Call for Works: IA Current Exhibition

CALL FOR WORKS
2019 IA Current Exhibition
Curated by Sophia Oppel & Philip Leonard Ocampo

Deadline: September 14, 2019 (11:59PM)

Responding to a technological moment in which social media algorithms privilege politically divisive content, the 2019 IA Current exhibition will address the “invisible” algorithms that govern digital infrastructures.

This exhibition, co-curated by emerging curators Sophia Oppel & Philip Leonard Ocampo, will highlight the political underpinnings of these communicative apparatuses and consider how power can materialize tangibly. It will examine the seamless aesthetics of consumer technologies and online interfaces that typically go unnoticed, and will question their supposed neutrality.

The exhibition aims to promote discussion about algorithmic governance and the ease with which global citizens engage with platforms that treat behavioural data as a commodity. By selecting works that manipulate the tools used by surveillance capitalists for insurgent purposes, we hope this exhibition can return some agency back to the user.

The curators welcome submissions from all new media arts disciplines, with an emphasis on digital media relating to surveillance capitalism and the intake of online information (or misinformation).

The InterAccess Current (IA Current) program supports the professional development of emerging curators and artists interested in new media and electronic practices. Each year, InterAccess selects an emerging curator, who works closely with InterAccess staff to conceptualize and execute an exhibition of works by emerging artists. “Current” refers to the now, of course, but it is also an energetic charge that causes light, heat and all manner of electronic life; an apt metaphor for emergent creative practices within the ever-expanding field of new media.

Founded in 1983, InterAccess is a non-profit gallery, educational facility, production studio, and festival dedicated to emerging practices in art and technology. Our programs support art forms that integrate technology, fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition. InterAccess is regarded as a preeminent Canadian arts and technology centre.

From the Gardiner Museum Blog: masa is clay

From the Gardiner Museum Blog:

We invited local artists and writers to interact with and reflect on our Community Arts Space projects. Here, artist and writer janet romero-leiva reflects on the Artists-In-Residence Project: The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders, presented in partnership with Akin and Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization.

as the days get shorter and cooler            the darkness longer
they prepare for their departure south
back to the place their ancestors have been returning to for generations
knowing they cannot withstand the winter ahead
they have rested and reproduced
soaked in the varieties of milkweed especially planted for them around this city
this summer
a supportive and loving gesture to help them thrive and guarantee their return next spring
a gesture for survival
a gesture for migration

yet
an absent gesture when the butterfly is of the human kind
conveniently forgetting that human is you                        and the monarch is them
you speak of them as those people who come to take your jobs
plug up your city with crime
tainting proper english with dirty tongues
you
so perfectly living a colonized life you forget
english is not native to turtle island to this land
nor are you
forget where you came from
how dare they try to make a better life for themselves on this land?
unlike the monarchs
you have no recollection of how you got here
unlike the monarchs
you did not fly from mexico to canada taking four generations to return (back)
unlike the monarchs
you do not know the road back to your people
their genetic memory so accurate that is the only map they rely on
you
oblivious to the reality of your arrival
forget the migrant is you and you are the immigrant

the 18. 39. 72. year old immigrant
taken from her land generations past
transplanted to another continent to be uprooted again and again because
citizenship is not free and she needs to eat
forced to do work she never agreed to but too scared to retaliate because
her children need an education and she does not speak the language
making home where her feet touch land because
memory is in the body and her grand kids were seeds in her uterus before they were called into life
…those grand kids
learning through kokum. abuelita. lola. how to connect to the world
flooded with curiosity about her life back home
a home so far back the only memory she recalls is the masa in her hands
4 years old standing at the kitchen table with her tia
soft and squishy grainy and cool in her tiny hands
pat patting back and forth back and forth
until a perfectly round tortilla appeared
lumpy uneven and filled with tender 4 year old pride
the smile on her tia’s face the highlight of that afternoon
she ensures to assure her grand kids ancestral knowledge is within
even when broken and torn the knowledge cannot be stolen
it resides in the crevices of our bones
the scent of our skin
the longing of our hearts
the looking…

at these glorious monarch butterflies shaped by 1000 pairs of hands
know that boxes of clay were carried and carted across this city from community to community in the hopes of having elders and children share in the pat patting of clay to create each piece
back            and forth    back and             forth
carving the shapes and lines of the wings
mixing exact shades of yellows and oranges delicately brushed on
thumbprints and lumps creases and scratches
the perfection in their imperfections
broken and healing
the perfection in our imperfections
each (of us) an imprint of the masa that is the clay that is the land that is the truth
of the monarchs return south towards the sun in time to harvest the corn
of the monarchs return north to their breeding locations
of our return to ourselves                                                     and what we long for

–

janet romero-leiva is a queer feminist latinx visual artist and writer whose work explores immigrant bodies, denied aboriginality, queer and of colour existence, and the experience of living in between north and south, between spanish and english.

