Ruminations explores the act of souring milk as a medium for collaboration, poetry and preservation. Set within Evelyn Austin and Meech Boakye’s exhibition, Grazing, the workshop expands on the show’s themes, considering relationships between multispecies kin and ruminating on the deceptive nostalgia of pastoral yearning.

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Learn three methods of curdling milk for cheesemaking, engage in a communal libation and make a simple farmer’s cheese. Participants can contribute to a collaborative list poem while reflecting on sensory observations as we warm milk, handle tools and ingredients, and graze on light refreshments.

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Evelyn Austin is an anglo-european settler living and working in T’karato. She holds a Hon. B.S. in Mathematics an minor in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto (2021). Since 2021, she has worked as the founding Director of Change Course, working to move financial institutions to stop financing fossil fuel projects. Outside work, she is involved in community organizing. Evelyn has exhibited work at Xpace Culture Centre and WhipperSnapper Gallery, and participated in the Round Table residency and the Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts. Her writing is published in Challenges in Sustainability and the National Observer.

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Meech Boakye is an artist, writer and arts worker with an Hon. B.A. in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto (2021). They serve on the Public Art Committee at TriMet and completed a three-year term on the Board of Directors for Art Metropole. Boakye has exhibited work at Susan Hobbs Gallery, Xpace Cultural Centre, Trinity Square Video, and the Art Gallery of Guelph. Their writing has been published in C Magazine, The Globe & Mail and various indie magazines. They reside at nün Studio, through Black Art Ecology of Portland, following a residency at the Independent Publishing Resource Center.