Soft Spin

Monday, June 2, 2014 - 4:00am to Friday, June 20, 2014 - 4:00am

Performance June 5th 12:30pm

With choreography by Andrea Nann, Dreamwalker Dance Company
Produced by Emma Mackenzie Hillier, Nightswimming Theatre
Music by Radiant Brass Ensemble

Exhibition of work by Graduate Studies Alumnus Heather Nicol

Soft Spin offers a fresh view of the hard-surfaced symmetry of the space with the playful interruption of five enormous fabric forms, gently twirling overhead. Colour, texture, movement, and decidedly flirtatious forms invite visitors to look up and embrace the unexpected, highlighting the ever-present potential for encounters with unforeseen pleasure and drama in the day-to-day.

Venue & Address: 
Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place 181 Bay Street Toronto, Ontario
Website: 
http://www.heathernicol.ca/
Cost: 
Free

KEEP KEEP DANCING DANCING: BILL SHANNON AT OCAD U

Bill Shannon. Photo courtesy Bill Shannon.

“My greatest accomplishment as an artist is to stay true to the process and listen closely to what it is whispering into my soul.”

Bill Shannon says his aesthetic works exist beneath a hovering, massive and terribly bloody notion of “freedom.” Although he believes his work is obscure and often misunderstood, he’s performed, presented and choreographed around the world, both as a solo artist and for Cirque du Soleil, earning numerous awards and honours, including a Foundation for Contemporary Art Award and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. In the process he’s stolen hearts and sparked imaginations with the passion and egoless humility that fuels everything he does.

“I see no pinnacle of greatness in my own accomplishments that might outshine the importance and value to me of my creative process,” he says. “The unique intersection of my time on this Earth, the space I inhabited during that time and the peculiar and specific human condition I was destined to by birth are far and away the greatest determinants of what I have been able to achieve as an artist and as a human.”

Shannon, who is at OCAD U for a President’s Speaker Series talk on Wednesday, September 18 and a performance at the Festival of the Body on September 19, is a natural storyteller working in the medium of body language — together with a massive and bold dose of experimentation. “On a micro-scale I have learned that in all contrasting and conflicting energies balance is possible in the most unexpected of ways,” he says of his work. In addition to dance and choreography, he also uses drawings, sculpture, video, writing, performance, acting, clowning, skating and speaking to express his ideas.

Shannon, who says he “feels like a duck billed platypus laying an egg” about being asked to speak at OCAD U, shaped and grew his work in the Hip-Hop and House dance movements in New York and internationally. He says the most important thing students studying in creative fields should know is that if a goal is a dream with a deadline, abandon the goal.

“Follow the dream and possibly arrive at a greater unknown that no goal or deadline could have ever been set for in the first place,” he says. “Failure happens. Failure may possibly have as many chicken-soup-for-the-soul sayings as love does. duckduckgo/copy/paste here:  _____________________________. Repeat.”

Learn more:

Attend the lecture 

See Shannon perform at the Festival of the Body

Visit Shannon's website and blog

 

JULIE NAGAM RECEIVES SSHRC FUNDING FOR THE KANATA INDIGENOUS PERFORMANCE, NEW AND DIGITAL MEDIA ART PROJECT

Installation by Dr. Julie Nagam. Photo courtesy Dr. Julie Nagam.
Dr. Julie Nagam. Photo courtesy Dr. Julie Nagam.

Dr. Julie Nagam is an emerging artist, curator and Assistant Professor in OCAD U’s Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Indigenous Visual Culture program, and she is the recipient of a major Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development grant for The Kanata Indigenous Performance, New and Digital Media Art Project. It’s a landmark effort to map and identify Canadian Indigenous performance, digital and new media art that will culminate in an inclusive, interactive website archive for researchers and the Indigenous community. 

“I’m excited about the potential of the funding,” said Nagam. “This is a project that needed to happen. There’s a strong connection between Indigenous performance, digital and new media artwork, but until now there’s been a gap in both access and scholarship in these areas, especially in the Canadian context. The project will provide archive material for up-and-coming scholars, curators and artists with vital resources in the fields of performance, new and digital media.”

