Critical Distance PROGRAMMING Curating the Village: Open Sessions

Curating the Village: Open Sessions is a two-day gathering of artists, curators, and cultural workers exploring caregiving as both a lived experience and a working condition. Spanning rest, performance, workshops, and conversation, the program brings together perspectives on caring for children, parents, elders, neighbours, the dying, and broader communities.

Developed through an ongoing research-creation initiative, Curating the Village approaches care not only as a subject, but as a force that reshapes how artistic and curatorial work is organized, timed, and sustained. Marked by interruption, exhaustion, and relational obligation, caregiving challenges dominant expectations of productivity, availability, and coherence in cultural labour.

While “care” circulates widely in contemporary arts discourse, it is still rarely accommodated structurally within programming or institutional time. Through short offerings, shared food, and collective discussion, Open Sessions considers what shifts when care is approached not simply as a trending theme, but as a method—one that foregrounds interdependence, negotiation, and the conditions that make work possible.

Curated by
Shalon T. Webber-Heffernan

Program Dates / Times / Locations

FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 2026
Evening sessions from 6:15 — 9:00 pm at Theatre Direct (Studio H)
Download detailed directions to Studio H HERE

SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 2026
Full day from 10:00 am — 6:00 pm at Critical Distance Centre for Curators
Please note: Saturday programming includes FREE onsite childcare, a shared meal, and hybrid participation options to support caregiver access.

Program Schedule & Registration

View full program schedule BELOW and/or download a printable pdf HERE

—> REGISTER HERE 

As space is limited, registration is required. Admission is free to both Friday and Saturday sessions. Once all spaces are reserved, additional registrants will be added to a waitlist and notified if space becomes available.

Program Contributors

Indu Vashist
Mark Reinhart
Michelle Wilson
44.4 Mother/Artist Collective
Shira Leuchter
Maryna Salagub
Janet Hinkle
Ebru Winegard
Rahaf’s Kitchen
Jeneen Frei Njootli
Una Janicijevic
Ragamalika Mohanraj
Tender Again
Zoë Heyn-Jones & Amanda White
Margaret Evans  (Balancing Act)
Heather Frise
Renée Anne Bouffard-McManus
Yanaminah Thullah
Regatu Asefa
Sandra Dusabe
Delilah Edouard Williams
Sasha Singer-Wilson

Thank you to our partners and funders