Joshua Schwebel | Undercurrents In-Dialogue

Undercurrents In-Dialogue is a new series of video interviews on the praxis of cultural workers and organizers addressing the current state of Canada's cultural infrastructure, created by artist-educator Chris Mendoza and Parker Kay of Pumice Raft. As part of the ongoing Undercurrents Forum, these interviews extend the inquiries of our public events, Antagonisms, Foils, and Publics (2024-2025), which investigated the spatial and economic politics underlying the arts.

This first interview in the series features artist Joshua Schwebel. We discuss his practice, the imbrication of Canada’s public arts institutions with the violence of capital, and the importance of connecting culture to a greater social infrastructure or commons.

Joshua Schwebel is a trans artist based in Montreal (Tiohti:áke) and Berlin. Since graduating from NSCAD’s MFA program, Schwebel has become known for practicing a particularly direct form of site-specific institutional critique, undertaken through international exhibitions, fellowships and residencies. Joshua Schwebel's artistic practice responds to sites and situations, looking at the infrastructures that precondition the exhibition and valorization of art.

Undercurrents Forum investigates notions of public and private space, the geopolitics that underlie them, and their impact on the arts–funding, institutions, and artists’ professionalization.