About The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders

Every summer and winter, monarch butterflies migrate across the North American continent. Coinciding with the arrival of monarch butterflies in Canada and their departure to Mexico, the Davenport Perth Community Ministry, alongside Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization, held a series workshops and events within the Davenport Perth community. These workshops led to the creation of a multitude of ceramic butterflies that highlight Turtle Island’s connection with ancient Indigenous cultures and the monarch, on view at the Gardiner Museum from August 22 – September 4.

Akin Lakeshore Studios Featured in Etobicoke Guardian!

“It’s about cross pollination”

— founder Oliver Pauk

Akin Lakeshore makes art studio space affordable in Etobicoke!

Last week Akin’s newest location in Etobicoke was featured in the Etobicoke Guardian and we couldn’t be more appreciative for this and the wonderfully positive response and warm welcome we have received in this new neighborhood. Continue reading below for an excerpt from the article by Tamara Shephard.

“Photographers. Painters. Sculptors. Writers. Video creators. Fashion designers. Jewelry makers.

Toronto is home to artists of acclaim in every medium, yet there’s an ever-increasing shortage of affordable workspace.

Akin Collective’s model responds to the challenge with monthly, affordable rentals of art studios and workspaces of varying sizes across Toronto, everywhere from inside the Museum of Contemporary Art to a converted former butcher shop at St. Clair Avenue West and Keele Street.

Next month, Akin Lakeshore opens to Etobicoke-based artists as 6,000 square feet of converted vacant commercial space on the third floor of 2970 Lake Shore Blvd. W. at Eighth Street.

Daylight floods through four foot tall windows and bounces off the bright white walls in a labyrinth of rooms, soon to become more than 30 dedicated art studios and shared workspaces, square footages taped out on grey carpet.”

INTERESTED IN AKIN LAKESHORE?

We are currently scheduling one-on-one tours. Please get in touch with Laura Keeling at laura@akincollective.com for more information, pricing inquiries, to book a tour or to share ideas. We look forward to hearing from you!

Call for OFF Screen, LIVE, and Guest Programs now open!

Images Festival is pleased to open their call for OFF SCREEN and LIVE submissions that accepts program and exhibition proposals for cinema screenings and gallery exhibitions on a rolling basis. 

Proposals will be reviewed in the summer and early fall over an extended period of planning as the festival’s program and presenting partnerships begin to take form.

Submission deadline: Ongoing

Proposals received in one review cycle may not be conceptually complementary or logistically possible for the upcoming festival year. However, the removal of a fixed submission deadline allows Images to consider proposals in greater depth, assess capacity, and prepare to seek funding and partnerships to meaningfully support the realization of the presentations. 

ABOUT IMAGES FESTIVAL

Images Festival annually exhibits film and video installations, media-based performances, and online work alongside its ON SCREEN program of film and video works. For the OFF SCREEN and LIVE segments of the festival, Images partners with GTA-based galleries, production centres, and other organizations.

Images presents work that counters dominant mainstream narratives and provides alternative ways of thinking and seeing that expands the understanding of media art through our programming and education-based initiatives. 

Images Festival does not select films based on any particular themes, genres or aesthetic categories but selects moving image works that share formal and political sensibilities which emerge from recent critical discourses between contemporary art, cinema and media arts. 

Jennifer Dany Aubé, Subin Ee and Sara Mozafari

There is only one month left in Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , a unique studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is honored to continue sharing profiles of the remarkable group of artists from our inaugural cohort. We have posted profiles of some of the artists throughout the summer and will continue until mid September; you can click here to see previous posts. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Jennifer Dany Aubé, Su Bin Ee and Sara Mozafari.

Image source: Jennifer Dany Aubé

Jennifer Dany Aubé

Jennifer Dany Aubé grew up in Hamilton, and studied fine arts at the University of Quebec. She was recognized as one of the emerging artists of the region upon graduation. Since Jennifer has travelled extensively, lived in India for 1.5 years, studied Yoga and volunteered at several yoga ashrams for several years. These experiences greatly influenced her art. Her artistic explorations started by experimenting with various textures to abstractly evoke the different textures that exist within the body. Removing the skin from the imagery removes the external focus of gender, race and physical beauty, to reveal the inner spirit that lies within the flesh.

