On February 16th, the Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage was pleased to have hosted the 2012 Mohyla lecturer, Natalka Husar. Ms. Husar is an acclaimed Canadian artist and Associate Professor at Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) University in Toronto.
In her first Saskatoon presentation, entitled “Fasten Your Seatbelt!”, Ms. Husar examined themes of identity, displacement, and homeland, common threads running through much of her work. As a playwright, Ms. Husar has invented psychologically-specific characters — including alter-egos for herself — to address issues in contemporary history. In recent years she has used the concept of post-Soviet Ukraine as a metaphorical stage, upon which her cast of characters express a wide variety of social desires and self-reinventions.
Commentary on the lecture-performance was provided by Professor Joan Borsa of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Saskatchewan, and by Jen Budney, Associate Curator of the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon.