Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Join us for a panel discussion presented in partnership with McIntosh Gallery. Artists Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, curator Dr. Helen Gregory and Associate Professor of Geography Tony Weis discuss the exhibition Theatre from the Jungle as it relates to themes of industrial agriculture and socio-economic cross-border labour issues.
Theatre from the Jungle is a collaborative video installation by artist-duo Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens that investigates the experience of immigrant labour in the Canadian meatpacking industry. Developed with the participation of workers who come from a variety of cultural and migratory circumstances, the project addresses life within imbricated socio-cultural, economic, legal, and cross-border labour issues. The exhibition is on at McIntosh Gallery from September 17 to October 24, 2020.
About the panelists:
Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens live and work in Durham-Sud, Quebec, Canada. Most recently, their work was presented in solo exhibitions at the Bemis Center for Contemorary Arts, Omaha (2019), VOLT, Visningsrommet USF Gallery, Bergen (2019), the Audian Gallery, SFU Galleries (2018), Agnes Etherington Art Centre (2017), Jane Lombard Gallery, New York (2017), Owens Art Gallery (2017), the International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (2016), YYZ Artists’ Outlet (2016), Esker Foundation (2016), Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (2016), VOX (2014), Trinity Square Video (2014), and Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2012). They have participated in a number of group exhibitions including the 1st Fiskars Biennale, Finland (2019), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2018), Columbus Museum of Art (2018), 2nd OFF-Biennale, Budapest (2017), Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (2017), XIII Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (2016), Blackwood Gallery (2016), Art Gallery of Guelph (2016), Postmasters Gallery (2016), 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015), La Biennale de Montréal (2014), Manif d’art 7: Quebec City Biennial (2014), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway (2013), Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2012) and 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011). Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens have published four artist's books and their writings have been published in books, catalogues and magazines. A comprehensive monograph about their practice as well as a book dedicated to one of their works, The Prophets, will be published in 2020. They have been awarded the Prix Giverny Capital in 2019 and the Research Fellowship of the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment in 2020.
Tony Weis’ research is broadly located in the field of political ecology, with a focus on agriculture and food systems. His research was initially rooted in the Caribbean, examining the economic and environmental challenges facing small farmers within highly inequitable landscapes, and how neoliberal policy restructuring, trade liberalization, and surging imports have compounded enduring injustices. Attention to the historical and political economic dimensions of small farmers' struggles led him towards his first book, The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming, which analyzed the historical foundations, structural imbalances, and socioecological instabilities of world agriculture and food systems. Following this, much of Tony’s research has focused on the illusions of cheap food and the biophysical contradictions of industrial agro-food systems, with particular attention to the phenomenal growth of livestock production. His second book, The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Livestock, develops a conceptual framework for understanding the wide-ranging costs of this momentous aspect of agrarian (and dietary) change. Tony has been in the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario since 2004, where he teaches courses centred on agriculture and food, environment and development, and animal geographies.
The Art Now Speakers’ Series is a component of ongoing academic offerings in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University. The Fall 2020 Art Now Speakers' Series will be offered online, via Zoom Webinar.
Links to attend the session and a full list of speakers can be found on the Department of Visual Arts Website at: uwo.ca/visarts/speakers.html All lectures are free and open to the public.
Join us for a panel discussion presented in partnership with McIntosh Gallery. Artists Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, curator Dr. Helen Gregory and Associate Professor of Geography Tony Weis discuss the exhibition Theatre from the Jungle as it relates to themes of industrial agriculture and socio-economic cross-border labour issues.
Theatre from the Jungle is a collaborative video installation by artist-duo Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens that investigates the experience of immigrant labour in the Canadian meatpacking industry. Developed with the participation of workers who come from a variety of cultural and migratory circumstances, the project addresses life within imbricated socio-cultural, economic, legal, and cross-border labour issues. The exhibition is on at McIntosh Gallery from September 17 to October 24, 2020.
About the panelists:
Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens live and work in Durham-Sud, Quebec, Canada. Most recently, their work was presented in solo exhibitions at the Bemis Center for Contemorary Arts, Omaha (2019), VOLT, Visningsrommet USF Gallery, Bergen (2019), the Audian Gallery, SFU Galleries (2018), Agnes Etherington Art Centre (2017), Jane Lombard Gallery, New York (2017), Owens Art Gallery (2017), the International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (2016), YYZ Artists’ Outlet (2016), Esker Foundation (2016), Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (2016), VOX (2014), Trinity Square Video (2014), and Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2012). They have participated in a number of group exhibitions including the 1st Fiskars Biennale, Finland (2019), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2018), Columbus Museum of Art (2018), 2nd OFF-Biennale, Budapest (2017), Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (2017), XIII Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (2016), Blackwood Gallery (2016), Art Gallery of Guelph (2016), Postmasters Gallery (2016), 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015), La Biennale de Montréal (2014), Manif d’art 7: Quebec City Biennial (2014), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway (2013), Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2012) and 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011). Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens have published four artist's books and their writings have been published in books, catalogues and magazines. A comprehensive monograph about their practice as well as a book dedicated to one of their works, The Prophets, will be published in 2020. They have been awarded the Prix Giverny Capital in 2019 and the Research Fellowship of the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment in 2020.
Tony Weis’ research is broadly located in the field of political ecology, with a focus on agriculture and food systems. His research was initially rooted in the Caribbean, examining the economic and environmental challenges facing small farmers within highly inequitable landscapes, and how neoliberal policy restructuring, trade liberalization, and surging imports have compounded enduring injustices. Attention to the historical and political economic dimensions of small farmers' struggles led him towards his first book, The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming, which analyzed the historical foundations, structural imbalances, and socioecological instabilities of world agriculture and food systems. Following this, much of Tony’s research has focused on the illusions of cheap food and the biophysical contradictions of industrial agro-food systems, with particular attention to the phenomenal growth of livestock production. His second book, The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Livestock, develops a conceptual framework for understanding the wide-ranging costs of this momentous aspect of agrarian (and dietary) change. Tony has been in the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario since 2004, where he teaches courses centred on agriculture and food, environment and development, and animal geographies.
The Art Now Speakers’ Series is a component of ongoing academic offerings in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University. The Fall 2020 Art Now Speakers' Series will be offered online, via Zoom Webinar.
Links to attend the session and a full list of speakers can be found on the Department of Visual Arts Website at: uwo.ca/visarts/speakers.html All lectures are free and open to the public.