As her Yoga practice grew, the aesthetics of her works changed, and her gestural movements became pregnant with more meaning. Jennifer’s recent works are called Yantras, sacred forms in which energies are held, and a visual tool used during meditation. Her work aims to ‘scratch the surface and reveal the light underneath’.

www.jenniferdany.ca

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Image source: sheridanartsblog.com

Subin Ee

Drawing is a primary practice in Subin Ee’s work. She sees drawing as a form of a language: an instinctual language, that does not require a symbolic syntax like a spoken language. However, it is similar in a sense that it is also immediate. In her drawings, Subin’s body is translated into lines and shapes. Her primary goal is to capture a fleeting moment. Her drawings therefore reflect the presence of her body through gestural mark making. She lays down multiple of layers using hard ground mediums such as charcoal, india ink, and black pastels, then she starts to erase the image. She will scrape the image, pour water and oil, scratch with a fork, apply gesso and white charcoal. The result is a collaborative image with herself, paper, mediums, and the surface that she lays the piece onto.

She is interested in the life of the drawings after completion. When the drawings are installed, the piece is capable of having conversations with the viewers.

www.subinee.com
www.instagram.com/silentpause

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Image source: www.instagram.com/sara_mozafari_art

Sara Mozafari

Sara Mozafari was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1981. Having grown up through the war between Iran and Iraq, and the suppression of the political and social activists, religious minorities, and women, social issues became the primary concern in her life and they were reflected on her artworks. Naturally, she was drawn to oil painting and had her first group exhibition in 2000 in Iran. She started studying Fine Arts Studio at Centennial College after she moved to Toronto. It was then when she was introduced to sculpture and installation art and noticed the significance of space in expressing an idea and experiencing an art piece. That led her to continue her study in Architectural Studies and Visual Studies at the University of Toronto and graduated with distinction in 2017.

Although in all these years she explored and applied different mediums, techniques, and styles to create artworks, she has found common ground which ties all the forms of art that she has exposed to, and that is Iranian social and political issues in a way she has experienced them.

www.saramozafari.com
www.instagram.com/sara_mozafari_art

You can see work by Jennifer, Subin and Sara from now until–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last nine months. 

Call for Submissions - Feminist Art Festival

Feminist Art Festival

Date: March 2020

Location: OCAD University, Toronto, Canada

Deadline: September 1, 2019

Feminist Art Collective (FAC) is a Toronto-based organization that brings together artists, academics, and activists to consider feminist issues through art and dialogue. We are currently accepting submissions for our March 2020 exhibition and conference.

If you are an emerging, established, and/or community artist that addresses intersectional social justice feminist themes in your work, we want to hear from you!

We encourage submissions from First Nations, Inuit, and Métis artists to further the discussion around recommendations in the recently released Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report in Canada.

We are committed to creating an event that is diverse and reflective of all our communities and we are actively encouraging artists who experience multiple forms of oppression to submit. We strongly encourage Artists with Disabilities, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, Two Spirit Folks, Queer, Trans and Non-Binary/Gender Nonconforming people to apply.

FAC Vision

Feminist Art Collective (FAC) aims to showcase like-minded, multi-disciplinary art including visual art, film, theatre arts, music, dance, design, spoken word and literature. We will create a space that is celebratory, positive, intellectually engaging and provocative. We are committed to this space being trans-inclusive, anti-racist, and intersectional. Furthermore, by providing an opportunity for feminist artists to meet and share their work, we believe we can provide opportunities for networking and future artistic collaboration that can inspire social change and empowerment. We have the vision that the ripple effect from this type of artistic sharing and learning can provoke positive transformations in both our communities and our minds.

Only a few days left to check out Tsunami by Gwen Tooth at Red Head Gallery

There are only a few days left to check out Tsunami, a solo exhibition by Akin Lansdowne artist Gwen Tooth at Red Head Gallery. The show runs until August 24, 2019. The exhibition is Gwen’s exploration of expressing the soul, energy and movement of bodies of water.

“This exploration into the destructive and damaging force of tsunami walls took me further into the dark side and danger of uncontrollable walls of water. I incorporated bits of gold foil, and many types of textured mediums, such as black lava, resin, sand and glass beads, to express the nature and power of the churning and fast-moving wall of water as it picked up debris, crunched prized possessions, and stirred up the ground beneath it. This was and is the force of total destruction. I look back upon the evolution of my work as the semblance of reality disappears, yet the essence and feeling remain. With the installation of these paintings in close proximity, as I stand in the middle of the room, I am feeling that nature is in charge, not humans.”
- Gwen Tooth

About Gwen Tooth:
Gwen is an experimental and expressionist painter. She has in recent years completed several series of acrylic paintings revealing the moods and energies of water – whirlpools, waterfalls, and tsunamis. Gwen is a member of Propeller and of Gallery 1313. She is an Associate member of the Society of Canadian Artists. Gwen holds a B.A. from Western University, a BFA (Honours) 2005 from Ontario College of Art and Design University and a Fine Arts Certificate (Honours) from Humber College. www.zhibit.org/gwentooth

TAS Presents Makers' Market this Saturday at The Planet

TAS invites you to to support local artists & makers of all kinds and visit their Makers’ Market is this Saturday, Aug 24 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Planet at 1655 Dupont St. There will be something for everyone.

 TAS is a community-focused, mixed-use developer that is deeply committed to building resilient urban villages founded on sustainable connections to food, family and future. TAS cultivates long-term relationships with communities to ensure their positive impact extends well beyond the footprint of their buildings.

You are also invited to TAS’ Block Party on Sunday, September 8 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. to celebrate the end of an exciting summer at The Planet. There will be a POP-UP Adventure Playground by EarthPLAY, a colouring mural & local food vendors—fun for the whole family!

Please RSVP here, hope to see you there!

33rd Images Festival Call for ON SCREEN Submissions

Established in 1987, IMAGES FESTIVAL is the longest running and most influential moving image festival in Canada. Our ON SCREEN program is an annual survey dedicated to contemporary artist’s film and video presented in a cinema context and to moving image in all its forms.

Images presents work that counters dominant mainstream narratives and provides alternative ways of thinking and seeing that expands the understanding of media art through our programming and education-based initiatives. 

Images Festival does not select films based on any particular themes, genres or aesthetic categories but selects moving image works that share formal and political sensibilities which emerge from recent critical discourses between contemporary art, cinema and media arts. 

DATES

The 33rd edition of Images Festival will take place between April 16 to 22, 2020.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE

Monday, October 14, 2019. 

GENERAL SUBMISSION ELIGIBILITY

Images Festival will consider works that have been completed in the last three years, including short, mid-length and feature films. Artists maintain final edit and copyright control. 

If you submit an incomplete film (rough cuts, works-in-progress), the picture must be locked. We do not offer funds for the completion of works, or take on commissions.

STUDENT SUBMISSION ELIGIBILITY

Images Festival will accept student works that have been completed in the last academic year (2019/2020) for consideration in our annual International Student Showcase program, which is programmed by students and/or recent graduates. The work must not exceed 20 minutes in length in order to qualify.

Student artists and filmmakers can submit a maximum of two submissions/works. If there are multiple submissions, only the first two works submitted by each student will be reviewed. 

If students elect to submit to the general On Screen Competition program (rather than in the student category), the entry fee requirement applies. 

PLEASE NOTE: Student works may NOT be entered into both the Student and On Screen Competition programs.

BMO 1st Art! Competition Recognizes Fresh Perspectives from Emerging Canadian Artists.

BMO Financial Group announces one national winner and 12 regional winners of their annual BMO 1st Art! competition

• $15,000 is awarded to the national winner; $7,500 is awarded to each regional winner

• All selected works will be showcased from November 21 to December 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 158 Sterling Rd, Toronto

National Winner from Manitoba
Figure as Index (Triptych) by Luther Konadu

TORONTO, August 12, 2019 – BMO Financial Group today announced the winners of its 17th annual BMO 1st Art! competition, recognizing visual arts excellence among undergraduate artists across Canada.

The invitational competition presents emerging artists with cash awards of $15,000 to one national winner and $7,500 to 12 regional winners from coast to coast. An esteemed panel of jurors selected the 13 outstanding works from a pool of 291 submissions. All winning pieces will be showcased from November 21 to December 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 158 Sterling Rd, Toronto, following a private exhibition opening on Wednesday, November 20.

“I’m proud of all of the work that BMO does to support emerging artists through its various projects year-round,” said Cameron Fowler, President, North American Personal & Business Banking, BMO Financial Group. “It’s an honour to be part of an initiative that recognizes the wealth of Canadian talent from coast to coast. Congratulations to the 2019 winners on their accomplishment.”

