It has been my privilege to serve the graduate students enrolled in Concordia’s Master of Fine Arts program for the past 29 years. One of the major highlights for me has always been the annual MFA group exhibition. For the past six years, I have been very honoured and humbled to have my name – Maureen – serve as the title of the show. I would like to thank the MFA community of diverse and talented artists for this tribute. Bravo to all the graduate students for their contributions to this show each year!

Maureen Kennedy, 
MFA Studio Arts Program 
Concordia University

MFASASA would like to acknowledge that Concordia University is located on unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather today. Tiohtiá:ke | Mooniyang | Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other peoples.

Territorial acknowledgements are the foundation for our events and our art practices. So we take the time to consider where we have lived, who we have relationships to, where our resources come from, what our art materials are made from, what knowledge we have—where it comes from—and how it’s valued.

We would like to give special thanks to our Exhibition Coordinator Alli Melanson, our Publication Designer Andrew Kerr, our Website Designer Stephen McLeod, and all of our fantastic MFASASA volunteer s.

Thank you Karin Zuppiger for being delightful and answering all of our questions, and to Maureen Kennedy for your administrative skills and support. Thank you to all of the Studio Arts staff, administrators, and faculty who support us and teach us in so many ways.

We would like to acknowledge our funders, who have made it possible for us to be ambitious for this year’s Maureen VI.

• Graduate Student Association (GSA)
• Concordia Council on Student Life (CCSL)
• The Dean’s Discretionary Fund
• The Faculty of Fine Arts

We would like to underscore our generous exhibition hosts without whom this show would not have been possible.

• Paul Litherland and Karen Trask at Produit Rien
• Gabriel Pietrantonio at 6469 Marconi
• Jean-François Post at 6919 Marconi
• Ethan Wills, Alexander Wills and Annika Krausz at sera
• Stephen Pevner at Priape

Finally, thank you to all of the MFA students who have participated in Maureen VI!

This year, MFASASA has put together a decentralized exhibition, a publication, and a website in response to a year of restricted access, social isolation, and a greater shift towards virtual spaces. Each aspect of Maureen VI offers different ways of sharing art and facilitates participation for artists who are not physically in Montreal/Tiohtià:ke:. It has also encouraged reflection on how and where we expect to encounter art. Several of the exhibition sites are not traditional art spaces, some projects are not physically accessible to the public, while others are presented in surprising locations to be chanced upon by passersby. We invite you to refer to our website for the full spectrum of events happening under the umbrella of Maureen VI.

Many of the works submitted this year speak to notions of identity in relation to place and placelessness, as well as states of transition and instability. Though not explicitly themed, the works bolster the concept of a dispersed exhibition and reflect the unsettledness of 2020-2021. Disorientation presents an opportunity to reorient, an essential exercise when attempting to locate ourselves within a greater reality of living and working on unceded territories and reckoning with Canada’s ongoing colonial practices. We can always be re-evaluating, re-learning and re-directing our cultural histories.