Certified: Exhibition in Continuing Studies at OCADU

Event Poster featuring an painting of 2 kids in front of a background with butterflies
Thursday, February 4, 2016 - 10:30pm to Friday, March 11, 2016 - 10:00pm

An exhibition featuring artists who have completed a Continuing Studies certificate at OCAD University.

The Office of Continuing Studies offers six certificates that provide formal recognition of completed qualifying courses. Students must complete five courses within three years to qualify for the certificates to qualify for the Digital Media Skills Certificate, Art and Design Studio Skills Certificate, Photography Studio Skills Certificate, Web Design and Development Skills Certificate, Theory and Criticism in Art and Design Certificate, or the Certificate in Business Skills for Creative Professionals.

Works in the exhibition include Paintings, Drawings, Photography, Digital Design, and Video.

Open Mon- Fri, 9am-5pm

Reception: Thursday, February 4th, 5:30 - 7pm

Venue & Address: 
Office of Continuing Studies @ OCAD University 285 Dundas Street West
Website: 
http://ocadu.ca/continuingstudies
Email: 
continuingstudies@ocadu.ca
Phone: 
416 977 6000 x 2321
Cost: 
Free

40, i nuovi 20 - forties are the new twenties

Monday, November 23, 2015 - 2:00pm to Monday, November 30, 2015 - 2:00am

40, i nuovi 20 - forties are the new twenties  is an exhibition that celebrates the milestone 40th year of OCAD University's Florence Off-campus Studies Program. Students from the 40th year of this one-of-a-kind studio-based experience will showcase their works, 40 pieces from 20 artists and designers, alongside a curated archival display celebrating the incredibly rich history of the program.

Monday, November 23 to Sunday, November 29

OCAD University Great Hall

This exhibition is generously supported by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Consulate General of Italy

Venue & Address: 
OCAD University Great Hall, 2nd Floor 100 McCaul Street Toronto, ON
Email: 
jsuddick@ocadu.ca
2015 Florence students

113Research

113Research

Sponsored by the Faculty of Art and the Office of Research & Innovation, OCAD U

Project Director: Dr. Pam Patterson, Assistant Professor, TIS, Faculty of Art.

113Research, as research-creation exhibition/project space is located at OCAD University on the 5th floor of 113 McCaul. The space is comprised of four glass cabinets above which permanent signage identifies the gallery/project space and its mandate while accompanying didactics speak to the changing exhibitions. We mount three exhibitions/projects per year: the fall is an open call to faculty/student groups or individuals at OCAD U, the winter features projects that address pedagogy, while the spring invites community researchers to share research and potentially contribute to the Summer Institute. 

Our Advisory Committee enables valued input on projects and peoples from senior administrators, student/faculty support staff, faculty, and students. It also enables productive cross-institution conversations. We acknowledge that OCAD has actively storied itself over the years and as such we welcome opportunities to tell and explore these stories through dialogic and critically reflective projects asking: “How can we meet a visioning for a more inclusive, compassionate, community-rich, creative institution?” 

Undergraduate and graduate students contribute to the Advisory Committee conversations and are active participants in the projects providing gallery/project support, curatorial assistance, additional research, or visual “texts” via blog or in action. 

Project Working Team 2022:  
Pam Patterson, Project Director
Vicky Talwar & Siheng Wang, Research, Graduate Studies
Ella Taylor: Curatorial, Faculty of Art

Advisory Committee 2022: Ana Serrano, Ashok Mathur, Stephen Foster, Natalie Waldburger, Adrienne Reynolds, Travis Freeman, Shazia Hussain, Lillian Allen

Project Website: https://www.113research.ca/

113Research
Monday, March 7, 2022 - 1:30pm
https://www.113research.ca/

Postcommodity: Time Holds All the Answers

Postcommodity: Time Holds All the Answers – Dr. Gerald McMaster, OCADU and Remai Modern collaborate on major exhibition and publication.

Publication at a Glance 

Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University and Dr. Gerald McMaster are proud to present a major book project in collaboration with Remai Modern museum - Postcommodity: Time Holds All the Answers. This landmark publication features groundbreaking contributions by Gerald McMaster, Roberto Bedoya, Floyd Favel, Bill Kelley Jr., and Elise Y. Chagas. Building on and published in association with Postcommodity’s major solo exhibition at Remai Modern, Postcommodity: Time Holds All the Answers the publication is an important and timely collaboration between Remai Modern, Postcommodity and Otami- Creative Director Sébastien Aubin that grounds the projection of Indigenous Knowledge Systems within the publication design. As a significant contribution to discourse, Dr. McMaster’s essay proceeds through a series of narrative devices to reimagine the ways in which Postcommodity’s practice can be understood in the contexts of today.   

“By connecting Indigenous narratives of cultural self-determination to the broader sphere of public institutions, Postcommodity use art as a wedge to inject Indigenous knowledge and expand common points of reference beyond the colonial worldview. Through their practice of artmaking, binary ways of thinking, such as “us versus them,” can be rendered absurd, leaving the possibility for syncretic modalities to take their place. The results are reconfigured sites primed for reimagined ceremonial possibilities” 

(Dr. Gerald McMaster, Postcommodity: Time Holds All the Answers, 46) 

“During our brief visit, I was reminded of all of those who had come before us. They had comported themselves with the knowledge that they were not the first to be there, nor would they be the last; that those who had come before them were not behind, but, in fact, were in front of them, ahead of them, and that one day they too would be the future of those following the very same trail of primordial crumbs. With those behind them in mind, generations of our ancestors had placed stone after stone with intention, not only to say, “We are grateful for this place,” but to say, “All willing, you will also find your way to receive her offerings.” With us in mind they collectively, cumulatively, and gently marked a windswept hilltop to draw us to a vista, to point the way, to transfer their knowledge, and to be remembered remembering us—all in a spiral of time and space that defies any foolish notions of linearity.” 