Nagam, together with her co-applicants, Dr. Carla Taunton, an Assistant Professor, Art History and Critical Studies at the NASCAD University, and Dr. Heather Igloliorte, Assistant Professor, Art History, Concordia University, are working together collaboratively and each bring regional specializations to the mapping process of the project. Nagam’s focus is on central Canada and the central north, while Igloliorte is covering the north and Taunton is working on emerging east coast aspects. 

The project team will research creative practices, aesthetics, performance and digital media, tracing Indigenous practices and methodologies throughout Canada. They’ll look at existing archives at V-tape, ImagineNATIVE, Obx Laboratory for Experimental Media, Isuma, Arnait Video and Unikaat, to name only a few. In addition to the website archive, the team will also work together on a special Indigenous performance and digital media themed edition of a peer-reviewed journal. The funding also creates opportunities to hire, support and mentor Indigenous graduate students here at OCAD U and other Canadian universities.

An important aspect of the website archive is the team will be developing interactive elements. Artists themselves will be invited to engage with it, add new content, help fill in gaps and get involved. “We want participation from the artists so they can add to the story and catch missing work,” said Nagam. “Web and new media work can so easily get lost, so the artists can help identify important pieces and add to their profiles.”

The grant will help fund project development for two years and is valued at $70,000, but as Nagam notes, this is only the beginning. “I would like to see a large-scale research project and a commitment to documenting this rich archive,” said Nagam. “It has so much potential. It will be great to expand the team, add to the website archive and build a large-scale exhibition and conference that would visualize and analyze this rich body of knowledge.”

About Julie Nagam

Dr. Julie Nagam’s research focus is on (re) mapping the colonial state through creative interventions within concepts of native space. She specializes in cultural geography, Indigenous critical theory, cultural and post-colonial theory, gender, activism and racial configurations within history, space and creative practices. Her site-specific research has taken her to Pangnirtung, Nunavut, rural and remote areas of Manitoba and Iceland, and she has conducted research on the Indigenous histories of Toronto for the Visible City Project + Archive.

Nagam is also an active mixed media artist working in drawing, photography, painting, sound, projections, digital media and curatorial projects. Some of her recent work includes “Where White Pines Lay Over the Water,” a sound and media installation shown here in Toronto and in Brazil, and “Singing Our Bones,” an interactive installation which was part of Landslide/Possible Futures in Markham ON, and Ecocentrix in London England.

Learn More

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

Julie Nagam faculty biography

President's Speaker Series: Bill Shannon

Monday, August 26, 2013 - 4:00am

Bill Shannon: “Retaining neutral Palette Through a Forest of Heroic and Tragic Positions”

Free Talk: September 18, 6:30 p.m.
OCAD University Auditorium, 100 McCaul Street

Performance: September 19, 4:30 p.m.
Bill Shannon at OCAD U’s Festival of the Body
Butterfield Park, 100 McCaul Street

OCAD University is pleased to present a free public talk by artist, dancer and performer Bill Shannon as part of its President’s Speaker Series.

Bill Shannon was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1970. In 1975 he moved to Pittsburgh, PA where he spent the remainder of his childhood and adolescence. In 1992 Shannon attended the The Art Institute of Chicago, earning a BFA in 1995. In 1996 Shannon moved to NYC and immersed himself in the art, dance and skate cultures of Brooklyn and Manhattan while expanding his performance work to multimedia video installations, group choreography and the theater arts.

Over the past two decades Bill Shannon’s installations, performances, choreography and video work have been presented nationally and internationally at numerous venues, festivals and events including, Sydney Opera House, Tate Liverpool Museum, NYC Town Hall, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, The Holland Festival, Amsterdam, Temple Bar Dublin, Kiasma Museum Finland, Hirshhorn Museum and many more. Shannon also completed a project with Cirque du Soleil where he choreographed an aerial duet and a solo on crutches for their 2002 production "Varekai," which toured into 2011.

