SONA SAFAEI-SOOREH: ASSIGNMENTS OPENS JUNE 27 AT ARTSPACE






Jun 27 2014 - Aug 16 2014
Opening: 
 Friday, June 27, 2014 - 7:00pm - 11:00pm
Assignments includes various works by interdisciplinary artist Sona Safaei-Sooreh that explore the sites of communication, and more importantly, miscommunication embedded in contemporary art practices.
 








“In the past few years my work and process have explored the notion of self and otherness and part/whole relationships in a decentralized global situation. In doing so it has elaborated on number of concerns: differences among languages and cultures; how meanings and cultural codes get lost in translations; the possibility of communication across cultures; issues around diversity; globalization and homogenization; the effects of creating a common knowledge- specifically a common art discourse; and more recently, the relationships between art and economy.
After I moved from Iran to Canada I attended OCADU and challenged my Iranian post-secondary schooling experience. I delved into Canadian Contemporary Art and culture to adapt myself to this new territory, starting with changing my medium of practice from painting to video. I became interested in understanding agencies inherited in this new structure: interests/desires of the new domain, new laws and regulations, and the most wanted and marketable ideas, perhaps to develop a common knowledge with my surroundings. I have noticed that I continue to compare two states of being: when one thing belongs to two things and none of them at the same time. The plurality of selves I experience in my personal life encompasses most of the questions I raise about the art world. Some of these questions are: how one experiences otherness in the art world? What is the individual’s relationship to the institution? Is it necessary to develop a common knowledge with the state apparatus? Does not pursuing a common knowledge favor controlling systems? What happens if one cannot find anything in common with the dominant discourse?”
-Sona Safaei-Sooreh 


Artist Bio: 
Sona Safaei-Sooreh studied art at Azad University of Tehran and graduated in July 2006 with a BFA in Painting. She moved to Canada after finishing her studies in Iran and she is a recent graduate from OCAD University in Toronto.
Safaei Sooreh has exhibited her works extensively both in Iran and internationally, to name a few Limited Access in Tehran at Mohsen Gallery, Iran & co at La Bourgoaise in Belgium, If we ever meet again … at Thomas Erben Gallery, New York and In Other Word at Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Berlin. Her work and process explores the notion of self and otherness, the linkages between one and many, and part /whole relationships in a decentralized global situation. In doing so it elaborates on number of concerns: differences among languages and cultures; lost meanings or components in translations; possibility of communications cross cultures; and artist/museum relationships. Safaei Sooreh lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: SET TOGETHER (2014)

Set Together is a globally collaborative project that asks participants to share in witnessing and documenting the setting sun on the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and shortest day in the southern hemisphere - Saturday June 21st, 2014.

Set Together explores the interplay between simultaneity and displacement by attempting to render collectively lived experiences into one compounded time and space. Through the simple gesture of watching a sun set, the project intuitively explores our intensifying need for connection in a globalized, yet fractured society.

Co-ordinated with The International Society for the Study of Time's conference this year at the Beijing Normal University, collected video and photographic footage will live in an online testament of action at www.set-together.com.

Participation is simple:

On Saturday, June 21st, 2014, capture a short video and/or photo of the setting sun - regardless of weather or visibility. Write down a sentence or series of words that expresses your perspective, impression and/or feeling at the moment of sundown. Participants are encouraged to express themselves in whatever language they prefer.

Email your name, location, documentation and description to: sundowntogether@gmail.com. If your file is too large to email, use instead the simple online file transfer program www.wetransfer.com.

All participants will receive an official collaborators certificate and will receive full acknowledgement in all project materials.

For more information, please email: emilydicarlo@gmail.com
Project hashtag: #settogether
***
Emily DiCarlo is a Toronto-based visual artist and communications specialist working predominantly in sculpture, video, and performance. She has exhibited her work both locally and abroad including, but not limited to: The Noise Project at 99 Gallery (Toronto), The Orthodox Academy of Crete (Greece), NXNE Music Festival (Toronto), L’Oeil de Poisson (Quebec City), and The Hungarian Museum of Travel and Tourism, Budapest, (Hungary). She has presented her theories and criticisms as part of the 14th Triennial Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time (Monte Verde, Costa Rica) and International Artist-in-Residency Summer Program organized by the Hungarian Multicultural Centre (Budapest, Hungary). Her writing has been published in 1W3KND: On Social Practice and Collaboration, 48 Hours at a Time (Broken City Lab) and artist book Hydra Era (L’Œil de Poisson).

--
www.set-together.com
www.emilydicarlo.com
www.equalateral.ca

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Reworking the Common Knowledge #2
























Free! Join the Facebook Event

Facilitators: Sona Safaei & Janna Brown
Wednesday July 09, 2014
7-10 pm

 Akin Collective, Unit # 302, 87 Wade Avenue
Just north of Bloor & Lansdowne

Pre-register by email: reworkthecommon@gmail.com

Join us for a second free performance/workshop to share stories and have an art chat.