(Dr. Gerald McMaster, Postcommodity: Time Holds All the Answers, 84) 

Publication is available for purchase through Remai Modern

Exhibition at a Glance  

Curated by Dr. Gerald McMaster and hosted by Remai Modern in Saskatoon from September 18, 2021 to January 23, 2022, Time Holds All the Answers was Postcommodity’s most significant museum exhibition to date. In addition to two of Remai Modern’s largest gallery spaces, works were featured throughout the building. With a selection of new pieces created for the occasion, the exhibition included architecturally-scaled sculpture and immersive multimedia installations that incorporate sound and text. The exhibition touched on subjects including resource extraction and land use, toxicity and containment, intersections of the global market with human elders, translation across Indigenous and colonial languages, and the mythologies of modern art and architecture. 

Postcommodity deploy a creative methodology of hacking, intentionally breaking predetermined products or structures in order to modify their original use and inspire alternative outcomes. In practice, hacking undoes, reimagines and resets. How can this be accomplished? Using art as a wedge, Postcommodity inject Indigenous Knowledge Systems into the museum space to expand common points of reference. In their work, the artists transform the museum into a site where their concept of re-imagined ceremony takes shape. While ceremony is generally associated with a religious or spiritual gathering that celebrates a particular event, Postcommodity’s approach creates an immersive narrative environment throughout the museum, welcoming visitors into a realm of symbolic exchange that enacts respect, responsibility and reciprocity. 

Curator and Author  

Gerald McMaster is a leading voice nationally and internationally, with over 30 years of experience in contemporary art, critical theory, museology and Indigenous aesthetics. He is Plains Cree from the Red Pheasant Cree Nation and a member of the Siksika Nation. He served as the Canadian Commissioner for the 1995 Venice Biennale, Artistic Director of the 2012 Biennale of Sydney; and Curator for the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture. McMaster has served as Adjunct Curator for Remai Modern since 2018. He is a Tier 1 Canadian Research Chair and Director of Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University in Toronto. 

Exhibition | Artists 

Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary arts collective, currently comprised of Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist. They create works of art that personify a shared Indigenous lens and voice, examining aspects of 21st-century life to inspire a uniquely Indigenous futurism. Using provocation as a tool, they spark constructive conversations that challenge the social, political and economic processes that destabilize communities and geographies. 

Cristóbal Martínez is a Mestizo artist, scholar and Chair of the Art and Technology Program at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2003 he co-founded the artist-hacker performance ensemble Radio Healer, and in 2009 he began working as a member of Postcommodity. In 2018 he co-created, with post-Mexican composer Guillermo Galindo, the experimental electronic music duet Red Culebra. Martínez has dedicated his life and career to interdisciplinary collaboration in contemporary art. 

Kade L. Twist is a member of the Cherokee Nation and grew up in Bakersfield, California, home to one of the largest Cherokee communities in the U.S. Twist is a co-founding member of Postcommodity, and a professor in Art + Social Practice at Otis College of Art, Los Angeles. In addition to his art practice, Twist works as a public affairs consultant specializing in American Indian health care, technology and community development. 

Publication | Contributing Authors 

Roberto Bedoya is Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland. Bedoya is also a poet, whose work has appeared in numerous publications, and an art consultant, with projects for Creative Capital Foundation, the Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Urban Institute. 

Floyd Favel is a cultural theorist, writer and theatre director.  Favel is the curator of the Chief Poundmaker Museum and director of Miyawata Culture Inc., an Indigenous performance festival held yearly on Poundmaker Cree Nation. He has studied theatre in Denmark and Italy and has traveled worldwide in his research on Indigenous Performance 

Elise Y. Chagas is a Ph.D. candidate studying modern and contemporary art at Princeton University. She is a 2021-2022 Mellon-Marron Research Consortium Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. 

Bill Kelley Jr. is an educator, curator and writer based in Los Angeles. He holds a Ph.D. in Art History, Theory and Criticism from the University of California at San Diego and his current research focuses on collaborative and collective art practices in the Americas. He holds the position of Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino art history at California State University Bakersfield. 

Publication | Designer 

Sébastien Aubin is a freelance graphic artist currently based in Montréal and a proud member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba. He has worked for Kolegram, one of the most prestigious graphic design studios in Québec, and has done publications for numerous artists, organizations, and art galleries in Winnipeg, Montréal and Ottawa, including Plug In ICA Close Encounters, the next 500 years, Terrance Houle, KC Adams, Carleton University Art Gallery, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, and Art Gallery of South Western Manitoba. Aubin is one of the founding members of the ITWÉ collective that is dedicated to research, creation, production and education of Aboriginal digital culture.  

Supporting Team | Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University 

Michael Rattray is a Toronto-based creative professional with experience in a wide variety of mediums of expression. As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the direction of Dr. McMaster at Wapatah, he acted as the Executive Editor and provided oversight for the editorial, design, and publication process for Postcommodity: Time Holds All the Answers. At OCAD University, he also contributed to projects such as the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art and Arctic / Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity – a major publication in partnership with the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, and the Ryerson Image Centre, for which he managed the publication timeline and editorial process. 

Natalja Chestopalova is a senior researcher and project manager at Wapatah Centre, OCAD University. Her work focuses on immersive installations and new media, animation of museum collections, and blockchain solutions for art and site-responsive projects. At Wapatah, Natalja is providing project management oversight for an array of publications, conferences, and virtual educational projects. These include: Indigenizing the (Art) Museum Virtual Series, HotDocs Series Beauty and Resilience: Indigenous Art in Canada, Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity exhibition and major publication, and the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art - a custom digital tool for mobilizing artwork and facilitating Indigenous access and contributions to Indigenous art in museum and gallery collections around the world.  

Brittany Pitseolak Bergin is a research assistant at Wapatah Centre, OCAD University. Raised in Southern Ontario, her family is from Kinngait, Cape Dorset. Inspired by the artists in her family and community, including her great-grandmother and namesake Pitseolak Ashoona, Brittany’s focus at Wapatah is centred in community engagement as she continues to support major projects and outreach initiatives. Her work has been integral to the success of projects such as the Virtual Platform for Indigenous Art, Arctic/Amazon Symposium, Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity exhibition and publication, and Indigenizing the (Art) Museum Virtual Series. Her most recent conferences include the Frontend Conference (Munich) and Inuit Studies Conference (Montreal). 

Panya Clark Espinal is a multi-media installation artist whose practice investigates the mechanisms of cultural representation and, through site-specific installations, exhibitions and public commissions, explores questions of perception, reproduction, collection, and display. Her CCP thesis titled Between Stories: The Agency of Story and Living Ways was developed while working alongside Elín Agla, a Vernacular Culture Farmer from Árneshreppur County, Iceland. As a senior research assistant at Wapatah, Panya has contributed to writing the Bill Reid publication for the Art Canada Institute and The Entangled Gaze project. 

Alessia Pignotti is a conceptual, multimedia artist and graphic designer whose most recent artistic practice explores the notion of the creative instinct. She holds a Masters of Art from OCAD University in the Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Art Histories program, and received an Honours Bachelor of Arts (2017) from the University of Toronto in a joint program with Sheridan College. As a research assistant at Wapatah, Alessia supported a number of projects including the Bill Reid publication project for the Art Canada Institute. 

 

Coloured barrels stacked inside a gallery
Postcommodity: Time holds all the answers
Indigenous dancers wearing regalia are dancing
Postcommodity - 4
Yellow, red, white and black barrels are stacked floor to ceiling in a gallery
Four people stand in front of a wall of text. Dr. Gerald Mcmaster is second from right.
Yellow, red, white and black barrels are stacked floor to ceiling in a gallery
3D art is displayed in a gallery.
A spread from the Postcommodity book.
A spread from the Postcommodity book.
Work is displayed in a gallery.
Hanging work is displayed in a gallery.
A spread from the Postcommodity book.
A spread from the Postcommodity book.
Musicians perform under purple lighting.
A spread from the Postcommodity book.
A spread from the Postcommodity book.
Work installed in a gallery.
Monday, March 7, 2022 - 10:45am

Storying Online Exhibition

A photo of a group of people standing in three rows with their backs to the camera
Wednesday, April 15, 2020 - 9:00am to Monday, June 1, 2020 - 9:00am

Visit the exhibition at https://ocad.libguides.com/storying_exhibition

 

Over the winter semester 2020, OCAD U faculty Penelope Smart and Pam Patterson and 25 students of CROS 2002 Contemporary Issues: Art Today met on Thursday afternoons to explore the concept of identity — the solid, evaporating, congealing, fractured, token, sincere question of Who am I? within contemporary art practices. Our inquiry took on many forms: personal writings and responses on issues of representation and difference, memory and imagination, and the mediation of the world through technologies. Together, we mapped frameworks of the self through readings, peer discussions, presentations and gallery visits, working toward a fluid, unscripted, collective expression of our findings: a group exhibition of individual works that speak to identity as a myriad of stories we tell ourselves (or are told) about who we are. 

“Storying”-as-exhibit was set to open in the Learning Zone on April 2nd, 2020. As Covid-19 became a reality for the OCAD U community and across the globe, we pivoted to the OCAD U Library's digital platform. It is exciting and meaningful for us to share these works — as self-expression in the here and now — with online audiences during this extraordinary time. It has never been more important to stay connected and curious about other people. How do our personal experiences, histories, creative talents, and daily hopes and fears work to both keep us apart and bring us closer?

This website serves as an online exhibition and creative portfolio of the course. Please explore the multidisciplinary works — spanning painting, drawing, textile, sculpture, animation, music, AI tech and video — of students by navigating to the online exhibition and Facebook page. On the exhibition site, you can also read short artist statements including poems, lyrics and creative texts, which accompany and illuminate each work.

Thank you for visiting.

-- Penelope Smart, curator and tutorial leader

 

Exhibition Statement: “Storying” is an exhibition by students in CROS 2002 Contemporary Issues: Art Today. Individual works spanning a variety of media query identity as a creative act — a thing to be made, re-made, told, written, erased, re-written, documented and performed. Works consider how questions of authorship and authority shape the stories we tell about who we are.

Exhibiting Artists: Anam Feerasta, Bernobayobaylee/ Lee Reid, Carla Sierra Suarez, Carmen Mahave, Chris Mullrooney, Emily Flynn, Esther Liang, Fabina Germain, Fuyu Liu, Jerry Zhou, Kaia Fortis Scott, Lou Davis, Lucas Kim, Madison Burke, Philberta Mak, Raf Dan McEwan, Tony Leung, Violet Liepins, Zhenhao Sun

Professor: Pam Patterson 

Project curator: Penelope Smart, Tutorial Leader

Assistant curator: Temple Marucci-Campbell 

Web design: Marta Chudolinska

A special thank you to Marta Chudolinska, of the OCAD U Learning Zone, for her positivity, helpfulness and technical and administrative knowledge and support.

Venue & Address: 
https://ocad.libguides.com/storying_exhibition
Website: 
https://ocad.libguides.com/storying_exhibition
Email: 
mchudolinska@ocadu.ca
Cost: 
free

reLOCATION exhibition at Daniels Spectrum

Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 11:45am to Monday, December 9, 2019 - 9:30pm

The Sewing Studio is a social enterprise incubation program within CCL&D, consisting of immigrant women from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Iran. This social start-up is now seeking funding for a fully equipped space that will be able to meet their growing demands and enable them to scale-up their impact. The CORE will be a new placefor the Sewing Studio to grow with a professional sewing centre. This opportunity is made possible thanks to The Daniels Corporation. Funds from this event will go towards CORE plans to open in early 2021 in Daniels’ new DuEast condo in Regent Park.

Venue & Address: 
Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas Street East, Toronto, ON M5A 2B7
reLocation Exhibition

CodeX: playable & disruptive futurist eArt

Wednesday, January 22, 2020 - 6:00pm to Saturday, April 25, 2020 - 5:00pm

 

CodeX: playable & disruptive futurist eArt
January 22 to April 25, 2020

Free public reception
Wednesday, January 22 from 6 to 9 p.m.

Jason Baerg
Tom Barker
Rob Elsworthy
Samantha Fickel
Dennis Kavelman
Nick Puckett
Six Trends Inc.
Jane Tingley, Cindy Poremba and Marius Kintel

Curated by Tom Barker

This exhibition of leading-edge digital art, or eArt, investigates the future of human society through technology, innovation and design. It encourages audiences to reflect on the symbiotic relationship between technology and human society, and the resulting possibilities for our future through algorithms, identity and the nature of reality.

The exhibition publication is available online here.

 

Free Public Events

  • Curator’s Exhibition Tour
    Wednesday, January 29 at 6:30 p.m.
    Join Tom Barker for a tour of CodeX: playable & disruptive futurist eArt, as he shares his perspective on digital art and insight on the themes in the exhibition.
     
  • Can Machines Be Flawed Enough to Be Human?
    Wednesday, March 4 at 6:30 p.m.
    A panel discussion that will examine our growing dependence on glitchy AI learning for business and culture and how this affects our daily lives.
    Panelists: Jimmy Ba, Leyla Imanirad and Dr. Alexis Morris
    Moderator: Tom Barker
     
  • Exhibition Tour with Cindy Poremba
    Wednesday, March 25 at 6:30 p.m.
    Cindy Poremba is a digital media researcher, game maker and curator. An Assistant Professor of Digital Entertainment at OCAD University, she has published work in journals, magazines and edited collections. Cindy also organizes non-traditional exhibitions as an independent curator and “new arcade” events as a member of the kokoromi experimental game collective.
     
  • Film Screening: David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999)
    Wednesday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m.
    Set in the near-future, eXistenZ depicts a society in which game designers are worshipped as superstars and players can organically enter inside the games. At the centre of the story is Allegra Geller whose latest games system eXistenZ taps so deeply into its users’ fears and desires that it blurs the boundaries between reality and escapism.
     

Free Youth Workshops
Produced by Six Trends Inc.

  • Digitizer: Game Lab
    Saturday, February 8 & Sunday, February 9 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
    Demystify the game making process and reveal the secrets behind some of the world’s most popular games. Cover the art pipeline for making game worlds, game characters, and animation. Led by Rob Elsworthy.
     
  • Hello Sensor: Introducing IoT & Analytics
    Saturday, March 14 & Sunday, March 15 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
    Build an IoT (Internet of things) device and get it to listen and measure the environment, connect it to the Cloud, analyze results. Starting with computer hardware and operating systems, you will discover why there are over 3 billion IoT devices and all the amazing possibilities offered. Led by Stephen Perelgut.
     
  • Building Computers 101
    Saturday, April 4 & Sunday, April 5 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
    The workshop will focus on learning the essentials to building a desktop computer. Learning about basic hardware requirements, installing an operating system, and adding programs and applications to customize it using free and open source software. Led by Ryan Fukunaga.
     
  • Steampunk From Junk
    Saturday, April 11 & Sunday, April 12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
    Imagine turning a school desk into an arcade console, or giving an old bicycle a high-tech collision warning system... maybe upgrading a toaster so it never burns the toast! Bringing together digital tech with junk is fun and helps to deal with the city’s garbage troubles. Led by Tom Barker.