Shannon has been honored with a Newhouse Foundation Award a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Art Award among others. He has also received support for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, Arts International: The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals PA Council on the Arts and others.

In 2005 Shannon moved his family back to his childhood home of Pittsburgh Pa to participate in his extended families urban farming project, Wild Red's Urban Farm. Shannon, as of 2011, performs publicly on a project by project basis while also working on a book project, video installation and other new media and green materials projects. Shannon continues the evolution of his technique of dance on crutches via spontaneous street skating sessions through the city to local spots with smooth tip surfaces.

OCAD University
100 McCaul Street, Toronto
416-977-6000  |  www.ocadu.ca

About OCAD University
OCAD University (www.ocadu.ca) is Canada’s “university of imagination.” The university, founded in 1876, is dedicated to art and design education, practice and research and to knowledge and invention across a wide range of disciplines. OCAD University is building on its traditional, studio-based strengths, adding new approaches to learning that champion cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and the integration of emerging technologies. In the Age of Imagination, OCAD University community members will be uniquely qualified to act as catalysts for the next advances in culture, technology and quality of life for all Canadians.

# # #

For more information please contact:

Sarah Mulholland, OCAD U Marketing & Communications
416 977 6000 x327
mobile: x1327

Box Autumn Salon

Monday, October 7, 2013

With work by faculty member, Stan Kryzyzanowski

An evening of short words, film, performance and music by:

Cherie Dimaline
Peter Dudar
Clara Engel
Stan Kryzanowski
Laura Nanni
Steve Pulchalski
Michael Snow
Jessica Westhead

The Box is a quarterly salon night of readings, performances, screenings, interventions and networking that aims to bring diverse communities and audiences into an environment of artistic and social intermingling.

Cherie Dimaline is a Metis author living in Toronto with her husband and their three children. Her first award-winning book, Red Rooms, was published in 2007. She is currently the Writer in Residence for First Nations House at the University of Toronto and is the Editor-in-Chief of both FNH and Muskrat magazines. Her first novel, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy has just been released by Theytus Books.

Peter Dudar began his career as a painter and transitioned into conceptual art. In the early 1970s, he created the performance art partnership Missing Associates in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Lily Eng. Their partnership produced a unique hybrid of conceptual art, experimental dance and multimedia art. They were prime movers of the first wave of Toronto and international performance art and experimental dance in the 1970s. Post Missing Associates, Dudar screened internationally as a filmmaker. American Film Festival, New York, USA, 1983: “Peter Dudar's film DP is powerfully evocative. Many striking images and creative effects. The juxtaposition of words with related film clips is absolutely brilliant.” Currently, Peter Dudar makes video and photo-based artwork. His 2011 video Starlings (at Nightfall) won the Steam Whistle Homebrew Award at Images Festival “in recognition of its arresting cinematic composition and elegant study of movement.” Just recently, his video Shamans, the Cunning won the Best Experimental Film Award at the TUFF Festival, after screening on Toronto's subway system to 1.3 million commuters. Peter Dudar's just-released eBook: Missing Associates: Lily Eng and Peter Dudar documents Missing Associates' origin in Canada and subsequent progression throughout the Americas and Europe.

Clara Engel is an independent, multi-faceted artist and musician based in Toronto, Canada. She has independently recorded and released eight albums, and has collaborated with musicians and artists from the UK, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Turkey, and the US. Engel's music has been played on Italian National Radio, as well as BBC Radio 2, making it onto Tom Robinson's show "BBC Introducing" on several occasions. Record labels Vox Humana (UK) and Backwards Music (IT) have released Engel's work on vinyl. Some artists with whom Engel has collaborated: Aidan Baker (Musician, Berlin/Toronto), Larkin Grimm (Musician, NYC), Bruno Capinan (Musician, Brazil/Toronto), Stefan Orschel-Read (Fashion designer, UK), Nick Fox-Gieg (Animator, Toronto/NYC), Ebrahel Lurci (Artist, Turkey). Engel recently wrote and recorded a soundtrack for the short film "We Are Not Here" directed by Aaron Mirkin, due out in early 2013, and is currently mixing a new album "Ashes and Tangerines," due for release in 2013 through Talking Skull, a Montreal-based label.