Our program will have three parts:

1) Introductions and sharing stories
2) Presentation on Project Background/Context, Social Practice, and, some visions for a workshop series
3) Group Brainstorm + Activity

To get you thinking ahead, you could think of a story to share with the group. This could be a story from adolescence, childhood, etc. that stands out because it’s different than your experience now.


We would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

www.akincollective.com

FORGE Workshop Series: OAC GRANT WRITING WORKSHOP 2!



















Limited space! RSVP: forgeworkshops@gmail.com or https://www.uniiverse.com/grantworkshop

 You want to know how to get grants. The funders want to show you how to get their grants. It's a match made in heaven. 

 Join us Wednesday, June 11 at 6:30pm for our latest Forge Workshop: OAC Grant Writing Workshop 2

The Ontario Arts Council will guide us through the application process and build on last winter's presentation with even more do's and don'ts as you review real applications like jurors and discuss where people go wrong in grant writing.

Hope you can join us- bring your friends!

FREE!

Location:
Ontario Arts Council, 151 Bloor St. West, 6th Floor, Toronto

www.akincollective.com
ARTbus: Exhibition tour to the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Blackwood Gallery and Oakville Galleries
Sunday 8 June 2014, 12:00 pm–5:00 pm
Pick-up and drop-off at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Hart House, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto)
$10 donation includes admission to all galleries and afternoon refreshments by Trafalgar Brewing Company and Whole Foods Market
 
For reservations, contact artbus@oakvillegalleries.com or 905.844.4402, ext. 27 by Friday 6 June, 4:00 pm

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Ride the ARTbus and discover some of the summer’s best exhibitions in the GTA!
 
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery

The summer ARTbus begins at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery with a tour of KWE: Photography, sculpture, video and performances by Rebecca Belmore, co-presented by Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Curated by Wanda Nanibush, KWE delves into the complicated and fertile relationship between Indigeneity, art and feminism. Kwe (woman) is a term of respect and marks out a territory of cultural resurgence. Belmore's photography, sculptures and performances assert what it is to be an Anishinaabe-kwe artist. Violence against Indigenous women as well as their power and perseverance has been the subject of much of her work. Belmore engages her family stories on the role of women while keeping Indigenous self-determination central. 

Blackwood Gallery

The ARTbus continues to Blackwood Gallery for a tour of Incident Light: Gendered Artifacts and Traces Illuminated in the Archives, curated by Leila Pourtavaf and featuring work by Tara Najd Ahmadi & Hannah Darabi*, Ala Dehghan*, Maryam Jafri, Jumana Manna, Nahed Mansour, The Otolith Group, and Tejal Shah (*works commissioned by Azar Mahmoudian). In photography, the term “incident light” refers to both the source emitting the direct light which illuminates a subject, as well as secondary sources which redirect light onto it to reveal unseen details. Incident Light features a group of Middle Eastern and South Asian artists whose works focus on traces of gender and sexuality within various archives from the region. The exhibit questions the authority that nationalist historiographies hold in relation to their subjects through a repositioning of the cultural artifacts from various historical depositories. Building new stories from fragmented knowledge, the exhibition harnesses generative forces that anticipate, foresee and fantasize about what was and could have been.

Oakville Galleries

Next, at Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square and Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, participants will visit the opening reception of the group exhibition You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me. On the occasion of her retirement from Oakville Galleries, Curator Marnie Fleming organizes a selection of works from the Galleries’ permanent collection that have moved her, challenged her and encouraged her to think in new and unexpected ways. While these pieces do not adhere to a simple unifying narrative, they do tell a notable story: not only of Fleming's two decades at the Galleries, but of the history of the institution and the diversity of art practices that have unfolded since the early 1990s. Featuring work by thirty artists, including Kim Adams, Stephen Andrews, Paterson Ewen, Angela Grauerholz, Susanna Heller, Micah Lexier, Ken Lum, Liz Magor, David Merritt, Kim Moodie, Paulette Phillips, Ian Wallace, Colette Whiten, and many others.


SCHEDULE

11:45 am: Meet outside the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery for sign-in.

12:00 pm: Justina M. Barnicke Gallery. Tour of Rebecca Belmore exhibition.

1:30 pm: Blackwood Gallery. Tour of Incident Light exhibition.

2:45 pm: Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square. Visit opening of You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me.

3:30 pm: Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens. Visit You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me. Opening reception with refreshments.

5:00 pm: Drop-off at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery.

In-kind support provided by Trafalgar Brewing Company and Whole Foods Market, Oakville.

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Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
Hart House, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto
416.978.8398
www.jmbgallery.ca

Blackwood Gallery
University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga
905.828.3789
www.blackwoodgallery.ca

Oakville Galleries
Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square: 120 Navy St, Oakville
Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens: 1306 Lakeshore Road East, Oakville
905.844.4402
www.oakvillegalleries.com

Images (left to right): Rebecca Belmore, sister, 2010. Installation view: Audain Gallery, Vancouver, photo: Kevin Schmidt. Courtesy of the artist; Jumana Manna, video still from A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch's Last Masquerade), 2013. Courtesy of the artist and CRG Gallery, New York; Ken Lum,What is it Daddy?, 1994. Collection of Oakville Galleries.

