Patrick Mahon   

Global Indigenous Networks: GardenShip and State 

As one of the Organizers of Decolonial Conversations, Patrick Mahon is contributing to the overall planning and coordination of the project, and the hosting of the conference, and will be involved in the Global Indigenous Networks Conversation with Jeff Thomas. And, as co-curator, with Jeff Thomas of the landmark initiative, GardenShip and State (2020-24), Patrick’s shared work with Jeff asked: How we can work together and create together as a global community to restore the planet—while respecting differences and seeking to repair divisions and address injustices brought about by colonialism? GardenShip and State was an artistic research project conceived at the intersection of environmental critique, decolonial theory, and artistic practice. The project examined urgent issues confronting us today and the measures states and non-state actors can, or should, take to resolve them. These challenges are of global concern because local actions and global effects are intertwined, as evidenced by the destructiveness of the environmental crisis on humans and other than humans experiencing the effects of colonialism. At its core, GardenShip and State argued that decolonial critique is an intercultural, dialogical approach that seeks to redress social and ecological imbalances and their effects in the present, not least in terms of how different communities understand and interact with their local environments. The conversation between Patrick Mahon and Jeff Thomas will focus on GardenShip and States’s emphasis on the Two-Row Treaty of 1613 between the Haudenosaunee and the Dutch, which is considered a living document today. It was a central feature of their collaborative initiative that resulted in an exhibition involving 20 artists, as well as a conference, community projects, and a book. 

Biography 

Patrick Mahon is an artist, and a writer/curator who lives in London, Canada. He is a Distinguished University Professor at Western University (Emeritus), retired as of 2023. Mahon’s artwork has been exhibited widely in Canada: at Museum London, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and The Art Gallery of Hamilton; and internationally. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Patrick Mahon: Messagers’ Forum, Thames Art Gallery Chatham, ON (solo, 2020-21); Written on the Earth, McIntosh Gallery, London, ON, curated by Helen Gregory, (group, 2021). Patrick’s collaborative SSHRC-funded initiative, GardenShip and State, generated an exhibition co-curated with Jeff Thomas involving twenty artists and scholars, which premiered at Museum London (October 2021 – January, 2022) and was reprised at Thames Art Gallery (August – October 2024). It was one of two finalists for a GOG Exhibition of the Year in 2022. Patrick’s other significant collaborations include Immersion Emergencies and Possible Worlds, which resulted in a ten-artist group exhibition, The Source: Rethinking Water through Contemporary Art, presented at Rodman Hall, Brock University, Canada, in 2014, with a second iteration, The Living River Project, at the Art Gallery of Windsor, in 2019. Patrick’s work is held in numerous private, corporate, and museum collections.