ARTIST IN THE ARCHIVES: PAMILA MATHARU IN CONVERSATION WITH GABRIELLE MOSER

Pamila Matharu, stuck between an archive and an aesthetic (installation view) 2019. Colour HD video, 40 mins.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Join artist Pamila Matharu for a screening of stuck between an archive and an aesthetic, a new experimental documentary recently featured at A Space Gallery as part of the 32nd Images Festival of Independent Film + Video. Mining lost and forgotten voices reverberating inside the institution, Matharu uses event documentation from found videotapes to explore what is missing from the AGO's archive. Remixing found materials that travel outside the museum, on the streets, on community-television and returning back inside the institution she asks, what exactly has or has not changed in the often-misunderstood area of “diversity programming”?

The screening will be followed by a conversation between the artist and Gabrielle Moser about the generation of this work. 

 

Pamila Matharu (b.1973) is an immigrant-settler of north Indian Panjabi-Sikh descent, born in Birmingham, England, based in Tkarón:to (Toronto). As an artist, she explores a range of transdisciplinary feminist issues, blurring the lines between objects, activism, community organizing, and public pedagogies. Her practices include object making (installation, collage, film/video/photography), curating/organizing, artist-led teaching, arts administration/advocacy, and social practice.

Gabrielle Moser is a writer, educator and independent curator based in Toronto. A founding member of EMILIA-AMALIA, she holds a PhD from the art history and visual culture program at York University in Toronto, Canada and is an Assistant Professor in art history at OCAD University.

This is an Accessible Event.

Venue & Address: 
E.P. Taylor Library & Archives, Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street West
Website: 
https://ago.ca/events/artist-archives-pamila-matharu-conversation-gabrielle-moser?fbclid=IwAR0u28feVv_xmAWo-7D92GNm9LxklWvl1F7yh1ZgtzdUqvMU71DplrORAfQ
Cost: 
Free

Jad Al Rabbaa (Digital Futures, MDes 2019) Presents his research project, "MRsive" at HCII

Jad Al Rabbaa MRsive
Wednesday, August 21, 2019 - 3:45pm

Congratulations to Jad Al Rabbaa (Digital Futures, MDes 2019) who recently attended the HCII 2019 - (Human Computer Interaction International) held in Orlando, Florida. Jad was invited to present his extended abstract and poster submission co-written by OCAD U Faculty members Dr. Alexis Morris and Dr. Sowmya Somanath.

"It was a very humbling and insightful experience. I met a lot of people in the industry and discussed very interesting research initiatives that are currently happening in universities around the world." - Jad Al Rabba

Jad was one of eighteen students from around the world chosen to present at the conference; as part of the novel design ideas student competition. MRsive investigates, "How indoor wayfinding and visitor engagement in the museum might be improved through interactive augmented reality. We designed “MRsive”, a handheld Augmented Reality (AR) tool using a user-centered design approach. The ultimate goal is twofold: the first is to simplify the required cognitive effort in navigating the museum space, and the second goal is to boost visitor engagement with museum artifacts through multisensory interaction. MRsive uses computer vision tools to read visual features in the space and achieve accurate indoor positioning of the directions and virtual cues anchored in the physical space."

For more information about Jad's work, visit:

JadRabbaa.com

https://link.springer.com/chapter10-1007978-3-030-23525-373/10.1007%2F978-3-030-23525-3_73

and ResearchGate.net:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334344985_MRsive_An_Augmented_Reality_Tool_for_Enhancing_Wayfinding_and_Engagement_with_Art_in_Museums

CECILY NICHOLSON AND JULIANE OKOT BITEK WITH LILLIAN ALLEN:FORGETTING, REMEMBERING

Saturday, April 6, 2019 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm

CECILY NICHOLSON AND JULIANE OKOT BITEK WITH LILLIAN ALLEN:FORGETTING, REMEMBERING

Saturday April 6, 2019, 2 pm

Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario

West Coast-based poets and friends, Cecily Nicholson and Juliane Okot Bitek will be joined by Toronto’s Lillian Allen (OCADU) in a conversation about cross-cultural memory and collective amnesia. The authors, whose work has contemplated these themes, will think through the poem as a document of memory: considering what poetry can add to existing narrow histories, and the role of memory in building resilient futures.

