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Artist Salon: Text-based Art with Whess Harman

  • Talk
  • Posted: March 16, 2024

    Above: Whess Harman, the lowest bar, 2021, text on vinyl banner. Courtesy of the Artist

    Artist and curator Whess Harman discusses his practice and how art can be used as a tool of resistance. 

    This was an in-person session recorded on March 16, 2024 at the Richmond Art Gallery.
    Produced by the Richmond Art Gallery Association as part of the Artist Salon series.

    Following the artist’s visual presentation, Whess hosted an art-making session with participants using text, painting and stitching as the starting point of a small “protest patch” artwork.

    About the Artist:

    Whess Harman is a member of the Carrier Wit’at Nation, a nation amalgamated by the federal government under the Lake Babine Nation. He doesn’t like cops and believes in land sovereignty for Indigenous peoples all across the globe. In his arts practice he works primarily in drawing, text and textiles. As the curator at grunt gallery and occasional editor for a mish-mash of publications, he prioritizes emerging queer and BIPOC cultural workers and artists. Whess looks to the arts as one of many tools in fighting oppressive forces and can be a little fucking rude about it, when the occasion calls. If you saw him listed as an appetizer on a menu, it’d say that he’s trans, mentally ill, vegan-but-normal-about-it, GF-friendly and pairs well with soapberry ice cream in bisexual mood lighting.

    Whess currently resides on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples and always wonders about the best way to utilize a land acknowledgement to go beyond words. What does the land want? Probably not to pummel poor and houseless people. Probably not to shame and police drug-users or shut down safe injection sites. Probably not to shame and police sex workers. Probably not to treat trans men and especially trans women like they are unworthy and disposable. Probably not to divide ourselves from communities we should be fighting alongside. These are not issues separate of the land; is a land acknowledgement enough to be a good guest and neighbour?


    The Artist Salon is an opportunity for emerging and established visual artists to learn from arts professionals and discuss opportunities in the arts community. Each month presents a different guest presenter for inspirational talks and professional development advice for visual artists.

    Past online sessions from 2020 onwards were recorded and may be viewed online at the RAG@Home Artist Salon videos.

    Above: Whess Harman, the lowest bar, 2021, text on vinyl banner. Courtesy of the Artist
    WATCH: Artist and curator Whess Harman discusses their practice and how art can be used as a tool of resistance.

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