I wish to acknowledge the land on which I did the following research at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

I belive that land acknowledgments should be accompangied by actions. A monetary donation was made to the Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training organization which works with Indigenous community members in the Greater Toronto Area to support them in navigating employment and training services.

artistic practice and research

Art and Labour in the AGO’s Latin American Contemporary Collection

LATIN AND LATINX COMMUNITY IN ONTARIO.

Data from the Census Canada in 2016. Once every five years, the Census of Population provides a detailed and comprehensive statistical portrait of Canada that is vital to our country. It is the primary source of sociodemographic data for specific population groups such as lone-parent families, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, seniors and language groups. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/hlt-fst/imm/Table.cfm?Lang=E&T=42&geo=35&vismin=7&age=1&sex=1&SP=2

ago’s latin american contemporary collection

Countries part of the AGO’s Latin American Collection: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela. Information obtained from the exhibition As If Sand Were Stone: Contemporary Latin American Art object list and Alena Robin’s chapter “Mapping the Presence of Latin American Art in Canadian Museums and Universities.” *Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture* 1 (2): 33–57. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2019.120004.

building the ago’s latin american collection: corporate and private donations.

Information obtained from the exhibition As If Sand Were Stone: Contemporary Latin American Art object list and Alena Robin’s chapter “Mapping the Presence of Latin American Art in Canadian Museums and Universities.” *Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture* 1 (2): 33–57. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2019.120004.

RON BENNER INTERVIEW: JOSÉ BEDIA ARTWORK AND EMBASSY CULTURAL HOUSE

Ron Benner

CO-FOUNDER & CURATORIAL ADVISOR of Embassy Cultural House

He is an internationally recognized London, Ontario-based artist whose longstanding practice investigates the history and political economics of food cultures. Ron originally studied agriculture engineering at the University of Guelph. Finding himself ethically opposed to bioengineering, he began to travel and research the politics of plants and food. Ron was one of the founders of the Embassy Cultural House. Please visit his website for more information.

London, Ontario is on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.

Ron Benner and Anahí González video call interview, August, 2022

Anahí González: In 2004, you donated four drawings to the AGO from the Cuban artist José Bedia. Could you share more about the story behind acquiring these artworks?

Ron Benner: In 1990 the Embassy Cultural House received funding from the Department of External Affairs (Visiting Foreign Artists Program), the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council to present a series of exhibitions, Siting Resistance, which questioned the racialist theories of UWO psychology professor Philippe Rushton. The exhibiting artists included Sonia Boyce, Allan deSouza, Shaheen Merali, Pitika Ntuli and Keith Piper from the UK, Grace Channer from Toronto and Magdalena Campos Pons and Jose Bedia from Havana, Cuba. Part of this funding paid for the air transportation of Campos and Bedia from Havana to London/Calgary return so that they could attend an artist residency at The Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta. After their residency, they held exhibitions at the Embassy Cultural House and the Forest City Gallery here in London, Ontario. I also had their work installed in the community gallery of Museum London and The Cross Cultural Learner Centre. Campos had a solo exhibition in the Embassy Cultural House and did a hotel room installation in the Embassy Hotel. Bedia had a solo exhibition at the Forest City Gallery and did a mural on the exterior front of the hotel. These installations lasted until the hotel burned down in 2009. Inter-disciplinary in approach, this 1990 program included a performance event, organized by Jamelie Hassan, which included poetry readings by Lillian Allen, jamila ismail and Lee Maracle and music by Lillian Allen and the Revolutionary Tea Party. A screening of recent Cuban Films organized by David McIntosh was held at the Forest City Gallery. It’s important to note that this program was happening at the same time as the “Oka Crisis” and Bedia created an installation in solidarity which was presented both at the Forest City Gallery and later in the Okanata group exhibition held in Toronto and subsequently travelled to the Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, Ontario.

José Bedia and Magdalena Campos Pons were very happy with their experience in Canada Bedia's parting gift to me were the four drawings he had completed in Banff. He gave Jamelie natural ochre pigment from the Paint Pots, a site near Banff, Alberta, which he had worked with in his wall drawings and paintings. Later Jamelie used the same ochre pigment in her works on paper from that period.

In 2004, I thought Bedia’s gift of the four drawings deserved to be in a major institution because of their aesthetic and historical value. So I'm happy I donated them to the AGO also in part because the director at the time was my friend Matthew Teitelbaum who had met the Cubans when they were in London.

Front side of Embassy Hotel. Left: José Bedia mural done in the 90’s. Image courtesy of Embassy Cultural House

Anahí González: In the mid-eighties, the Embassy Cultural House exhibited artists from Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, such as Victor Rendon, Gildo Gonzalez, and Oscar Ortiz. How were these multiple exhibitions showcasing Latin America and Caribbean artists/artworks received in the community?

Ron Benner: Fantastic. Everyone loved them. The Mexican artists also enjoyed themselves in London. There was an audience for their work. Their artworks were appreciated. Everyone liked Bedia's mural on the front of the Embassy Hotel. Everyone loved Campos’ hotel room installation. Both installations remained there until the hotel burnt down years later. In 2009, at the time the hotel burnt down, we were no longer connected to the hotel but we were working to save as much as possible, but we, you know, we didn't have resources to save Bedia's mural. At the time. Brian Meehan, who was the director of Museum London, was working towards saving the Bedia mural and other elements within the hotel. There was a movement to save the art in the Embassy Hotel, but we just didn't move fast enough.

Siting Resistance poster exhibition 1990. Image courtesy of Embassy Cultural House

Anahí González: The passion and involvement with Latin America and the Caribbean are evident throughout your artistic career. When does this relationship start?

Ron Benner: My education began at the age of 23 when I first travelled to northern Mexico in 1972 and again in 1974 when I stayed for a month in an unnamed residencia in Mexico City, south of Avenida Insurgentes and Paseo de la Reforma, across from a funeral home with caskets in the front window...shades of the artist José Guadalupe Posada. I was working on the railroad then, so I had this train pass where I could travel for half price on passenger trains in the US and Canada. Often I would show my railroad watch and ID to freight train employees in the US, Mexico and South America and they would let me travel on the caboose or diesel for free. In 1974/75, I went on this massive trip throughout the Americas, where I studied Spanish in Mexico City, and I got down there by train, you know, for almost nothing.

During that trip, I went to register to study Spanish, but the Mexican students who were studying English went on strike. So I hired the women/owners in the residency to be my teachers, and I would go out and buy newspapers, and then we would go over the newspapers and read them. I spent a month doing intensive reading, listening and speaking with these elderly Mexican women. At the same time, I was getting all my visas to get through Central America and South America. At that time you needed visas, especially if you were travelling by land It took me a month to get all the visas. Between 1974 and 1975, I travelled through all of Central America I went by train down to the Guatemalan border and then by bus all through Central America. Then I flew from Panama City into Medellin, Columbia and from there to Ecuador, Peru, up into the Amazon, back into Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

My whole life changed when I finally got back to Mexico City and then back home to Canada. Seriously. I just thought: What the hell? What is our educational system about? We know nothing about the food that is native to the Americas. We know nothing about Indigenous cultures throughout the Americas. We know nothing except a eurocentric perspective of the history of the Americas. So from that time on I was no longer listening to Pete Seeger let’s say. I was listening to Violeta Parra. Victor Jara. I was totally changed.

My education never stopped from then on. I kept travelling all over Mexico. I lived in Peru in 1979/1980 doing a project. By then the railroad had tried to fire me because I was living in Peru. They cabled me through the Canadian Embassy in Lima saying that if I didn't show up in two weeks I was fired. I cabled them back and said: You don't need to fire me. I quit. That was the end of my railroad career. I was happy. I liked working on the railroad, but working as an artist was more important.

My education hasn't ended. In fact, my meeting with you has been so confirming for me because you have your knowledge and bring your culture to Canada. I'm happy you are here.

Anahí González: Thank you, Ron. I’m happy too.

Anahí González: While the Embassy Cultural House closed its physical doors in 1990, in 2020 it moved digitally and has been constantly involved and creating programming events, publishing, and more. In 2021 we had the project Intercambio/Exchange. Is ECH open to continuing to build connections with Latinx / Latin American artists in the region?

Ron Benner: Absolutely! Jamelie and I, as curatorial advisors, we're open if anyone has an idea about expanding what culture is in Southwestern Ontario. We're totally open. The Embassy Cultural House is about getting people together, having a conversation about culture and hopefully, changing the system. Back in the eighties, the Embassy Cultural House hosted exhibitions showing works by women, artists of colour, indigenous artists… Latin American artists!