Canadian_Art_2016_S_

110 CANADIAN A RT • SPRING 2016 canadianart.ca 111

Ron Benner and Jamelie

Hassan in their home

and studio in London,

Ontario, January 2 016

PHOTO CHRISTOPHER DEW

One sunny afternoon in late September, artist Ron

Benner is tossing cobs of corn on a homemade roaster

on the University of Toronto grounds. Student volun-

teers shuck cobs as fast as they can and a lineup forms.

Jamelie Hassan, his longtime partner in life and art,

is bustling about, organizing the volunteers. Benner

moves nimbly, with no unnecessary gestures, in the

way of a man who has performed this task countless

times. As he has.

“I’ve been roasting corn all my life,” Benner says.

As a boy, his father had him tending the family garden

in London, Ontario, raising corn, among the other

crops. “And guess what turned up?” he says, in a tone

that even now exudes surprise. Cuitlacoche, a bulbous

parasite also known as corn smut, stuck to the plants.

Benner’s father saw the growth as a disease and burned

it. Years later, Benner travelled to Mexico, where he

discovered the parasite was an edible delicacy.

Volunteers roll cooked corn on slabs of butter and

hand them to eager students. We chow down and

examine Benner’s photographs hanging from overhead

banners: images of corn roasters around the world.

From Tanzania to Vietnam to India, these are often

jerry-built affairs, humble in the extreme. The photos

depict interactions between the artist and vendors.

Benner’s nearby cuitlacoche garden nestles along-

side busy Queen’s Park Drive. Spindly Peruvian corn

stalks hover next to plants native to the Americas, most

BY ANN IRELAND

The migrations of JAMELIE HASSAN

and RON BENNER

HERE AND AWAY

Hassan-Benner_ sp16_15TSLR.indd 111 02/04/16 2:48 PM