Reader-in-Residence

The Gravitron Reader-In-Residence program has been launched in response to the dearth of spaces in so-called Canada that promote and disseminate artists working with publications and writing. This meandering initiative will focus on promoting writing and reading in the visual arts outside major urban centres.  The reader-in-residence is invited to engage with the Gravitron collection by reading and responding to the material they find.

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Shalaka Jadhav is the latest Gravitron Reader-In-Residence. Over the next couple of months, Jadhav will read from the collection of over 150 pieces of artists’ writing. The RIR’s only responsibility is to take time to read from the collection with the hopes that they will come across something unexpected that informs their practice. Jadhav will present on their residency at the 2024 Prairie Art Book Fair.

Shalaka is a writer, researcher, and curator who spent their childhood between cities in India and in Dubai, before moving to a neighbourhood spitting distance from Ontario’s largest mall. Shalaka’s research interests on spatial positionality and critical geographies of grief, public memory, and queer ecologies can be evidenced in exhibitions they have curated in Halifax, Winnipeg, and Toronto. Shalaka has held roles at OCAD and The Blackwood, and is the co-director of Textile, a hyper-local arts collective in Waterloo Region that supports writers and artists through mentorship, publishing, and curation. Shalaka splits their time on Haldimand Tract and Treaty 1 territory and always orders dessert.

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Rebecca La Marre is the inaugural Gravitron Reader-In-Residence. Over the next couple of months, La Marre will read from the collection of over 150 pieces of artists’ writing. The RIR’s only responsibility is to take time to read from the collection with the hopes that they will come across something unexpected that informs their practice. 

La Marre is a queer, Canadian artist who stages experiments to research how words impact bodies. She uses clay and text to give form to questions, like what it means to be a person in the world and how ideological structures, language, and ritual shape experience.

Learn more about Rebecca’s work here: https://www.rebecca-lamarre.com/