Join artist Gloria Swain for a conversation with AGO curator Adelina Vlas about her recent work.

Gloria Swain is an artist, activist, and mental health advocate working out of Toronto. Using the mediums of installation, painting, performance, and photography she challenges systemic oppression against Black women and trans people. Her work examines ongoing colonial violence and centers her own experience as an older Black feminist artist, with invisible disabilities, navigating through unwelcoming spaces.

She holds a certificate in Community Arts Practice and a master’s degree in Environmental Studies from York University. Her work has shown in Toronto, Manitoba, and Montreal. Her writings on disability arts activism have been published in Cultivate Feminism and Canadian Journal of Disability Studies.

Adelina Vlas is Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the AGO. Selected AGO exhibitions include Haegue Yang: Emergence (2020), Hito Steyerl: This is the future (2019), Valérie Blass: Le parlement des invisibles (2019), Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (2018) As If Sand Were Stone: Contemporary Latin American Art from the AGO Collection (2017). Prior to joining the AGO in 2014, Adelina Vlas held curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Canada.