Special Events

Transference: A performance by Vanessa Godden

Nov 1, 2024, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Transference is a performance by RBC Emerging Artist in Residence Vanessa Godden. Throughout the performance, Godden will submerge their body in containers of different sizes filled with salt water. The artist’s movement, and the resulting sounds, will interact with a sound composition produced in collaboration with Markham-based Visual and Sonic artist, James Knott. The composition includes audio collected by Godden during their residency at the RMG, field recordings from Trinidad and Tobago, experimental steel pan recordings, and a choir of sounds collected from Queer and Trans loved ones. The performance serves as a bridge between Godden’s Non-Binary Queer diasporic existence in the West and the lineages of movement instigated by colonization of South Asia and the Caribbean.

Vanessa Godden, Transference (2024), performed at the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, October 13, 2024. Image by Henry Chan.

The RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.

The artist thanks the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this work.

Upcoming Events

Talks & Tours

In Conversation with Ekow Nimako

Feb 7, 2026, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Join us for an exciting conversation between exhibiting artist Ekow Nimako and local writer, educator, and researcher, Ashley Marshall. Together, Ekow and Ashley will discuss how the exhibition Building Black Civilizations: Journey of 2,000 Ships re-imagines ancient African kingdoms through an Afrofuturist lens. Digging into histories of the African diaspora and envisioning abundant Black futures, this […]

Special Events

OPG Family Day: Portrait Party

Feb 16, 2026, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM

This family day, explore the portraits in the exhibition Homage, then, join us to create your own! Your self-portrait will be weird and wacky. Start in the exhibition, Homage. Using a variety of cardboard shapes to assemble your portrait. Gluing the cardboard together to form a truly unique and wacky face. In the studio, add vibrant acrylic […]

Talks & Tours

In Conversation: Scott Rogers and Cole Swanson

Feb 21, 2026, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

In the first of two events featuring artists Scott Rogers and Cole Swanson, this talk invites the artists to respond to the installation Mutualism (Fixed Assets) on view at the RMG until April 12, 2026. Building on Rogers’ interest in human-built infrastructures for the care and support of non-human beings, this work takes the form […]