, Phil Rose, Molly Teitelbaum, Anna Queen, and The Video in the Public Sphere Working Group. In partnership with SAW Video Media Art Centre (Ottawa), Critical Distance is pleased to present ​Public Syntax, ​an exhibition that highlights the distinct time-based practices and approaches of seven artists, as well as those participating in the Video in the Public Sphere Working Group, the majority of whom are either Ottawa-based or connected. Situated in-gallery at Critical Distance and across multiple public spaces at Artscape Youngplace,…Find out more