Juliane Okot Bitek ’s work has been published widely online, in print and in literary magazines. Her work has been recently anthologized in New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent; Transition: Writing Black Canadas; Great Black North; Contemporary African Canadian Poetry; and Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them. Juliane’s 100 Days (University of Alberta 201) is a poetic response to the twentieth anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Inspired by the photographs of Wangechi Mutu, Juliane wrote a poem a day for a hundred days and posted them on her website and on social media. The book won the 2017 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award for Poetry and the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. Other recent poetry awards include the 2017 National Magazine Awards for which Migrations: Salt Stories was shortlisted and the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize for which Gauntlet was longlisted.

On Musqueam-, Squamish-, and Tsleil-Waututh- land, Cecily Nicholson has worked in the downtown eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver since 2000 — most recently as Administrator of the artist-run centre, Gallery Gachet. A part of the Joint Effort prison abolitionist group and a member of the Research Ethics Board for Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Cecily is the newly appointed Interpretive Programmer at the Surrey Art Gallery. She is the author of TriageFrom the Poplars, winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and Wayside Sang, 2018 winner of the Governor General's award for poetry.

Lillian Allen is a Jamaican-Canadian professor of creative writing at OCAD University, Toronto. Multi-disciplinary and experimental, Allen’s creativity crosses many genres including radio, theatre, music and film. As a two-time JUNO Award winner (Revolutionary Tea Party, a Ms. Magazine Landmark Album Conditions Critical) and trailblazer in the field of spoken word and dub poetry, Allen artistically explores the aesthetics of old and new sounds in music to create her distinctive brand of Canadian reggae. Allen’s debut book of poetry, Rhythm An’ Hardtimes became a Canadian bestseller, and she has held the post of Writer-in-Residence at Canada’s Queen’s University and University of Windsor. Founder of the Toronto International Dub Poetry Festival and a variety of cultural organizations such as Fresh Arts that empower youth, Allen has spent over three decades writing, publishing, performing and doing workshop presentations of her work to audiences around the globe.

This event is organized in-part by the first-year Criticism and Curatorial masters students of OCAD U.

Jackman Hall is accessible.

Venue & Address: 
Jackman Hall Art Gallery of Ontario 317 Dundas St W, Toronto
Website: 
http://ago.ca/events/cecily-nicholson-and-juliane-okot-bitek-lillian-allen-forgetting-remembering
Email: 
ecadotte@faculty.ocadu.ca
Cost: 
FREE

Global Indigeneity: De-Colonialization, Reconciliation, & Issues of Appropriation

Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - 12:00pm to 2:00pm

OCAD U/AGO Art Education Learning Partnership Symposium:   Global Indigeneity: De-Colonialization, Reconciliation, & Issues of Appropriation

Feb 12, 12:00 - 2pm Weston Family Learning Centre, Art Gallery of Ontario

Free - Open to OCADU and AGO communities

Art & Design Education Lab: AGO, a collaborative cross-disciplinary course co-facilitated in partnership between the AGO and OCADU, has, over the last decade, presented a number of symposia with the intention of de/re-constructing knowledges and energizing our communities around teaching and learning. This symposium features a presentation by speaker Nadia McLaren, Indigenous artist and educational developer, OCADU and a gallery tour facilitated by artist and AGO art educator Paula Gonzales-Ossa. Please join us for this free event in the Weston Family Learning Centre Seminar Room at the AGO.

Nadia McLaren

Nadia is an Anishnaabe whose family roots are in Heron Bay, Pic River located on the North Shore of Lake Superior. She grew up in small towns across Northwestern Ontario and calls Sioux Lookout home. Nadia is a mother of two, a Drawing and Painting graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, a published author and is currently finishing a graphic novel entitled, “Ever Good,” which was awarded a grant from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a project of commemoration.

As Educational Developer (Indigenous Learning), Nadia brings deep knowledge and experience in the areas of Indigenous pedagogy, professional development and community engagement to her work. Nadia is an accomplished educator, artist and storyteller with more than 15 years’ experience working in Indigenous educational contexts. She is also the creator (writer/director/producer) of an award-winning documentary, “Muffins for Granny,” (Mongrel Media 2007). This documentary involved extensive research with community Elders and residential school survivors, was the recipient of a prestigious Aboriginal Healing Foundation grant and is part of the esteemed Criterion Collection.

