Devyani Saltzman

Last updated
Devyani Saltzman
Occupations
  • Writer
  • Curator
Parents
Websitedevyanisaltzman.com

Devyani Saltzman is a Canadian writer, curator and multidisciplinary cultural programmer. [1] She known for her work in arts and culture, She has held senior positions in three of Canada's major cultural institutions, including as the Director of Public Programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario. [2] In 2024 she joined the Barbican as their Director for Arts.

Contents

Early life and education

Devyani Saltzman was born in 1979, the granddaughter of Canadian weatherman Percy Saltzman and the daughter of film directors Paul Saltzman and Deepa Mehta. [3] Paul Saltzman, her father, is Jewish Ukrainian; her mother Indian Hindu. They separated when she was 11 years old.

Saltzman received her degree in Human Sciences from Hertford College at Oxford University in 2003. She specialized in sociology and anthropology.

Writing career

Devyani Saltzman is the author of Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family, and Filmmaking, as well as articles for The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Literary Review of Canada, the Atlantic, Tehelka, Marie Claire, Room literary journal and The Walrus Magazine. [2] Her debut book Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family, and Filmmaking details the making of her mother, Deepa Mehta’s, third film in her “Elements” trilogy, entitled Water. [4] It was published in Canada (2005), the US and India and received "starred reviews" in both Publishers Weekly and the Library Journal and was called 'A poignant memoir' by The New York Times.[ citation needed ] Her freelance writing subjects include interviews with Pico Iyer, Sarah Polley, Floria Sigismondi and articles on India, long-term care facilities and immigrant domestic workers.[ citation needed ]

Current projects

Saltzman is a founding Curator at Luminato, Toronto's International Arts Festival and has been involved in a number of arts initiatives including Project Bookmark Canada, The Toronto Museum Project as well as being a juror for the National Magazine Awards, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. In 2014 she was appointed Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada's national arts hub, where she oversaw year-round programming and public events.

In 2018 she was appointed Director of Public Programming for the Art Gallery of Ontario. [2]

She works with arts organizations nationally and internationally as an independent curator and consultant on cultural projects. She most recently was a Co-Curator of PEN World Voices Festival, the US' largest festival of art and ideas; a senior consultant with the Confederation Centre for the Arts, advising on the creation of a national forum on the future of the country now called Canada, as part of the Centre's 65million dollar capital project to create a cultural hub in Atlantic Canada and as Curator of the 2023 Indian Summer Festival, Vancouver's Multidisciplinary Arts Festival.

Awards and governance

Writers’ Trust of Canada [2] Vice Chair
Toronto Arts CouncilPresident
SummerWorks Performance Festival [2] Board Member
Ontario Association of Art GalleriesBoard Member

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deepa Mehta</span> Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter (born 1950)

Deepa Mehta, is an Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, best known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water (2005).

<i>Water</i> (2005 film) 2005 film by Deepa Mehta

Water is a 2005 drama film written and directed by Deepa Mehta, with screenplay by Anurag Kashyap. It is set in 1938 and explores the lives of widows at an ashram in India. The film is also the third and final installment of Mehta's Elements trilogy. It was preceded by Fire (1996) and Earth (1998). Author Bapsi Sidhwa wrote the 2006 novel based upon the film, Water: A Novel, published by Milkweed Press. Sidhwa's earlier novel, Cracking India was the basis for Earth, the second film in the trilogy.

The Elements trilogy of films by Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta deals with controversial issues of social reform on the Indian subcontinent. Fire, the first release in 1996, dealt with issues of arranged marriage and homosexuality in the patriarchal culture of India. Earth, released in 1998, dealt with the religious strife associated with the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan in the mid-20th century. Water, released in 2005, was the most critically successful of the three, and dealt with suicide, misogyny, and the mistreatment of widows in rural India.

Koffler Arts is a broad-based cultural institution established in 1977 by Murray and Marvelle Koffler and based at Artscape Youngplace in the West Queen West area of downtown Toronto, Ontario.

The Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries (GOG), formerly Ontario Association of Art Galleries / Association Ontarienne des Galeries d’Art (OAAG/AOGA), was established in 1968 to encourage development of public art galleries, art museums, community galleries and related visual arts organizations in Ontario, Canada. It was incorporated in Ontario in 1970, and registered as a charitable organization. It is a successor organization to the Southern Ontario Gallery Group founded in 1947, renamed the Art Institute of Ontario in 1952. In December 2020 Ontario Association of Art Galleries / Association Ontarienne des Galeries d’Art (OAAG/AOGA) rebranded to the name Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries (GOG) which included new brand identity, logo, and website to better serve art organizations in Ontario and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Saltzman</span> Canadian film and television producer and director

Paul Saltzman is a Canadian film and television producer and director. A two-time Emmy Award-recipient, he has been credited on more than 300 films, both dramas and documentaries.

Carol Lorraine Sutton is a multidisciplinary artist born in Norfolk, Virginia, USA and now living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is a painter whose works on canvas and paper have been shown in 32 solo exhibits as well as being included in 94 group shows. Her work, which ranges from complete abstraction to the use of organic and architectural images, relates to the formalist ideas of Clement Greenberg and is noted for the use of color. Some of Sutton paintings have been related to ontology.

Shelley Niro is a Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte filmmaker and visual artist from New York and Ontario. She is known for her photographs using herself and female family members cast in contemporary positions to challenge the stereotypes and clichés of Native American women.

Sanaz Mazinani is an Iranian–born Canadian multidisciplinary visual artist, curator, and educator, known for her photography and installation art. She is currently based in Toronto, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Gallery of Mississauga</span> Public Art gallery in Ontario, Canada

The Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM) is a public, not-for-profit art gallery in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the Mississauga Civic Centre right on Celebration Square across from Square One Mall. The Gallery is open six days per week and offers free admission and guided exhibition tours in addition to regular art social events, workshops for adult learners, and youth programmes for schools, universities and community groups.

Vera Frenkel is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Her installations, videotapes, performances and new media projects address the forces at work in human migration, the learning and unlearning of cultural memory, and the ever-increasing bureaucratization of experience.

Jamelie Hassan is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist, lecturer, writer and independent curator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peggy Gale</span> Canadian curator (born 1944)

Peggy Gale is an independent Canadian curator, writer, and editor. Gale studied Art History and received her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from the University of Toronto in 1967. Gale has published extensively on time-based works by contemporary artists in numerous magazines and exhibition catalogues. She was editor of Artists Talk 1969-1977, from The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax (2004) and in 2006, she was awarded the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. Gale was the co-curator for Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection in 2012 and later for the Biennale de Montréal 2014, L’avenir , at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Gale is a member of IKT, AICA, The Writers' Union of Canada, and has been a contributing editor of Canadian Art since 1986.

Ming Tiampo is a Canadian curator, professor of art history and director of the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Sandra Brewster is a Canadian visual artist based in Toronto. Her work is multidisciplinary in nature, and deals with notions of identity, representation and memory; centering Black presence in Canada.

Mary Macdonald was a Canadian artist and independent curator based in St. John’s, who left a lasting impact on the arts and cultural community of Atlantic Canada, and advocated for the promotion of emerging artists and cultural workers in the region.

Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe curator, artist and educator based in Toronto, Ontario. From 2016 to 2023, she held the position of the inaugural curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Jan Allen is a Canadian curator, writer, visual artist, and assistant professor in the Department of Art History and Art Conservation, and the Cultural Studies Program, at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario.

Pamela Edmonds is a Canadian visual and media arts curator focused on themes of decolonization and the politics of representation. She is considered an influential figure in the Black Canadian arts scene. Since 2022, Edmonds has been the Director and Curator of the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Ilene Sova is a multidisciplinary visual artist, arts educator, curator and community organizer based in Toronto, Canada. She is well known for the Missing Women Project, a series of thirty large-format portraits of missing Ontario women from 1970 to 2000. Sova is the Ada Slaight Chair of Painting and Drawing at OCAD University, Toronto.

References

  1. Morrison, Richard (2024-08-25). "Can the Barbican's new boss make the venue count again?". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Events". ago.ca. Art Gallery of Ontario. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  3. Deepa MehtaBiography Notable Biographies
  4. https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/water-under-the-bridge/cid/1543665