Room change: Please note this event is now taking place in the Main Hall at 1 Spadina, rather than Mediatheque.

This event is a co-presentation by the Master of Visual Studies Proseminar series and The Power Plant. It is open to the public and registration is not required.

Vivian Suter (born 1949, Buenos Aires) grew up in Switzerland, and has lived and worked by Lake Atitlán in Guatemala since the early 1980s. works are partnerships; with the mud, with the rain, with the insects that crawl across the soil and the avocados and mangos that drop from trees surrounding her home in Panajachel, Guatemala. For her first exhibition in Canada, Suter will create an expansive site-specific installation that references the organic modes of hanging and draping of the canvases in her studio, which are often stretched and then un-stretched and layered on racks to dry. This exhibition will also feature newly commissioned collages by Suter’s mother, Elisabeth Wild, who is also making her Canadian debut.

The event on October 20 will begin with a screening of Vivian's Garden (dir. Rosalind Nashashibi; 30 min; colour; stereo), a documentary about Suter and her mother that takes a close and dreamy look at their artistic, emotional and economic lives, with their extended householders: Mayan villagers as guardians and home help, and an assortment of dogs, it offers a tender look at an instance of post-colonial complexity.

Following the film, Stefan Benchoam, an artist and co-founder of Proyectos Ultravioleta, a contemporary art space based in Guatemala City, who is familiar with the art of Vivian Suter and Elizabeth Wild, will speak. The program will conclude with a Q&A period.