2011

Canada
Stocki was raised in Winnipeg, Canada. She earned two undergraduate degrees from the University of Manitoba (Bachelor of Science and Fine Arts) before completing her Master’s degree in Photography at Yale University (2009). Elaine has exhibited at the Deutsche Guggenheim (Berlin) and Zach Feuer (New York). She divides her time between Brooklyn, New York and Winnipeg, Canada.

Elaine Stocki, Balcony, 2009, chromogenic print, 66 x 66 cm. Courtesy of the artist © 2011 Elaine Stocki

India
Born in 1976, Nandini Valli was raised in Chennai, India, where she continues to live. She completed several degrees before entering the field of photography. After an 18-month apprenticeship with a leading commercial photographer in Chennai, Nandini decided to pursue a B.A. Honours in Photography from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, UK (now known as The Arts University College at Bournemouth). This is where she realized she was more suited to producing art photography as opposed to commercial photography. Her works have been influenced by photographers as diverse as Gregory Crewdson, Tina Barney, Jonathan Torgovnik, Raja Deen Dayal, and Bourne & Shepard. Valli has been showing her work publicly since 2007 and is currently represented by Sakshi Gallery in Mumbai, India.

Nandini Valli, Seated 1, 2006, from the series Definitive Reincarnate, inkjet print on archival paper, 79 x 76 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai © 2011 Nandini Valli

Canada
Althea Thauberger is an artist based in Vancouver. Her internationally produced and exhibited work typically involves interactions with a group or community that result in performances, films, videos, audio recordings and books, and involve sometimes provocative reflections of social, political, institutional and aesthetic power relations. Her work has been presented at the 17th Biennale of Sydney; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Guangzhou Triennial, China; Manifesta 7, Trento, Italy; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver; Vancouver Art Gallery; BAK, Utrecht; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Germany; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax; Singapore History Museum; Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver; Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp; Berkeley Art Museum; Insite, San Diego/Tijuana; White Columns, New York; and Seattle Art Museum.

Althea Thauberger, Serious, 2003, digital chromogenic print, 28 x 36 cm. Courtesy of the artist ©2011 Althea Thauberger

Wayne Baerwaldt is currently Director/Curator of Exhibitions at the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary. He has previously been the Director of Plug In Gallery in Winnipeg and Director of The Power Plant in Toronto. Baerwaldt acted as Co-commissioner and Curator for Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s double-award-winning production, The Paradise Institute, at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001). He has curated numerous touring exhibitions including Under the Influence of Fluxus (1991–1993), Pierre Molinier (1994–1998), Joep van Lieshout-Collection 96 (1996), Beck & Al Hansen: Playing With Matches (1998–2001), and The Royal Art Lodge: Ask the Dust (2003 and touring) among others. He recently co-curated with Thelma Golden a major mid-career exhibition of work by Glenn Ligon, which opened at The Power Plant (2005).

Michelle Jacques is a curator, writer and educator based in Victoria, B.C, where she currently holds the position of Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Michelle formerly held the position of Acting Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her curatorial projects at the AGO have included At Work (2010); Sarah Anne Johnson: House on Fire (2009), All Together Now: Recent Toronto Art (2008), Luis Jacob: Habitat (2005–2006), Jennifer Steinkamp: Loom (2005), and Present Tense: Kori Newkirk (2005). She also curates the AGO project series Toronto Now, which launched in Spring 2010. In 2007, she curated At the Corner of Time and Place, the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Zone B exhibition. Her recent writings include “Art and History” in Shary Boyle: Flesh and Blood (Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal, 2010), “And the winner is…,” an exploration of Camille Turner’s Miss Canadiana performance, in Byproduct: On the Excess of Embedded Art Practices (YYZ Books, Toronto, 2010), “Another World: Material and Metaphor in the Video Work of Wangechi Mutu” in Wangechi Mutu: This You Call Civilization? (Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), and “Art and Institutions: An interview with Janna Graham and Anthony Kiendl” in the September 2007 issue of Fuse magazine. A contributing editor with Fuse, Jacques also sits on the board of directors of Vtape and teaches in the Curatorial and Critical Practice program at OCAD University.

Gayatri Sinha is an art critic and curator based in New Delhi. Her primary areas of inquiry are around the structures of gender and iconography, media, economics and social history. As a curator, her work has cited the domains of photography and lens-based work from archival and contemporary sources. She has edited Voices of Change: 20 Indian Artists (Marg Publications, 2010), Art and Visual Culture in India 1857–2007 (Marg Publications, 2009), Indian Art: An Overview (Rupa Books, 2003), Woman/Goddess (1998), and Expressions and Evocations: Contemporary Indian Women Artists of India (Marg Publications, 1996). She has curated extensively in India and abroad including at the India Art Summit and the Korean International Art Fair (2009), the Newark Museum and Minneapolis Institute of Art (2008–2009), Fotographie Forum, Frankfurt (2006), the National Museum, New Delhi (2004), the Festival of India in Bangladesh (1997) and The National Gallery of Modern Art (1996). As an art critic, Sinha wrote columns for Indian Express and The Hindu, and has written monographs on the artists Krishen Khanna and Himmat Shah. She has lectured on Indian art at the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Museum, Japan Foundation, Tokyo, and Asian Art Museum, Singapore, among others.

Born in New Delhi (1953) and growing up watching Bollywood films in all their glorious colour, Sunil Gupta moved to Montreal with his family in the late 1960s, where his interest in photography began to develop. From the mid-1970s he lived in New York, where he studied photography at the New School for Social Research under Lisette Model. At the end of the 1970s, Gupta moved to London to continue his studies at the Royal College of Art. He has worked to promote a greater understanding of questions regarding representation, sexuality, access and cultural differences. He works as a photographer, writer and curator. He is Visiting Professor of Photography at the National Institute of Design, Co-editor of Camerawork Delhi and a member of Nigah, a queer collective in Delhi. He lives between London and Delhi, and his work is represented by the Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi; Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto; Caprice Horn Gallery, Berlin; and Sepia Eye, New York.