    All workshops will take place at Regent Park Focus Media Centre, 38 Regent St.
    For free workshop registration go to eventbrite.ca and search for “codex”.  

 

Curator Biography

Tom Barker has worked internationally as a multidisciplinary creative in the fields of design, art, and technology for many years. Tom’s diverse and ground-breaking collaborations have included the capsule and boarding design for the London Eye ferris wheel with David Marks Julia Barfield Architects; creating the world’s first Bluetooth headset for Emkay; and projects with the late architect Zaha Hadid for buildings, dance and opera stage sets. He curated The Art of Shopping for the Arts Council of England in 2002. Tom contributed an interactive futuristic 3D walkthrough entitled Masterplanners of the Universe: Brick Lane for the Barbican Arts Centre’s blockbuster global touring show Game On: 2002-2016. Tom collaborated with Langlands & Bell on the digital interactive artwork entitled The House of Osama Bin Laden which won a BAFTA and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2004. He was the Founding Chair of the Digital Future programme at OCAD University 2012-2015. An author of many book chapters and papers, Tom’s book on Web App design was published by McGrawHill in 2019. A British citizen and permanent resident of Canada, Tom has lived and worked in the UK, Australia and Canada. He is currently the President and Chief technology Officer of Six Trends, a Toronto-based creative digital agency.

 

Artist Biographies

Jason Baerg is an Indigenous curator, educator, and visual artist. Curatorial contributions include developing and implementing the national Metis arts program for the Vancouver Olympics. Baerg graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelors of Fine Arts and a Masters of Fine Arts from Rutgers University. Dedicated to community development, he founded and incorporated the Metis Artist Collective and has served as volunteer Chair for such organizations as the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition. Creatively, as a visual artist, he pushes new boundaries in digital interventions in drawing, painting and new media installation. Recent international solo exhibitions include the Illuminato Festival in Toronto, Canada, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and the Digital Dome at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Rob Elsworthy has worked as a Game Designer, Cinematic Animator, VFX Lead and a System Designer with Rockstar Games. His projects include games like Grand Theft Auto IV and V, Max Payne 3, Red Dead Redemption and the Warriors. Rob has won numerous awards for these projects also a four-time MMVA winner as a Music Video Director.

Samantha Fickel is a Canadian artist who completed an MFA in Art and Technology at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2016) and holds a BFA in Sculpture from OCAD University (2014). Using time-based, interactive, and immersive installations, she seeks to deconstruct familiar technologies in ways which invite unexpected sensory experiences. As one reviewer put it, her work observes that life is “equally vibrant on one side of a screen as another” (David Zarley, NewCityArt). Fickel’s work has shown in the flagship exhibition of Vector Festival Toronto (2017), and she recently had her first major solo exhibition at Stuart & Co Gallery in Chicago (2018).

Dennis Kavelman creates interactive digital art using machines, augmented reality, mobile devices, electronics and computers that use interaction to explore mortality and the passage of time. Dennis’ machine-based art is in the spirit of the mechanical computing that was initiated with the Jacquard loom in 1804 and Charles Babbage’s unfinished Analytical Engine in the 19th Century. Dennis’ work also resonates with the themes of control and communication explored by the Cyberneticists. An art collector as well as an artist, Dennis has a background in business and technology and was formerly an executive at Blackberry/Research in Motion. He is currently a partner at iNovia Venture Capital. Dennis has exhibited his work in Toronto at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in 2019, at The Spoke Club art gallery in 2018, Facebook’s offices in the MaRS building in 2017, and the Design Exchange’s EDIT show in 2017. His work was selected for exhibition at Governor’s Island New York City in 2018.

Nick Puckett is the Founding Director of Puckett Research+Design, a design practice focused on creating dynamic links between software, robotics, biological agents, chemical engineering, and material behaviour that generate new potentials for the design of intelligent environments. Nick is currently an Associate Professor, Co-Director of the ANThill Lab, and Chair of the Digital Futures undergraduate program at OCAD University. He has previously taught at institutions including The University of Kentucky, SCI-Arc, The Architectural Association, The University of Westminster, The University of Innsbruck, and The Royal College of Art.

Jane Tingley is an artist, curator, and Assistant Professor in Hybrid Practice at the University of Waterloo in Ontario Canada. She received the Kenneth Finkelstein Prize in Sculpture, and the first prize in the iNTERFACES – Interactive Art Competition in Porto, Portugal. She has participated in exhibitions and festivals in North and South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe including translife - International Triennial of Media Art at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, Despertar/Éveil/Alive curated by Groupe Molior in São Paolo (BR) and Technosensual at the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna (AT).

Cindy Poremba is a digital media researcher, gamemaker and curator. She is an Assistant Professor (Digital Entertainment) at OCAD University who has published work in journals such as Games and Culture, Eludamos and Loading, as well as magazines and edited collections. Cindy also organizes non-traditional exhibitions as an independent curator, including Joue le jeu/Play Along (La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris), XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design (MODA, Atlanta), and “new arcade” events as a member of the kokoromi experimental game collective.

