In this week's episode, Dylan Gauthier speaks with Toronto-based writer, educator, and curator Amish Morrell about learning wilderness, frozen rivers, thawing glaciers, gear, Cape Breton artists, and – naturally – the Don River.

Guest Bio

Amish Morrell is an educator, curator, editor and writer. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences & School of Interdisciplinary Studies at OCAD University in Toronto. He has graduate faculty appointments in the Visual & Critical Studies BA Programme, the Criticism & Curatorial Practice, Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Art Histories, and the Interdisciplinary Art and Material Design MFA and MA programmes. From 2008 to 2017 he was Editor and Director of Programs at C Magazine, one of North America’s foremost visual arts magazines. He received a PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in 2006, where he was a research fellow at the Centre for Media and Culture in Education, and a member of the Testimony and Historical Consciousness Project, led by Dr. Roger Simon. During his PhD he wrote a dissertation on historical re-enactment in contemporary photography. Between 2006 and 2016 he taught at York University, Ryerson University, and the University of Toronto. At C Magazine he developed numerous public programs, including lectures and workshops held in partnership with organizations including The Toronto International Art Fair, The Power Plant, Mercer Union, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Art Metropole and the Toronto Art Book Fair. He has also curated exhibitions for the Doris McCarthy Gallery, The Confederation Centre for the Arts and the Cape Breton University Art Gallery, and developed experiments in alternative forms of public engagement, including Nightwalks with Teenagers, with Mammalian Diving Reflex; The Sauna Symposium with Hart House at the University of Toronto; and Reading the Bruce Trail with Public Studio.

Along with artist Diane Borsato, he leads Outdoor School, an ongoing project that combines social practice-based art, outdoor education and critical land-based practices. Outdoor School includes a course taught each year at the University of Guelph, an exhibition at the Doris McCarthy Gallery in 2016, public projects including an annual mycological foray and other guided outdoor activities, and in the summer of 2018, a five-week artist residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Upcoming Outdoor School projects include a book in partnership with the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre for the Arts and The Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Other projects include research on the avant-garde and counterculture in Cape Breton since the 1960s. His most recent writing includes an essay about Indigenous philosophies of sustainability in the work of artist Ursula Johnson, published in C Magazine and an interview about art and survival on Cape Breton Island with video and installation artists Amanda Trager and Erik Moskowitz, published in Visual Arts News.