THE PROFESSOR’S DESK BY ZINNIA NAQVI

The Professor’s Desk pairs documents from the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance’s (ACLA) archives within the frame of a professor’s office. This project looks particularly at four cases of discrimination on or relating to Canadian universities; the W5 Campus Giveaway TV Special from 1979, Professor Kin-Yip Chun’s case of racial discrimination against the University of Toronto, MacLean Magazine’s “Too Asian” article from 2010, and current barriers facing international students across the country. This project puts together materials from these events within the artist’s studio/office. In doing so Naqvi considers how these institutions have or have not chosen to support visible minorities within the frame of academia. This series is meant to commemorate the legacy of figures who have publicly spoken out about their experiences and considers how they have made space for future Black, Indigenous, and racialized workers within academic institutions. 

This project was developed through Mayworks’ Labour Arts Catalyst program in partnership with Asian Canadian Labour Alliance with the support of OPIRG Toronto.

Click here to watch the artist talk with Zinnia Naqvi in conversation with Professor Kin-Yip Chun and migrant rights organizer Chris Ramsaroop.

Zinnia Naqvi (she/her) is a lens-based artist working in Tkaronto/Toronto. Her work examines issues of colonialism, cultural translation, language, and gender through the use of photography, video, the written word, and archival material. Recent projects have included archival and re-staged images, experimental documentary films, video installations, graphic design, and elaborate still-lives. Her artworks often invite the viewer to consider the position of the artist and the spectator, as well as analyze the complex social dynamics that unfold in front of the camera. Naqvi’s work has been shown across Canada and internationally. She is a 2022 Fall Flaherty/Colgate Distinguished Global Filmmaker in Residence and recipient of the 2019 New Generation Photography Award organized by the the National Gallery of Canada. Naqvi is member of EMILIA-AMALIA Working Group, an intergenerational feminist collective. Naqvi received a BFA in Photography Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University and an MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University.

In May 2000, a group of Asian Canadian labour activists met to talk about setting up an alliance representing the voice of Asian Canadian trade union members, Asian Canadian workers and the Asian community at large. Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA) is the fruit of those meetings. 

Whippersnapper Gallery is an artist-run centre committed to the cultivation of inclusive spaces for emerging visual and media arts, community arts, and experimental forms of exhibition making. We provide artists and cultural producers with a flexible platform and exhibition space to expand the parameters of their professional practice. Whippersnapper is structured to encourage peer-to-peer mentorship and promote success by the artists’ own standards. Through critical and diverse programming, Whippersnapper initiates new relationships and unexpected conversations. 

OPIRG Toronto is an intersectional grassroots volunteer-based group at the University of Toronto, with a mandate for action, education, and research on environmental and social justice issues. OPIRG Toronto’s Dr. Chun Resource Library is a space for community members and University of Toronto students to access factual, critical, and alternative materials that facilitate resistance to oppression among and between diverse communities. In particular the library is committed to collecting materials that reflect the local voices of our community, and the voices of those who have been marginalized and oppressed in our daily lives and in political mobilizing. 

Established in 1997, CONTACT is a not-for-profit organization celebrating the art and profession of photography. Committed to cultivating an inclusive and accessible approach to the medium, CONTACT builds community by providing a platform for dynamic collaborations and productive engagement between Canadian and international photographers, curators, partner organizations, and audiences, locally and globally.

The artist would like to thank Mayworks Festival, the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance, OPIRG Toronto, Lokchi Lam, Professor Kin-Yip Chun, Chris Ramsaroop, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the librarians at the Toronto Reference Library.