Paula Gonzalez-Ossa is a visual arts instructor and mentoring artist at Na Me Res Sagatay Native Men's Residence. She has had 17 years of experience as a Community Youth Worker with youth at risk in Toronto's West. She is also a mural artist who has been working with many communities producing street level public art, both in Canada and Latin America for over 25 years. Her works, like the most recent 500 ft. mural titled "Our Medicines", located at the underpass at Dupont and Shaw, or "The Ancestral Tree Spirits" located at the Nordheimer Ravine's TTC station exit, depict a colourful First Nations cosmovision in relation to the Original lands of Ontario. She worked closely in creating this work with Anishnawbe mentors, Elders and Knowledge Keepers. She is currently developing a documentary about public art and protocol in the use of Ancestral Images for the City of Toronto's StART program. Gonzalez-Ossa is originally from Talca, Chile, and is now based in Toronto.  

 

Venue & Address: 
Weston Family Learning Centre, Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto, ON
Cost: 
Free - Open to OCADU and AGO communities

Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon panel discussion with Johanna Householder

photo of hands at a laptop computer
Saturday, March 24, 2018 - 11:00am to 5:00pm

Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon

Saturday, March 24th

Panel Discussion from 11 am - noon, Editing noon - 5 pm, Tutorials at 12:30 pm and 2 pm

The Art Gallery of Ontario Library & Archives celebrates International Women's Day by hosting a satellite event of the 5th annual international Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon.  This event is a chance to put the AGO's thousands of artist files and books to excellent use as reference material for building up Wikipedia content on topics related to art and feminism.

The event will kick off with a panel discussion exploring collaboration as a feminist strategy. Amy Furness, the Head of the E.P. Taylor Library & Archives will moderate the discussion featuring Toronto-based artists Madelyne Beckles, Amy Wong, Johanna Householder, and FAG (Feminist Art Gallery). The editing starts at noon.

People of all gender identities and expressions are welcomed and encouraged to attend. No Wikipedia editing experience is necessary – there will be tutorials and one-on-one coaching available.  Come and take part, or just come have some snacks and cheer us on.

Please bring a laptop and create a Wikipedia account in advance.

Children are welcome at the event!
An AGO children's art instructor will be offering two free hands-on mixed media studio workshops available for children aged 5-12 whose caregiver is participating in the Edit-A-Thon. The studio workshops will run from 11 am - 1 pm and 2-4 pm, with a one hour lunch break.

Preregistration for workshops required by March 20. Register for free childrens' workshops now.

Venue & Address: 
Art Gallery of Ontario 317 Dundas St. W, E.P. Taylor Library & Archives Toronto ON
Website: 
http://ago.ca/events/art-feminism-wikipedia-edit-thon
Phone: 
1-877-225-4246 or 416-979-6648
Cost: 
Saturday, March 24th @ 11:00 am - 5:00 pm THIS IS A FREE EVENT

Barbara Astman part of the Look Forward initiative at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Photo of a person smoking
Thursday, February 1, 2018 - 11:00am to Wednesday, February 28, 2018 - 6:00pm

Did you know the AGO collection – both on display and in the vaults – has a total of nearly 95,000 works?  Curators are strategically adding to that number by acquiring key pieces, supported by the generosity of donors and collectors who share the mission to bring people together with great art.

To keep you up to date with what’s new in the Gallery and as part of the Look:Forward initiative, they’ve created a gallery space dedicated to showing many recent acquisitions. Located in Irina Moore Gallery West on Level 2 of the AGO – head up the scissor stairs and take a right down the hallway – this exhibit will rotate every few months.

Right now two key works from Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, Town (1999) and Butterfly (1985) are on display. Both works are colourful screen prints and feature Kusama’s signature polka dot motif. Kusama once said, “Our earth is only one polka dot among millions of others…we must forget ourselves with polka dots! We most lose ourselves in the ever-advancing stream of eternity.” In Butterfly, she uses contrasting psychedelic colours to appeal to our sensory imagination – and you may wonder if the butterfly is flying through space or if it’s caught in a net. Many more works by Kusama will be featured in the upcoming show, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, opening on March 3.

On a nearby wall, you’ll spot two works by Barbara Astman, Dear Jared (1979-80) and Untitled (1981). Astman is an American-born artist who moved to Toronto to study at the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU) in 1970. Though the works were created only a few years apart, Dear Jared and Untitled highlight a shift in Astman’s practice: a move away from using text in her work and towards a focus on the symbolism of objects in her photographs.

Alongside these works, you’ll also see Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup I (1968), Jasper Johns’s Two Flags (1980) and Roy Lichtenstein’s Two Paintings: Dagwood (1984), all of which were acquired in the last year, thanks to a generous donation from Margaret and Jim Fleck.

