In this episode, Garth Erasmus, South African artist and musician talks with Qanita Lilla about how the experience of apartheid and forced removals shaped his artistic practice. He talks about navigating a white world and of balancing the urgent need to respond to the trauma of apartheid while cultivating his artistic voice. Sound work and music provided a useful medium toward healing for Garth, and it allowed a means towards embracing an Indigenous Khoisan identity.

Music highlighted in this episode:

Garth Ersamus. “Threnody for the KhoiSan.” Threnody for the KhoiSan, TAL, 2024, #7. Courtesy of the artist

Artist Jega Delisca talks with Qanita Lilla about his portraiture practice and how he makes his sitters feel seen by empathizing with their vulnerability. He talks about the importance of building rapport and trust but also of activating a balanced understanding of Black masculinity. Jega’s artistic practice challenges male emotional blindness and he talks about how he moved from painting portraits of others to opening his apartment as a gallery and becoming vulnerable himself.

Faten Nastas Mitwasi talks with Qanita Lilla about growing up in Bethlehem in occupied Palestine, the artistic sensibilities she inherited from her parents, and establishing a career as an artist, curator, scholar and arts administrator. Faten shares the physical and emotional challenges of attending art school in Israel and the joys of making site-specific and community-engaged art in Palestine and around the world. This conversation shows that contemporary Palestinian art is rich in humor, experimentation and full of hope for the future.

In the show Ukutula, Jill Glatt’s vibrant textile pieces Seed and Who is Belle Island? rise to meet visitors. In this interview, Jill talks with Qanita Lilla about her close familial bonds and her personal routes toward art. She talks about juggling teaching and being an artist, the processes of harvesting botanicals, and of find a home in Kingston.

In this episode, Qanita Lilla talks with Jessica Karuhanga about her creative journeys from Sarnia, in south western Ontario to London, Ontario. Jessica talks about how her personal geographies shapes her artistic practice. She also talks about Black embodiment, about the audible demands of space, and of moving toward art as experience and embodiment.

In this episode, artist Anthony Gebrehiwot and Qanita Lilla talk about his photography and digital art practice. Anthony describes the future-thinking themes of his work as being premised on the possibilities of a community of “like-hearted” people who can uplift each other towards new modes of living. Together, they talk about his artworks, Mahaba (2024), an ongoing research project that is shared in its early phases as part of Ukutula: Our Timeless Journeys on view at Museum London, and Echoes of Devotion (2024), a digital mural on the Queen’s University campus.

Anthony Gebrehiwot’s Mahaba (2024) is on view as part of Ukutula: Our Timeless Journeys (21 November 2024- 11 May 2025), a travelling exhibition, developed by Agnes and hosted by Museum London.

In the inaugural episode of season three, artist Camille Turner talks with Qanita Lilla about how she balances humour, healing and storytelling to recover Black histories in Canada. In her work, Camille lovingly assembles the detritus of the archive, with its sparse and often painful accounts of Black life. She invokes personas and performance, like in Miss Canadiana and Afronautic Research Lab, Camille navigates the currents of submerged histories and resurfaces stories lost in the archive. As the Afronaut and Miss Canadiana fall into the past, they project the future and conjure new liberated possibilities.

Camille Turner’s Nave (2022) is on view as part of Ukutula: Our Timeless Journeys (21 November 2024- 11 May 2025), a travelling exhibition, developed by Agnes and hosted by Museum London.

Have you ever wondered: What is the purpose of an artist in the world today?

We are back with a third season of With Opened Mouths: The Podcast. The podcast that makes space for artists, poets, performers, activists and curators to speak for themselves. I’m your host Qanita Lilla, Associate Curator, Arts of Africa at Agnes Etherington Art Center.

Join us as we hear stories about creative visions that powerfully convey why art and artists are critically important right now. In this season my guests and I discuss: ways of being in the world, possibilities for liberatory futures, the essential nature of collective practice and the need for Spiritual growth—all as means for Survival!

Episodes of With Opened Mouths are released monthly, and you can find them on Digital Agnes, CFRC’s website and on your favourite podcasting platform starting in January 2025!

Make sure to subscribe now so that you don’t miss a single episode!