Stan Krzyzanowski is a Toronto-based multi-media artist and instructor at OCAD University, teaching in fabrication. His teaching and research frequently investigates trees, growth and the changeable nature of wood. He has a strong interest in experienced-based learning and process-based work, often involving photographic and video time studies. During the past decade his work has branched into electronics and online projects. His pine cone oscillator, made in response to his discovery that cones open and close with changes of moisture, serves as a watching station and time-lapse recording device. His “Interval” web-site is a very large online archive of video-work generated from such observations and is a comprehensive compilations of time-lapse, stop-motion and interval-based photography. His work can be seen at www.ocadstan.ca and at vimeo.com/stank

Laura Nanni is a Toronto based artist and curator. Her performance and installation work has been shown across Canada, the US, the UK and Europe. She is currently heading into her 4th year as the Rhubarb Festival Director. Most recently she completed a residency at Videofag based in Kensington Market.

Steve Puchalski was used to being the centre of attention. As an actor, you'd recognize him from his appearances in commercials and TV shows. However, Steve needed to get away from it, as far away from it as possible. You can't just leave acting; it's like the mafia, you need to disappear. Puchalski packed his personal effects, his acoustic guitar and headed to Berlin where he joined the elusive and mythical cult of the Roadie. He hauled gear from Stockholm to Warsaw, setting up and tearing down in 400 year-old castles and open-air festivals. Hard Sell was more or less written by the time Puchalski touched down in Victoria after nearly a year of being a road-worn stranger overseas. He bought an old Chevy S10 and trekked across Canada, coming back to his hometown of Toronto and assembled the band: Adam White, Gavin Maguire, Jim Bowskill and Ian McKeown. You can't get two roles more opposite than actor and roadie, but it was these two career paths Puchalski chose that eventually birthed the singer songwriter that he is today. In the end, the hard sell was the plan, or lack thereof. No one expected the journey to turn out like this, and Puchalski wouldn't have had it any other way.

Michael Snow was born and lives in Toronto. He works in many mediums: drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, holography, film and video. He is also a musician who has made many recordings and has done sound installations. He has produced many book-works such as Michael Snow/A Survey (1970), Cover to Cover (1975) and BIOGRAPHIE (of the Walking Woman 1961-1967) (2004). His films have been widely presented at festivals in North America, Asia and Europe. His work is in many major private and public collections worldwide. Solo exhibitions of Snow’s visual art have been presented at museums and galleries in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Berlin, Bonn, Boston, Brussels, Istanbul, Kassel, Lima, Los Angeles, Lucerne, Lyons, Minneapolis, Montreux, Munich, New York, Ottawa, Paris, Pittsburgh, Quebec City, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Vienna and elsewhere. He has executed several public sculpture commissions in Toronto, notably Flight Stop at Eaton Centre, The Audience at Rogers Centre, and The Windows Suite at the Pantages Hotel and Condominium complex.His numerous awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship (1972), Order of Canada (Officer, 1982; Companion, 2007), and the first Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2000) for cinema. Snow was made a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres, France, in 1995, and received an honorary doctorate in 2004 from the Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, àngels barcelona, Martine Aboucaya in Paris, and Galerie Klosterfelde in Berlin.

Jessica Westhead’s novel Pulpy & Midge was published by Coach House Books in 2007. Her short story collection And Also Sharks, published by Cormorant Books in 2011, was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book and a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Short Fiction Prize.

+Door treats from Alert Music, Arc Poetry Magazine, Carousel, Descant, Coach House Books, Dandyhorse, DC Books, Geist, John Kamevaar, Grain Magazine, House of Pomegranates, Hunter and Cook, Mercer Union, Pedlar Press, Public, The Malahat Review, Matrix, Shameless, Tightrope Books, Transit Publishing, Worn Journal and others.