“It’s wonderful to see such inventive and complex projects from a group of graduates, knowing that their generation is the future of art in Canada,” said Dawn Cain, Curator, BMO Corporate Art Collection. “We applaud this year’s honourees and look forward to celebrating their well-deserved recognition in November.”

Once again, Deans and instructors of 110 undergraduate student art programs were invited to select three graduating students from each of their studio specialties to submit a recent work.

For the first time in the competition’s history, the 2019 submission guidelines allowed for time-based media including video, film, slide, audio and computer technologies, in addition to the previously accepted mediums of drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, sculpture, glass, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, and installation works.

Call for Applications! Curator in Residence for Tangled Art + Disability

The Tangled Art Gallery Curator in Residence position is an opportunity for Mad, Deaf and Disability-identified curators and artists with curatorial experience interested in researching and developing accessible/crip curatorial practices and developing an exhibition or project for the 2020/21 Tangled Art Gallery season. This residency will provide an opportunity for a curatorial resident to research, develop, implement, and document innovative curatorial practices through a disability cultural lens. This residency is suited to curators and artists interested in forming relationships with artists, thinking critically about crip aesthetics (and how they can be highlighted within curatorship), and implementing these learnings in the curation of an exhibition at the end of this residency.

This residency is co-developed and supported in partnership with Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life, a SSHRC-funded multidisciplinary, university-community research project that aims to cultivate activist art, including Deaf, Mad, and disability art through research. Reporting to the Director of Programming at Tangled and the Program Directors of Bodies in Translation, the Curator in Residence will be encouraged to engage in self-directed research on accessible curatorial practices, outreach to national and international artists who could potentially be curated by, or connected to Tangled, and work independently in the development of a curated exhibition.

The Residency program will provide artists with a $5000 stipend. The exhibition will culminate with a public exhibition, essay and curatorial talk at Tangled Art Gallery in the 2020/2021 season.

This Call is open until August 30, 2019.

Tangled Art + Disability is committed to programming from within Deaf, Mad and disability communities and will only consider applicants for this position who identify with one of these communities. We encourage applications from First Nations, Métis and Inuit persons; members of racialized communities and LGBTQ-identified persons.

Self-care 'n Sisterhood: Seasons of Self-care

Do you constantly feel overwhelmed with life and have little or no time for self-care?

Did you know that BURNOUT is now an official medical diagnosis?

Research by The Mental Health Commission of Canada highlights lack of culturally relevant information and community support as some gaps in our current mental health care systems.

Ebony Girls Obsession is empowering black women to tap into a higher level of self-care, while building a supportive community.

At our monthly in-person, Self-care In Sisterhood sessions we focus on pouring into ourselves; sharing stories and resources; and holding each other accountable in our self-care journey. We engage in activities such as: storytelling, creative writing, community building, and creative games + exercises.

Like nature, we experience everything in seasons. So, for sessions 13 - 15 we will be exploring how to practice self-care through different seasons and moments of adversity. Each session will be as follows:

August 25 - Session 15: Self-care through adversity (co-facilitated by: Rochelle Miller)

Rochelle Miller is a multi-disciplinary movement coach and facilitator. In her teens, she trained in many different sports before starting the practice of yoga & yoga asana in her early 20s. This lead to a life long journey of inquiry and self-discovery through movement and mindfulness.

She began teaching in 2014 and her work has focused on creating spaces for embodied movement specifically in groups that have experienced trauma, and this informs all of her offerings.

She is a student first and is continuously learning new and different ways to experience joy through movement. She brings together a unique blend of yoga Postures, primary movement principles, as well as strength and mobility coaching.

Sick & Disabled Queer Zine Fair - August 25th

The Sick & Disabled Queer Zine Fair (SDQZF - known last year as SDQYZF) is back again for a second year with Bricks & Glitter! Come check out the fair featuring zines, art and merch to purchase from a sweet line-up (TBA) of sick, disabled, d/Deaf, Mad and neurodivergent 2SLGBTQ+ vendors.

The fair will take place Sunday August 25th from 1pm-5pm at the George Chuvalo Community Centre (50 Sousa Mendes St). This venue is a fully accessible facility, has all-gender washrooms, and ASL interpretation has been confirmed. The event is FREE or by donation (optional) for the Bricks & Glitter festival fund.

ACCESS INFO
The building has power doors, level floors (no steps) , all-gender washrooms (including one large single stall accessible washroom, and multi stall washrooms with some larger stalls), an elevator, and there will be a 'chill out' room for folks to sit, relax, and have light snacks. The main space is lined with very large windows so the space will be lit with natural light, and supplemented with lighting from multiple standing lamps if needed (if it is overcast and darker outside).

