No Ducks

Emerging Art Critics at the Owens Art Gallery

Read No Ducks Online
On a yellow background, the text No Ducks floats in black with a transparent white shadow, above a drawing of a brown mallard duck sleeping.

No Ducks

Created during the COVID-19 pandemic, No Ducks’ mission is to publish and promote diverse student and emerging art writers and critics with ties to Mount Allison University and the Atlantic Region and Wabanaki Territories.

2023 Issue: Reintroduction

In a culture riddled with fast-paced, doomsday messaging, how can the process of building one’s identity with others be an act of resistance? How can embodied care become a refusal of the apocalypse and an affirmation of queer futures? For those who often feel out of place, how can we redefine belonging? This year’s issue of No Ducks explores these questions and more as five emerging art critics and writers engage with definitions of queer space in nature through the theme of reintroduction. Edited by Chloe Lundrigan, this year’s issue features the writing of Isra Amsdr, Flora Chubbs, Lexi Delong, and Riley Small, and covers a wide range of topics, including rubble species, Third Spaces in nature, and dismantling colonial capitalism.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Marjorie Young Bell Fine Arts and Music Award, Mount Allison University, for its generous support of this program.

Read No Ducks Online
A duck's head peeks out from the "O" in the text "NO DUCKS". The text is hand lettered in black against a bright yellow background.

2021 Issue

Featuring the writings of Shivanya Albas, Laika Dadoun, and Noah Lubendo, the first issue covers a wide range of topics, including contemporary art and film, decolonization, Black and Jewish identity, cultural appropriation, Indigenous art, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conceived in the early days of the pandemic, this publishing venture emerges from the J.E.A. Crake Art Critics-at-Large Program, a student mentorship project designed to give aspiring student writers the opportunity to work with an experienced art critic under circumstances similar to those of professional, independent art critics. Throughout the 2020-2021 academic year, a small group of students developed content for No Ducks under the supervision of Emily Falvey, Director/Curator of the Owens Art Gallery.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the J.E.A. Crake Foundation and Mount Allison University for making the J.E.A. Crake Art Critics-at-Large Program possible. Funding for this project came from the J.E.A. Crake ArtsWork Internships program, which is intended to provide Mount Allison University students with opportunities for experiential learning and to enable them to explore career options in the Arts.