Join exhibiting artists Sung Tieu, Alex Turgeon, and Amanda Chwelos for an in-person panel discussion about their practices and new exhibitions.
Sung Tieu (b.1987, Hai Duong, Vietnam) lives and works in Berlin. She has held solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Bonn; Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2021); Nottingham Contemporary; and Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020). Her work was included in the 34th Bienal de São Paulo and has been exhibited at Museion, Bolzano; Kunsthalle Basel (2021); Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt; GAMeC Museum, Bergamo; and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2020). Tieu is the recipient of the Frieze Artist Award 2021 and the 2021 ars viva Prize. She also received the audience award for the 2021 Preis der Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
Alex Turgeon (b. Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates formal relationships between poetry and architecture. His overall work focuses on how the structures of language and architecture inform the queer subject as built environment. Turgeon’s practice finds interdisciplinary form through concrete poetry, sculpture, drawing, video, and performance, embodying a radical ethos rooted in the methodologies of printed matter—framed as a distributive tool and political method for making and occupying space. He received his BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and an MFA from Rutgers University. His work has been presented in part at the Tate (Liverpool); Akademie der Künste and KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin); Kunsthalle Zürich; Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius); and as part of “Poetry as Practice,” an online exhibition hosted by Rhizome and the New Museum (New York). In 2022-2023 Turgeon received a Junge Akademie Fellowship from the Akademie der Künste, Berlin and has participated as an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, (2011), Rupert (2015), Fondazione Antonio Ratti (2017), Autodesk Technology Center (2019) and is a forthcoming resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2024-2025). His exhibition Waste Land at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery marks the artist’s first institutional exhibition in Canada.
Amanda Chwelos (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Edmonton-amiskwaciwâskahikan. Her work aims to understand complexities of her own identity and existence through an exploration of themes surrounding introspection, banality, anxiety, and acceptance. Driven by a material-based practice, she works primarily in drawing, painting, and sculpture.
Amanda holds a diploma in Fine Art from MacEwan University (2017) as well as a Bachelor of Fine Art in Art and Design from the University of Alberta (2019). Since graduating, Amanda has remained an active member in both the Edmonton arts community and the broader Albertan artist community. Her work has been subject to many group exhibitions including The Mirror, The Echo, The Panopticon (2023) at The Esplanade Arts & Heritage Center in Medicine Hat, Fully Realized (2022) at Latitude 53 in Edmonton, and Salvage (2022) at Lowlands Project Space in Edmonton. In 2022, Amanda exhibited her first solo exhibition titled Easter Eggs for Conversation at Soft Gallery in Edmonton, AB.