The George Chuvalo Community Centre strives to provide a scent-free environment. For the safety of our vendors and attendees with chemical disabilities, we ask that you do not wear scented products (perfume, cologne, essential oils, scented body products) in the space. If you are a smoker, please take a walk/roll down or across the street to smoke and make sure to wash your hands with the scent-free soap in the bathroom before approaching vendors.

BRICKS & GLITTER - We are a trouble of queers who believe in creativity and collectivity, in imagining together a world worth living in. Intersectional by default and critical by necessity, we are trying to create a space for us all of us, to world build together, and to practice the future in the now. Bricks and Glitter is a community arts festival, celebrating two-spirit, trans and queer talent, ingenuity, caring, anger, and abundance.

MOCA Artist Series: Maren Boedeker, Raoul Olou, and Emma White

There are only a few weeks left in Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , a new and unique studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is honored to continue sharing profiles of the multi-talented group of artists from our inaugural cohort. We have posted profiles over the past few weeks of some of the artists and will continue until September; you can click here to see previous posts. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Maren Boedeker, Raoul Olou, and Emma White.

Image source: Maren Boedeker. Untitled 1, 2018.

Maren Boedeker

Maren Boedeker studied visual arts and art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Münster, Germany.

Her abstract, large-scale canvases have been shown in galleries in Germany, Belgium and Canada. She received the artist-in-residency-grant Liguria, Italy and was awarded first place in the exhibition "Art for Europe", curated by the European Community in Brussels, Belgium.

Besides her artistic practice, she has continuously been working with children, teens and adults as an art teacher and instructor.

https://www.marenboedeker.com/

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Image source: Sarah Bodri @sarahbodri

Raoul Olou

Raoul Olou is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Toronto. His work focus on home, belonging and archiving the mundane.

https://raoulolou.com/

https://www.instagram.com/raoul_o

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Image source: Emma White. Vita Coco, 2019

Emma White

Emma White is a recent graduate of Fine Art at Queen’s University, and is new to Toronto. Her main focus is oil painting, although she works with many mediums (such as sculpture and collage) in the process of creating a final painting. 

She is extremely influenced by her surrounding environment. This can be a natural setting or a parking lot; it can be somewhere she has lived for years or a vacation spot she passed through in a few minutes. What makes these places important to me is that she has seen them, and through the act of looking, she has left her trace there forever.

This irreversible act of occupying a space is something that she attempts to express through her work. When someone looks at my piece, they’ve now touched the work themselves, as well as the place that the piece depicts. She thinks of the artworks as portals to these special places. 

www.emmawhite.net/

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You can see work by Maren, Raoul and Emma from now until–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last nine months. 

We also hope you can join us for MOCA Goes Dark, an interactive art party on August 17 by the artists and curators of the exhibition An Index. Come see MOCA transformed into an interactive art party by some of Toronto’s best emerging artists.

Learn How to Make a Living in the Arts at Ryerson University

Gain essential business skills needed throughout the creative chain.

Ryerson University’s Chang School of Continuing Education offers arts and entertainment administration courses to help you enhance your marketing, management, audience engagement, sponsorship, and social media promotion to support your creative work.

MAKING A LIVING IN THE ARTS COURSE: STARTS SEPTEMBER 9

This September, we are offering Making a Living in the Arts(course enrolment page: CDAM 100), a foundational course designed for arts managers, potential managers, and individual artists who want to learn the business skills required throughout the creative chain – creation, production, marketing and promotion, pricing and selling, distribution, and managing finance. Students will build a case study based or a real or imagined project of their own.

Your Instructor: Sandy Crawley

Learn directly from Sandy Crawley, who has worked in the arts for over 40 years (as performer, musician, musical director, instructor, and volunteer board member) and has provided management services to a number of nonprofit arts organizations for the last 15 years. He has played a leadership role in several organizations across the cultural sector, sharing knowledge and experience that informs his teaching.

Gallery 44 Launches Chapter 2 of “A maze of collapsing lines”

Gallery 44 is excited to launch Chapter 2 of A maze of collapsing lines; titled A Dark Room, Chapter 2 features the self-curated work of Black Artists Union members Jem Baptiste, Oreka James, Sylvia Limbana, Filmon Yohannes and Zoma.