Marius Kintel is a professional software engineer who currently works at Thalmic Labs in Kitchener Ontario. As an artist Marius works with non-traditional materials and repurposes things and technology in unusual ways. His projects include multiple creations in the computer art subculture known as the demoscene, building a company in Norway that develops Open Source 3D graphics software, developing self replicating machines in the REPRAP project, as well as he is the primary developer of openSCAD.

 

 

Onsite Gallery is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD U and an experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media. Visit our website for upcoming public events. The gallery is located at 199 Richmond St. W, Toronto, ON, M5V 0H4. Telephone: 416-977-6000, ext. 265. Opening hours are: Wednesdays to Fridays from noon to 7 p.m.; Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Free admission.

Onsite Gallery acknowledges that the new gallery construction project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Canada Cultural Spaces Fund at Canadian Heritage, the City of Toronto through a Section 37 agreement and Aspen Ridge Homes; with gallery furniture by Nienkämper. Onsite Gallery logo by Dean Martin Design.

Venue & Address: 
Onsite Gallery, OCAD University
Email: 
onsite@ocadu.ca
Phone: 
416-977-6000 x456
Cost: 
Free
CodeX

Peter Morin: Reciprocity with Among All These Tundras

Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 6:30pm

Peter Morin: Reciprocity with Among All These Tundras
Thursday, November 14, 2019
6:30 p.m.

Onsite Gallery
199 Richmond St. West

Free event as part of Onsite Gallery's public event program for ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras.


Join Peter Morin for a performative reciprocal exchange with the artworks in ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras.

Peter Morin is a grandson of Tahltan ancestor artists. He has now lived away from his home territory for most of his life, but like his ancestors who have walked on the land, he carries Tahltan knowledge, ideas and history with him wherever he is. Every step along the way, Tahltan knowledge has guided his researching, dreaming, learning, making of the past twenty years of artistic and curatorial practice. Ideas and artwork can travel and bodies are their can be a vehicles for ideas to travel. The Tahltan Nation is currently comprised of three communities located in british columbia: Iskut, Dease Lake, and Telegraph Creek. The Tahltan Nation territory is 3857. 06 kms from Peter’s current home Toronto ON. Tahltan leaders signed a Declaration of Independence from canada on Oct 18, 1910. Morin began art school in 1997, completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver in 2001 and his Masters in Fine Arts in 2010 at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan. Initially trained in lithography, Morin’s artistic practice moves from printmaking to poetry to installation to performance art. Peter is the son of Janelle Morin (Crow Clan, Tahltan Nation) and Pierre Morin (Quebecois). Peter was given the Tahltan name Ezeck-Tah by his grandmother Dinah Creyke when he turned 13. Throughout his exhibition and making history, Peter has focused upon his matrilineal inheritances in homage to the matriarchal structuring of the Tahltan Nation. Morin was longlisted for the Brink and Sobey Awards, in 2013 and 2014, respectively. In 2016, Morin received the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Canadian Mid-Career Artist. Morin currently holds a tenured appointment in the Faculty of Arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto.

 

ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ
Among All These Tundras

September 18 to December 7, 2019

ᐊᓯᓐᓇᔭᖅ
asinnajaq
ᓛᑯᓗᒃ ᐅᐃᓕᐊᒻᓴᓐ ᐸᑦᑑᕆ
Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
ᑲᕈᓚ ᑯᕋᕼᐊᓐ
Carola Grahn
ᒫᔾᔭ ᕼᐋᓕᓐᑐ ᐅᓇᓗ ᓵᒥ ᕕᓐᓚᓐᒥᐅᑕᖅ
Marja Helander
ᖃᑉᓗᓯᐊᖅ
Kablusiak
ᓵᓐᔭ ᑲᓕᕼᐅ-ᑰᒻᔅ
Sonya Kelliher-Combs
ᔪᐊᖅ ᓇᓐᑰ
Joar Nango
ᑕᕐᕋᓕᒃ ᐹᑐᔨ
Taqralik Partridge
ᐱᐅᓕ ᐸᑐ
Barry Pottle
ᐃᓅᑎᖅ ᓯᑐᐊᑦᔅ
Inuuteq Storch
ᑲᔨᓐ ᐸᓐ ᕼᐅᕕᓕᓐ
Couzyn van Heuvelen
ᐊᓕᓴᓐ ᐊᑰᑦᓲᒃ ᒍᐊᑕᓐ
Allison Akootchook Warden

ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᖕᒥ ᑲᒪᔨᑦ: Hᐃᑐ ᐃᒡᓗᓕᐅᖅᑎ, ᐋᐃᒥ ᐳᕈᑎ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓴᕆᓴ ᐹᓐ ᕼᐃᐅᓕᒐ
Curated by Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa

ᓴᕿᑕᐅᔪᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑐᓂᔭᐅᔪᖅ ᑖᒃᑯᓇᖓᑦ ᓕᓄᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐲᓇ ᐊᓕᓐ ᓴᓇᖕᖑᐊᖅᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᒃ, ᑳᓐᑯᑎᐊ ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᕐᕕᒃᔪᐊᖅ
Produced and circulated by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University

Among All These Tundras, a title taken from the poem ‘My Home Is in My Heart’ by famed Sámi writer Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, features contemporary art by Indigenous artists from around the circumpolar world. Together, their works politically and poetically express current Arctic concerns towards land, language, sovereignty and resurgence. Click here to read more.

