Kaya Joan

We recently asked multidisciplinary Afro-Indigenous artist Kaya Joan to answer a few questions about their artistic practice, current projects, artistic inspiration and more! Currently based in Prince Edward County, Kaya explores their relationship to place, storytelling, Black and Indigenous futurity and creation stories through their work as an artist and as a facilitator in community arts. 

Most recently, Kaya was working together with fellow PEC-based artists as a facilitator, and youth artists to create a series of murals along the theme of belonging. Read on to learn more about Kaya’s experience as a facilitator with the ROC x County Arts Mural Project.

About their artistic practice:

My arts practice is expansive and playful, as I work across many different mediums. I approach materials as tools for world building, with curiosity of how stories emerge and shape shift across time and space.

Tell us about any artistic projects you have going on this upcoming month that you’d like people to know about:

I am excited about a project I just completed through a residency in partnership with the Textile Museum of Canada, curated by Camila Salcedo and Karina Roman Justo called “Mending the Museum.” Myself and five other artists worked with fragments in the museum’s online collection to create new work. I chose a fragment of crewel embroidery from 16-17th century Britain, and created a short film titled “Deep Blue,” which will be posted on the Museum’s website soon. The film explores material and immaterial intersections between artificial, synthetic and natural, and is narrated by the voice of indigo reflecting on its life cycles.

What have you worked on recently that has you excited, either personally or professionally?

For the past month, I have been working as a facilitator for County Arts x The ROC’s “You Belong Here Mural program,” with three other artists in the county, Kat Burns, Ambivalently Yours, and Tim Snyder. The youth we are working with are so talented, and dedicated to the project. We have had many conversations around changes they would like to see in their community, and it’s awesome to witness how those conversations translated into the four panels they are painting. Being new to the county and learning more about it through the youth has been very inspiring, and I hope to continue being involved in the community arts scene here.

Where in the County do you find the most creative inspiration? This could be a place, fellow artist, arts event, etc.!

Having just moved to Wellington from Toronto in December, I find inspiration in many places, as everything is very new to me. The lake has been a source of inspiration for me for many years, so it is cool to experience a different part of shoreline, looking at all the rocks and fossils, and the sunsets are phenomenal. The millennium trail is also really beautiful, and I have been enjoying biking and walking along there.

Where is your favourite place to work on your art?

I enjoy working on my art at home, although I am still in the process of finding creative space that works for me here. In Toronto, I had a tiny little studio in a shared space 30 minutes away from our apartment (20 if biking). It was really great to have a dedicated space outside of my home that I could go to work, and be messy. My partner Neil Maguire who is an artist as well, is working at Blue Wheelbarrow Farms and has set his studio up in the barn, so I join him there sometimes.