A Dark Room takes the form of two mini-series that explore Black representation in film through self-expression and storytelling. The first mini-series, The Body Talks and I’m Listenin’, consists of two videos that highlight Black nightlife as the originator of many popular styles of dance that have been appropriated by mainstream culture. These videos function to give credit back to the originators of these dance styles, that include queer nightlife, and “voguing”, among others. The second series, I Declare this Meeting of the Midnight Society Closed, foregrounds storytelling as a way to learn Black histories and ancestral lineage, and honours the domestic labour performed by Black wimmin. These videos will be released sequentially, on a weekly basis.

Alongside the film series, A Dark Room serves as a place for interaction and discourse about Black film and Black media for the Black community; A Dark Room features an online archive, created by and for the community. Only members of the Black community will be given access to this section of the website, and will have the opportunity to embed and link to their own content, creating a crowd-sourced archive.

Paperhouse Studio - Fall 2019 Classes Open for Registration

This season's education programme has some of Paperhouse Studio’s classic and popular classes plus plenty of opportunities to pick up more skills in their brand new classes!

Classic classes include: Beginner Introduction to Papermaking, Pulp Painting Eco Printing, Papercutting Explorations and more!

Paperhouse Studio’s new classes include Papercutting Explorations, Unusually Shaped Boxes, Gold Tooling on Paper and more!

MOCA Artist Series: Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Humboldt Magnussen, Adria Mirabelli and Tanya Louise Workman

There are only two months left in Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , a unique studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is honored to continue sharing profiles of the remarkable group of artists from our inaugural cohort. We have posted profiles over the past few weeks of some of the artists and will continue until September; you can click here to see previous posts. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Humboldt Magnussen and Adria Mirabelli.

Image source: Ghazaleh Avarzamani

Ghazaleh Avarzamani

Ghazaleh Avarzamani (b. 1980, Tehran) is an artist currently based in Toronto. She was trained in painting at Azad Art University, Tehran and holds a Master of Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, London. Avarzamani’s practice examines the role of experience, memory, psychology, modern rationality and educational methodologies in the construction of knowledge. Considering a range of spaces, structures and devices for interactivity, self-development and play, her work questions the contextual biases that shape meanings and values. Exploring these concerns in relation to growth and erasure, Avarzamani aims to expose the paradoxical realities beneath the surface of society.

Her art practice encompasses a variety of forms, including sewing, needlework, patchwork, printing, ceramics and installation. This craft dimension of her work is combined with research that seeks to discover the socio-historical relevance of these disciplines, as it reflects on her own experience and larger cultural issues.

www.ghazalehavarzamani.com
www.instagram.com/ghazaleh.avarzamani

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Image source: www.instagram.com/humboldtmagnussen

Humboldt Magnussen

Humboldt Magnussen is an artist and curator from rural Saskatchewan. Magnussen holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at OCAD University focusing on performance art and masculinity studies and a BFA from Concordia University from 2011 in Studio Arts. Humboldt weaves in autobiographical elements with larger political and social context to talk about the lack of safety and protection for queer people, even in designated “Safe Spaces”. He is interested in ways to visualize complicated notions of identity and gender / sexuality which can contribute to the growing conversation on these topics in Canada.

His practice is interdisciplinary in nature. Often his work is rooted in performance and includes the creation and use of elaborate masks and helmets. He utilizes elements of humour and glamour to make difficult topics more accessible and to create entry points for people to engage with the work.

www.instagram.com/humboldtmagnussen

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Image source: Adria Mirabelli

Adria Mirabelli

Adria Mirabelli graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2015 with a major in Drawing and Painting and Minor in Textiles. Having also studied at Parsons Paris her work is influenced by conceptual themes and narratives alongside art and craft processes. Adria uses a variety of media and practices to create her works, utilizing collage, drawing, textile manipulation, installation, poetry and sculpture. Her works are often autobiographical and explore themes of space + place, temporality, belonging, love, and longing. Her process involves the collection of extensive, rotational archives of physical materials including ephemera, photographs, digital images, and texts, often saved from spaces of lived experience. This ever-developing catalog serves as the inspiration and materials for her final works, which manifest in various physical and digital forms.

Adria strives to create works that explore experiences of fear, desire, and love in regard to personhood, place and nostalgia. She makes work in an effort to create spaces of connection and acceptance through moments of beauty.

www.adriamirabelli.com
www.instagram.com/adriamirabelli

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Photo by Sean Patenaude

Tanya Louise Workman

Tanya Louise Workman is a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary artist, storytelling facilitator and journalist who works with audio, images and text to unravel the relationships between voice and our embodied selves. Her photographic, multimedia and audio work has been exhibited and screened in spaces in Toronto and internationally. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University, a post-graduate certificate in creative writing from the Humber School for Writers and a photojournalism diploma from Loyalist College.