Venue & Address: 
Art Gallery of Ontario 317 Dundas St. West Irina Moore Gallery West on Level 2 Toronto, ON
Website: 
http://artmatters.ca/wp/2018/01/whats-shiny-new/?utm_source=New+AGO+Master+List&utm_campaign=bc5d4667b1-AGOinsider_06-01-2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d4ab708299-bc5d4667b1-245931085

2017 Creative Time Summit: Of Homelands and Revolution - Student Discounts

Creative Time Summit
Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 3:00pm to Saturday, September 30, 2017 - 3:00pm

The Creative Time Summit is an annual convening for thinkers, dreamers, and doers working at the intersection of art and politics.

The 10th Creative Time Summit, Of Homelands and Revolution is coming to Toronto from September 28th – 30th, 2017, and will feature three days of speakers, workshops, get-togethers, and radical public art. The Summit, co-produced with The Power Plant and in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario, is already an experience unlike any other, and this year it’s paired with Nuit Blanche Toronto!

****Discounted ticket code available for all OCAD University students. For the code, email us at summit@creativetime.org

Of Homelands and Revolution will feature 80+ international and Toronto-based participants including Allora and Calzadilla, Alok Vaid-Menon, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Postcommodity, The South Asian Visual Arts Centre, Srećko Horvat, Sylvia McAdam, Syrus Marcus Ware, Maria Hupfield, MICE Magazine, Vasif Kortun, Wael Shawky, and Wanda Nanibush. This year, we're reflecting on the legacies and practices that shape our understanding of home, land, culture, and community.

Full list of speakers available here.

The first day of the Summit will feature dynamic talks and presentations from an international roster of artists and activists at Koerner Hall. The following day we’ll engage further via roundtables and breakout sessions at the AGO led by day-one speakers, and Toronto area artists and organizers who were invited to participate or selected via an open call.

The Creative Time Summit Of Homelands and Revolution is curated by Nato Thompson, Sally Szwed, Gaëtane Verna, and Josh Heuman.

Summit Toronto Advisory Council: Indu Vashist, Louis Jacob, Gerald McMaster, Anique Jordan, Syrus Marcus Ware, Umbereen Inayet, Naomi Johnson, Julia Paoli, and Sean O’Neill.

AT NUIT BLANCHE: A MONUMENT TO THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTIONS
The Summit coincides with A Monument to the Century of Revolutions, a work by renowned Russian collective Chto Delat, curated by Creative Time Artistic Director Nato Thompson, and designed by famed architect Yury Avvakumov (Moscow) for Nuit Blanche Toronto. The immersive installation is a living monument, consisting of an array of containers producing a small village housing works from Chto Delat and local artist activist groups reflecting on the history and future of revolution. With individual and collective actions on Nathan Philips Square and stage, City Hall will transform into a veritable mass-shipped revolution that unpacks into a world.

SUMMIT SCHEDULE

Thursday, September 28: Kick-Off Party at The Power Plant
Friday, September 29: Presentations at Koerner Hall
Saturday, September 30: Breakout Sessions at The Art Gallery of Ontario

Nuit Blanche Toronto: “A Monument to the Century of Revolutions” at Nathan Phillips Square

For a more detailed schedule, click here.

CONNECT WITH US

Follow @creativetime on Twitter and use the hashtag #CTSummit to join the conversation.

For inquiries, please contact us at summit@creativetime.org

Venue & Address: 
Multiple Venues
Website: 
www.creativetime.org
Email: 
summit@creativetime.org

Barbara Astman, in "Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989"

photo of a woman with text overlay
Thursday, September 29, 2016 - 4:00am to Monday, May 29, 2017 - 4:00am

New AGO exhibition explores the experimental energy of the Toronto art scene in the 70s and 80s

Groundbreaking exhibition comes to life with film festival and experimental performance series featuring Rebecca Belmore, Jérôme Havre, Lillian Allen, Walter Scott, Louise Liliefeldt and many more

TORONTO — Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s was a city growing into its international status. Along with the city’s boom came the social and political upheavals of the era; the Spadina Expressway protests, bath house raids and fights over pay equity, multiculturalism and social housing dominated the headlines. In the midst of this, a new generation of Toronto artists emerged, pushing the boundaries of sculpture, painting and photography and exploring new ways of art making including video, installation and performance. This fall, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), revisits that complicated era with a wide-ranging display of artists and artwork. Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 opens on Sept. 29, 2016 and runs until May 2017, filling the entire fourth floor of the AGO’s Contemporary Tower.

