Jamelie Hassan has curated numerous exhibitions both in Canada and internationally. Her curatorial project Orientalism & Ephemera, initiated by Art Metropole, Toronto subsequently was presented in four galleries across Canada including the Art Gallery of Windsor. An award-winning artist, she has been involved in artist-run centres since the founding of the Forest City Gallery in 1973, celebrating its 45th anniversary in 2018. She has been actively involved in the Windsor art community since the 1960’s and from 2004 to 2007, she was adjunct professor at the School of Creative Arts, University of Windsor.

Dar’a/Full Circle presents the work of artists who address the circle as a motif in their work. The circle, “dar’a” in Arabic, spins across many domains and cultures and is an aspect that is present in many of my own art works. Because of this and other ways artists are working with the circle, I decided it would make a compelling group exhibition that reminds us of the pervasiveness of the circle found all around us and the circle that we create as community. The idea within the two words “full circle” is of the power of return to beginnings, to place and to ideas. In various ways these artists add layers of meaning within the shape of the circle in their respective works. As soon as one begins to consider the circle, one immediately realizes that a circle project has no beginning nor end. Many artists could have been included in this exhibition except for the limitations, as all curatorial projects have, of the pragmatics of each situation and the curator’s relationships. I am grateful to those artists who I have had the opportunity to work with and learn about their work and their relationship to the power within the shape of the circle.

JH, 13/01/2017

Dar’a/Full Circle includes works by artists working in various media, from large format sculpture and installation to painting, drawing, photography, organic material and collaborative book works. This group exhibition includes: Tom Benner, London, ON, Doris Bittar, San Diego, USA, Peter Dykhuis, Halifax, NS, Soheila Esfahani, Kitchener/Waterloo, ON Fatima Garzan, Kitchener/Waterloo, ON, Janice Gurney, Toronto, ON, Stacey Ho (in collaboration with Julia Aoki), Vancouver, BC, Robert Houle, Toronto, ON, Miriam Jordan-Haladyn, London, ON, Meryl McMaster, Toronto, ON, Nadia Myre, Montreal, QC, Troy Ouellette, London, ON, Anna Wieselgren, London, ON/Sweden and Jennifer Willet, Windsor ON

Jamelie Hassan is grateful to all the exhibiting artists for responding to her invitation to present their works at Artcite Inc.; to artist and partner Ron Benner for technical and on-going support, to Marilyn Biderman and Art Mûr for granting us access to their collections, to Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto, and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto for assisting with the work by Robert Houle, to Pauline McHenry, London, ON, to Terry Dietz of Callon.Dietz, London, ON and Bob Schram of Sterling Marking Products. Thanks also to Christine Rideout-Arkell from the Windsor Public Library, as well as Christine Burchnall, Joshua Babcock , Michelle Soulliere, Andrea Slavik and the board at Artcite for their extraordinary efforts to realize this exhibition and to bring together Windsor’s artist-run centre with the Windsor Public Library to present contemporary art.

Read about this exhibition on Tussle, Our Windsor and University of Windsor Daily News.