Through spoken word, sound, installation, images and writing, I tune in to the embodied experience. My body is a radio, both a receiver and a transmitter; I listen in to make audible, visible and tactile what the body holds – what reverberates between interior and exterior selves, between what is seen and heard.

Tanya is a candidate in the low-residency MFA program at Maine Media College + Workshops in Rockport, Maine, and is one of the artists-in-residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto as part of the inaugural Akin Studio Program at MOCA. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University, a post-graduate certificate in creative writing from the Humber School for Writers and a photojournalism diploma from Loyalist College.

She is currently working on her first book.

www.tanyaworkman.com
www.instagram.com/tanyalouiseworkman

You can see work by Humboldt, Adria and Tanya from now until–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last nine months. 

We also hope you can join us for MOCA Goes Dark, an interactive art party on August 17 by the artists and curators of the exhibition An Index. Come see MOCA transformed into an interactive art party by some of Toronto’s best emerging artists.

Best Of Our Neighbourhood: BOON by Tune Your Ride Collective

August 13 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm & August 24 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Tune Your Ride Collective will host BOON: community open stages featuring local artists on a stage completely powered by stationary bicycles. Top performers will open the 10th Annual Toronto Bicycle Music Festival on August 24th.

Musicians, actors, authors, comedians, magicians, and dancers of all types, cultures, and ages are invited to share your talent at BOON: a family-friendly community open-stage powered completely by stationary bicycles.

Are you a performer who would like to sign up? See here: torontobicyclemusicfestival.com

MOCA Artist Series: Leone McComas, Carrie Chisholm and Liang Wang

We are in the home stretch for Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , a unique studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is honored to continue sharing profiles of thetalented group of artists from our inaugural cohort. We have posted profiles of some of the artists throughout the summer and will continue until mid September; you can click here to see previous posts. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Leone McComas, Carrie Chisholm and Liang Wang.

Image source: Leone McComas

Leone McComas

McComas’ painting practice examines ideas of the self and the internalization of social ideologies–capturing states through conceptualized figure/environment relationships and digitally influenced landscapes. Following a growing sense of artistic responsibility, her current work is created from a place of hope (not pain), as reflected by visual metaphors of transformation and a desire to maintain a painting’s luminosity. Her painting technique is both intuitive and process driven; a method producing highly detailed and saturated oil paintings that appear to glow from within.

McComas graduated from OCADU receiving her BDes in 2013 and participated in the Faculty of Art’s 36th Florence Off-Campus Program. She is a recipient of the OIEOS 2010 Scholarship, OAC 2018 Visual Arts Project Grant, and is an AKIN artist at MOCA Toronto.

http://www.leonemccomas.com/

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Image source: Carrie Chisholm

Carrie Chisholm

Carrie Chisholm, AOCAD, MFA is an award-winning artist/designer and communications professional who draws inspiration from her engagement with arts and culture communities and institutions at home and abroad. She is a strong proponent for capacity building in the culture sector and has made valuable contributions through events/project/operations management, governance, strategic visioning, public relations, programming, promotions, volunteerism and audience development. 

When not championing her cause, Carrie methodically devotes her time to her mixed media art practice, interspersing 2-D (drawing/painting) and 3-D (sculpture/installation) applications. She is particularly fascinated with the optical affects and illusions generated by the elements of line, colour and light such as ornamentation, pattern, transparency, shadow casting and reflection. Conceptually her work questions the philosophical nature of an individual's free will when confronted by the allure of consumerism. These interests have been mined over the course of Carrie’s practice, which commenced after the completion of her studies in Florence, Italy in 2000. 

https://www.carriechisholm.com/

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Image source: Liang Wang

Liang Wang

Liang Wang is a Toronto-based painter raised in various parts of Taiwan, China, Australia and Canada. He has exhibited work in numerous groups shows at locations including Northern Contemporary Gallery (Toronto); Federation Gallery, Turnbull Gallery (Vancouver); and Rutherford Galleria (Edmonton). His work is in private collections in Canada and New Zealand. One day I saw the sunset forty-four times is his first solo show. Wang currently teaches painting at the McCanny Secondary School.

http://www.bywangliang.com/

You can see work by Leone, Carrie and Liang from now until–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to varying degrees by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last few months.