Produced and circulated by: Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University
Patron Sponsor: Birch Hill Equity Partners
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage), Initiative for Indigenous Futures and Nexus Investments

Onsite Gallery is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD U and an experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media. Visit our website for upcoming public events. The gallery is located at 199 Richmond St. W, Toronto, ON, M5V 0H4. Telephone: 416-977-6000, ext. 265. Opening hours are: Wednesdays to Fridays from noon to 7 p.m.; Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Free admission.

Onsite Gallery acknowledges that the new gallery construction project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Canada Cultural Spaces Fund at Canadian Heritage, the City of Toronto through a Section 37 agreement and Aspen Ridge Homes; with gallery furniture by Nienkämper. Onsite Gallery logo by Dean Martin Design.

Venue & Address: 
Onsite Gallery (199 Richmond St. West)
Email: 
onsite@ocadu.ca
Phone: 
416-977-6000 x456
Cost: 
Free
Peter Morin

Curators’ Tour with Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa

Friday, September 27, 2019 - 6:30pm

Curators’ Tour with Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa
Friday, September 27, 2019
6:30 p.m.

Onsite Gallery
199 Richmond St. West

Free event as part of Onsite Gallery's public event program for ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras.


Join Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa for a curatorial tour of ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ / Among All These Tundras, a group exhibition that features contemporary art by Indigenous artists from around the circumpolar world.

 

Dr. Heather Igloliorte is the University Research Chair in Indigenous Circumpolar Arts at Concordia University in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, where she also leads the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership SSHRC Partnership Grant and Co-Directs the Initiative for Indigenous Futures Cluster (IIF) in the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology with Professor Jason Edward Lewis. Igloliorte currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Circle for the Winnipeg Art Gallery, working on the development of the new national Inuit Art Centre; on the Board of Directors for North America's largest Indigenous art historical association, the Native North American Art Studies Association; is Vice-President of the Inuit Art Foundation; and sits on the Faculty Council of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, among others.

Amy Dickson is an emerging curator and doctoral student in the Art History program at Concordia University. Her research focuses on the practice of Inuit artists within urban spaces and the role of art in the construction of place. Amy holds a BA and an MA in Art History, both from Carleton University. Her writing has been featured in Inuit Art Quarterly and esse arts + opinions.

Charissa von Harringa is a PhD Researcher in Art History at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from New York University (2007) and an M.A. in Art History from Concordia University (2016). Von Harringa’s academic area of focus lies at the intersection of several fields including Circumpolar, Indigenous, Memory and Performance Studies. Through her doctoral work she examines the media-based practices, archival dispositions, and networked agencies of pan-Inuit and Sámi artists. These are analyzed as they engage past and present Arctic discourse, elaborate new functions of tradition and modernity, and clarify the ever-evolving nexus of theory and practice in contemporary art towards sovereign ends. She has several published essays and reviews in Inuit Art Quarterly and RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, among others.

 

ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ
Among All These Tundras

September 18 to December 7, 2019

ᐊᓯᓐᓇᔭᖅ
asinnajaq
ᓛᑯᓗᒃ ᐅᐃᓕᐊᒻᓴᓐ ᐸᑦᑑᕆ
Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
ᑲᕈᓚ ᑯᕋᕼᐊᓐ
Carola Grahn
ᒫᔾᔭ ᕼᐋᓕᓐᑐ ᐅᓇᓗ ᓵᒥ ᕕᓐᓚᓐᒥᐅᑕᖅ
Marja Helander
ᖃᑉᓗᓯᐊᖅ
Kablusiak
ᓵᓐᔭ ᑲᓕᕼᐅ-ᑰᒻᔅ
Sonya Kelliher-Combs
ᔪᐊᖅ ᓇᓐᑰ
Joar Nango
ᑕᕐᕋᓕᒃ ᐹᑐᔨ
Taqralik Partridge
ᐱᐅᓕ ᐸᑐ
Barry Pottle
ᐃᓅᑎᖅ ᓯᑐᐊᑦᔅ
Inuuteq Storch
ᑲᔨᓐ ᐸᓐ ᕼᐅᕕᓕᓐ
Couzyn van Heuvelen
ᐊᓕᓴᓐ ᐊᑰᑦᓲᒃ ᒍᐊᑕᓐ
Allison Akootchook Warden

ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᖕᒥ ᑲᒪᔨᑦ: Hᐃᑐ ᐃᒡᓗᓕᐅᖅᑎ, ᐋᐃᒥ ᐳᕈᑎ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓴᕆᓴ ᐹᓐ ᕼᐃᐅᓕᒐ
Curated by Heather Igloliorte, Amy Dickson and Charissa von Harringa

ᓴᕿᑕᐅᔪᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑐᓂᔭᐅᔪᖅ ᑖᒃᑯᓇᖓᑦ ᓕᓄᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐲᓇ ᐊᓕᓐ ᓴᓇᖕᖑᐊᖅᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ ᑕᑯᔭᒐᖃᕐᕕᒃ, ᑳᓐᑯᑎᐊ ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᕐᕕᒃᔪᐊᖅ
Produced and circulated by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University

Among All These Tundras, a title taken from the poem ‘My Home Is in My Heart’ by famed Sámi writer Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, features contemporary art by Indigenous artists from around the circumpolar world. Together, their works politically and poetically express current Arctic concerns towards land, language, sovereignty and resurgence. Click here to read more.