Initiated by Andrew Hunter, the AGO’s Frederik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art, Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 is curated by Wanda Nanibush, Assistant Curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art. The title of the exhibition—a reference to the city’s many buried waterways—serves as a visual metaphor for the diversity of the art scene and its similarly buried histories.

Drawing heavily from the AGO collection and featuring more than 100 works by 65 artists and collectives, the exhibition will be accompanied by a live performance series, a film and video festival, as well as satellite installations throughout the Gallery. Organized thematically, the exhibition is bookended by two significant works from the AGO’s collection, General Idea’s The Miss General Idea Pageant (1971) and Rebecca Belmore’s sculpture Rising to the Occasion (1987-1991).

“In the tension between these two works—one a critique of the art world’s star system, and the other a deeply personal, politicized performance—we see how substantially things changed in only two decades,” says Wanda Nanibush. “Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, issues of democracy, race, gender, sexuality, and colonialism made real headway in exploding the traditional art historical categories. In this period we see not only a plurality of voices emerging but the very definition of artistic practice expanding, encompassing publishing, theatre, performance and identity politics.”

Punctuated by references to Toronto and its cityscape, the exhibition highlights the era’s preoccupation with ideas of performance, the body, the image, self portraiture, storytelling, and representation. The artists featured came from a range of backgrounds and generations, drawing on personal anecdote, humour, critique as well as familiar images of people and places to inform their work. 

Artists and collectives featured in the exhibition include Michael Snow, Joanne Tod, the Clichettes, Duke Redbird, Barbara Astman, Robin Collyer, Robert Houle, Carol Conde and Carl Beveridge, June Clarke, Ato Seitu, and Lillian Allen. This is the first time since the AGO’s reopening in 2008 that many of these seminal works have been on display. Exhibition panels will include texts in both English and Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway), acknowledging Toronto as the traditional territory of the Mississauga people.

Intended as an evolving display, many of the works in the exhibition are scheduled to be rotated in January 2017, inviting visitors to rediscover even more artists including Vera Frenkel, Jayce Salloum and FASTWÜRMS. Satellite exhibitions will be installed in the J.S. McLean Centre for Canadian Art and the Marvin Gelber Prints & Drawings Treasury. These evolving installations will draw connections between the exhibition on the fourth floor and other collections within the Gallery.

PROGRAMMING
To mark the opening of the exhibition, the AGO hosts a free public opening on Sept. 28, 2016 in Walker Court from 6 to 9 p.m. Partygoers will have a special sneak peek of the exhibition that evening following remarks at 7 p.m.

In tandem with the exhibition, the AGO presents a dynamic six week-long series of free live performances, entitled Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries in Performance. A mix of new commissions and revivals, the series features artists Rebecca Belmore, Jérôme Havre, Walter Scott, Lillian Allen, Louise Liliefeldt, Keith Cole, Johanna Householder, Ame Henderson and Evan Webber. Rebecca Belmore and Jérôme Havre will create installations for Nuit Blanche on Oct. 1, 2016 and Lillian Allen will guest-program AGO Friday Nights in October, culminating in a performance in Walker Court by Allen and her collaborators on October 28. All other performances will take place inside Signy Eaton Gallery. More details, including a schedule of performances, will be posted on www.ago.net in the weeks to come. 

A film and video festival dedicated to Toronto’s pioneering video artists from 1970s and 1980s, coordinated in partnership with V-Tape and CFMDC, will run in Jackman Hall from March 9 to 12, 2017. More details, including a full schedule, will be announced in the coming months.

The exhibition is accompanied by the 128 page soft cover publication, Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries. Written by Nanibush, this richly illustrated essay is the second in the new AGO Toronto series, published by the AGO and dedicated to telling the story of Toronto and its artists. The book will be available exclusively in shopAGO as of Sept. 26, 2016 and is priced at $9.95.

ADMISSION
Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 is included with the price of general admission and is free to AGO members. More information on the benefits of AGO membership can be found at www.ago.net/general-membership.

Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario.

 

 

Venue & Address: 
Art Gallery of Ontario 317 Dundas Street West Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Website: 
http://www.ago.net/new-ago-exhibition-explores-the-experimental-energy-of-the-toronto-art-scene-in-the-70s-and-80s
Phone: 
1-877-225-4246 or 416-979-6648