Join AGO X RBC Artists in Residence Nada El-Omari and Sonya Mwambu, Timothy Yanick Hunter, Alvin Luong for a conversation about their practices and the work they have created and developed during their respective digital residencies at the AGO this year.

Nada El-Omari is a filmmaker and writer currently based in Toronto. Of Palestinian and Egyptian origin and raised in Montreal, her work, practice and research interests centre on the intergenerational transmissions of memories, displacement and the stories of belonging and identity through a poetic, hybrid lens. El-Omari holds a BFA in Film Production and MFA in Film from York University.

Timothy Yanick Hunter is a multidisciplinary artist and curator based in Toronto. Hunter’s practice employs strategies of bricolage to examine non-neutral relationships relating to Black and Afro-diasporic experiences as well as concurrent strategies of decolonization. His approach alternates between exploratory and didactic; with a focus on the political, cultural and social richness of the Black Diaspora. Hunter’s work often delves into speculative narratives and the intersections of physical space, digital space and the intangible.

Alvin Luong (梁超洪) creates artwork based on stories of human migration, land and dialogues from the diasporic working class communities he lives and works with. These stories are combined with biography to produce artwork that reflects upon issues of historical development, political economy and social reproduction, and how these issues intimately affect the lives of people. In 2017, Luong was awarded the OCADU Off Screen Award for best new media installation at the Images Festival. In 2018, Luong was Artist-in-Residence at IOAM (Beijing) and lectured at the Institute for Provocation (Beijing). In 2019, the artist exhibited at Boers-Li Gallery (Beijing), was invited to pursue research at HB Station Contemporary Art Research Center (Guangzhou), and screened at Gudskul (Jakarta). In 2020, the artist screened at China Millennium Monument Art Museum (Beijing), produced a video program with Guangdong Times Art Museum (Gaungzhou), and was commissioned by The Bentway and the City of Toronto.

Sonya Mwambu is an experimental filmmaker and editor based in Toronto. Born in Kampala, they grew up in Canada and their work centres on the intersections of their identities through the exploration of race, language and the connections they find through their cultural identity and the experimentations of analog film. Mwambu holds a BFA in Film Production from York University.