Produced and circulated by: Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University
Patron Sponsor: Birch Hill Equity Partners
Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage), Initiative for Indigenous Futures and Nexus Investments

Onsite Gallery is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD U and an experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media. Visit our website for upcoming public events. The gallery is located at 199 Richmond St. W, Toronto, ON, M5V 0H4. Telephone: 416-977-6000, ext. 265. Opening hours are: Wednesdays to Fridays from noon to 7 p.m.; Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Free admission.

Onsite Gallery acknowledges that the new gallery construction project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Canada Cultural Spaces Fund at Canadian Heritage, the City of Toronto through a Section 37 agreement and Aspen Ridge Homes; with gallery furniture by Nienkämper. Onsite Gallery logo by Dean Martin Design.

 

Image: asinnajaq, Rock Piece (Ahuriri edition), 2018. Video still. Video, colour, sound, 4 min. 2 sec.

Venue & Address: 
Onsite Gallery: 199 Richmond St. West
Website: 
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/curators-tour-with-heather-igloliorte-amy-dickson-and-charissa-von-harringa-tickets-69783208455
Email: 
onsite@ocadu.ca
Phone: 
416-977-6000 x456
Cost: 
Free
asinnajaq, Rock Piece (Ahuriri edition), 2018. Video still. Video, colour, sound, 4 min. 2 sec.

Land – LIMINALITY- Loss

Image: Irish Need not Apply, Pam Patterson. Photo digital collage. 2020

The exhibition Land - LIMINALITY - Loss, curated by Assistant Professor Pam Patterson (Faculty of Art) and featuring work by undergraduate student Angie Ma (Faculty of Art), Pam Patterson, graduate student Vicky Talwar and OCAD staff member Leila Talei (Officer, Research Projects, Office of Research & Innovation), is part of an investigation into the intersection of land and loss with historical/cultural disruption and change.

As long as they live in the duality in which to be is to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1992, p 33

Jackson 2Bears (in Spicanovic, 2018, p. 160) writes “that history is something ‘written on the land’… From this perspective … [how might we endeavor to explore] how narratives are inextricably interconnected with ‘place’…” 

How though, somewhat antithetic to this, might narratives, histories and stories explicate ‘land’ displacement? How might we explore the political and cultural implications of these histories and stories, both personal and collective, around this intersection of land with historical and cultural disruption and change?

Troubled by this complex relationship of land and loss Ma, Patterson, Talwar and Talei, as settler/immigrants, in exhibition and conversation, occupy a problematic liminal space, a space adrift where the threat of homelessness looms.

Questions Camille Nelson (2004):

Does anyone really have such a habitat anymore?... One’s identity is attached to one’s knowledge, body and sense of home. If one is without a home, one’s identity is compromised either one is identity-less, or one is multiply constructed across time, space and location. The situation is compounded when one’s dislocation is forced or less than fully free… Identity[’s] temporal component… resonates over time, making historical legacy tangible and relevant today. The ancestral self and contemporary self can collide when the realities of one’s present situation forces the submergence or repression of… cherished identities. 

Often this historical and contemporary crisis is as a result of an inherited colonial legacy. The construction is about power. Many who were able to flee and/or were lured to Canada bear the trappings of the rewards they reaped from this place to which they migrated. But didn’t the acquisition of privilege and power have something to do with why they/we left in the first place? (194).

How might we explore the political and cultural implications of histories and stories, both personal and collective, around the intersection of land and cultural disruption and change? 

 At a moment when OCAD University is embracing a holistic Indigenous curriculum, such conversations are key to examining complex and often troubling relationships. This multi-media exhibit invites the community to explore their own histories and stories within this context in exhibition, conversation and workshop. Land - LIMINALITY - Loss is on display at OCAD University's Graduate Gallery from September 3, 2019 to September 6, 2019. 

Works displayed:

  • Patterson, Pam. Irish need not Apply. 2019. Mixed media prints.
  • Talwar, Vicky. A Journey Awaits. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas.
  • Talei, Leila. The Meticulous Documentation of a Personal Loss. 2019. Collage.
  • Ma, Angie. Elsewhere: Moments of Home. 2019. Watercolour, Chinese ink, rice paper and botanical hand dye on silk.

References:

  • Freire, Paulo (1992). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company
  • Nelson, Camille A. (2004). Adrift in the Diaspora. In Camille A. Nelson & Charmaine A. Nelson (Eds.) Racism Eh? A Critical interdisciplinary anthology of race and racism in Canada. Concord, ON: Captus Press. pp 175 205.
  • Spicanovic, Vladimir (2018). Pedagogies of the land. In Doug Wallace & Véronique Leblanc (Eds.) Landmarks2017: Art + places + perspectives. Toronto: The Magenta Foundation/Partners in Art. PP. 159 – 161.

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

 

Exhibition photographs by Miklos Legrady

 

A collage of documents
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - installation by L. Talei
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - installation by P. Patterson
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - work by V. Talwar
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - work by A. Ma
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - work by P. Patterson
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - work by V. Talwar
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - work by A. Ma
Exhibition photograph by Miklos Legrady - installation by L. Talei
OAC logo
Friday, July 19, 2019 - 12:45pm
https://www2.ocadu.ca/event/land-%E2%80%93-liminality-loss

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