Entrepreneurs & Artists: A Quid Pro Quo Opportunity

Tuesday, May 27, 2014.
6-8pm

ING Cafe, 221 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON

  • Artists and entrepreneurs have a quid pro quo opportunity: 
    • Businesses want an emotional connection with their customers. This is the basis for social media marketing, content marketing and using storytelling in marketing. 
    • By definition good art and good artists evoke emotions in their audience. 
    • Artists want to develop sustainable business models for selling their art, and live off selling their art. 
    • Entrepreneurs develop profitable and sustainable businesses selling a product or service.
    Amy Miranda, Founder of Lunch, a creative production network of artists, will be speaking on how she has worked with some of the largest brands use authentic artistic content to make an emotional connections with their customers, and how artists can help them do that while making a sustainable living on their art.  

FORGE Workshop Series: Reworking the Common Knowledge

















Tomorrow!

Free!

Pre-register by email: reworkthecommon@gmail.com

Join us for a free performance/workshop to share stories, make new connections, learn from each other, have an art chat, and rethink ideas around 'common knowledge' and community.

Forge connections. Fuel your practice. Shape your creative process. FORGE is a creative incubator
for practicing artists and designers.

Akin Collective, Unit # 101, 87 Wade Avenue
Just north of Bloor & Lansdowne

Facilitators: Sona Safaei & Janna Brown
Wednesday May 14, 2014
7-10 pm

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council.

 














Hazel Eckert: 

Glass Slide Compositions

Opening Reception: Friday, April 4, 2014, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Open Studio
401 Richmond Street West
Suite 104
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 3A8  Canada
Phone/Fax: 416-504-8238
 Opening Reception: Friday, April 4, 2014, 6:30 – 8:30 PM

Hazel Eckert’s practice is a form of visual research: a process-oriented investigation of her environment. Eckert spends her days in a commercial letterpress print shop working with analogue technology, where she scavenges materials off of the floor and out of recycling bins.  These discarded offcuts and byproducts constitute an ever-expanding collection of fragments and ephemera. Eckert’s recent work uses sheets of glass to suspend collages made from the salvage and debris created during the printing process. These forms are a result of mis-fed sheets or discarded offcuts that fall out of reach and are forgotten inside the presses and left to disintegrate by soaking up the oils and grease from the machines. By appropriating printer’s materials and limiting the number of elements involved, she creates minimal, self-referential works with found textures and readymade colours.

Eckert is interested in tapping into the archival impulse in contemporary culture—the increasing trend towards collecting, documenting, and “curating” objects, and the way this behaviour cultivates a degree of reverence for these artifacts. Encased as glass slides such as those typically used to hold objects in place for examination, the ephemera preserved in this exhibition form an archive as a process of reimagining found materials.


Hazel Eckert is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist and printer based in Toronto. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, including The Toronto Artist Project. In 2010 Hazel received The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition’s Best in Printmaking award and participated in Atelier Graff’s Insertion Project in Montreal, Quebec, which was funded in part by an Ontario-Quebec Residency Grant from the Ontario Arts Council. In 2013 she received the Nick Novak Fellowship from Open Studio, where she will be printing until September 2014 in preparation for a solo exhibition in October.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: CITY OF TORONTO

    


         



Request for Expression of Interest: The Douro Street Art Project

StreetARToronto and Metrolinx: Douro Street Art Project

 REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST 
DEADLINE: Monday, May 26 at 4:30pm

Call Summary
The City of Toronto's StreetARToronto (StART) program has partnered with Metrolinx to hold an open public art competition to create an outdoor art mural project to be installed along two stretches of retaining wall built to provide support for the lowered rail corridor along Douro Street.
StART invites Expressions of Interest from artists to submit proposals for wall art that will celebrate the unique and diverse character of the neighborhood and be maintained for a minimum of five years. Work is to begin in July, 2014 and must be completed by September 26, 2014.

The purpose of the Expression of Interest is to gather a list of artists or artist collaborations who will be short-listed based on relevant professional credentials and preliminary design concepts. Short-listed applicants will be invited to respond to a Request for Proposal. At the final stage of the selection process, proposals will be reviewed and artists will be recommended for the project.

Application Deadline Monday May 26, 2014 at 4:30pm
Total Project Budget: up to $40,000

 Application Deadline: May 26, 2014 @ 4:30pm
Download the application package:

- Duoro Street Art Project (PDF)
For further information or general questions please contact Lilie Zendel, Project Manager at lzendel@toronto.ca (416) 392-0855; or Carolyn Taylor at (416) 570-1613 taylorcmt@mac.com