Many Thanks to the Toronto Arts Council.

 

647-692-0768

 

boxsalon.com/

boxsalon@hotmail.com

PWYC

Venue & Address: 
The Rivoli (backroom) 334 Queen St. W. Toronto, Ontario

Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2

Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2
Saturday, October 12, 2013 - 10:00pm

Doors 5pm / Concert 6pm / At the Music Gallery and OCAD U Student Gallery (52 McCaul St., across the parking lot from the MG)

Part of the X Avant New Music Festival / Six new hours: a slow-motion rave

In the fall of 1983, a young up-and-coming group called the Kronos Quartet premiered a new work by Morton Feldman in Toronto, a last-minute replacement for another group whose members were tragically killed in a car accident. Commissioned by New Music Concerts and broadcast live-to-air on the CBC’s Two New Hours, this “two-hour” quartet quickly became three, then four, pre-empting the national news and finishing just minutes before the network’s 1AM blackout.

We celebrate this notorious premiere’s 30th anniversary with the first Canadian performance of Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2 in its entirety: a six-hour feat of endurance and transcendence performed by NYC’s FLUX Quartet.

FLUX, whom many will remember from their Canadian debut at the Music Gallery in 2010, are one of only two ensembles who have recorded the enormously taxing FSQ2 (the other is the Ives Ensemble, whose version clocks in at a zippy 4:45). FLUX’s virtuosity, rigour and risk taking has led to breathtaking performances of the world’s most dangerous repertoire (not to mention several guest spots on 30 Rock).

We invite fellow students of history, boundary smashers, intrepid sonic explorers, seekers of the new, reminiscing nostalgists and renegade new music enthusiasts to experience FLUX + FSQ2 with us. This is more than just a remount. We are going all out to present this effing masterpiece in a manner which befits: an event that encompasses two venues (the Music Gallery and OCAD U Student Gallery), a chillout room, video games, food vendors on site and a live broadcast on CIUT 89.5FM. It’s a slow-motion rave.

GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE MARY MARGARET WEBB FOUNDATION

 

416.204.1080

 

musicgallery.org/

 

Tickets $30 Regular / $20 Member / $25 Advance at Soundscapes

Venue & Address: 
Music Gallery (197 John Street) and the OCAD U Student Gallery (52 McCaul St., across the parking lot from the MG). Toronto, Ontario

Shary Boyle Artist Talk

The Cave Painter by Shary Boyle installation detail
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - 6:30pm

All are welcome

Shary Boyle’s practice includes drawing, painting, sculpture and performance. Based in Toronto, Boyle’s work is exhibited and collected internationally, with pieces in the National Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, La Maison Rouge Foundation in Paris and the Paisley Museum in Scotland. The national touring exhibit of her work "Flesh and Blood" opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario in fall 2010. “Everything Under the Moon”, her first major theatre performance in collaboration with Christine Fellows, was commissioned by Habourfront World Stage in 2012. Boyle is the 2009 recipient of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Iskowitz Award and the 2010 Hynatyshyn Award for her outstanding contribution to the visual arts in Canada. Shary Boyle represented Canada at the 2013 Venice Biennale with her project “Music for Silence”.

2013, The Cave Painter, installation detail. Plaster, hair, wood, foam, latex, glitter, glass, epoxy, overhead projections. 301 x 427 x 457cm

Photography by Rafael Goldchain c 2013.

 

Free

Venue & Address: 
Auditorium 100 McCaul St. Toronto, Ontario

Every moment can be traced back to the first time the sun touched my face

A love worth fighting over (a monument to those that preceded me), 2013, Photo by Jennifer Rose Sciarrino courtesy of the artist
Saturday, November 16, 2013 - 5:00am to Sunday, January 12, 2014 - 5:00am

Performance: Thursday, November 21, all day
Opening with Friday Night ART Live: Friday, November 22, 7:00pm
Talk and Publication Launch: Saturday, December 14, 2:00pm

Exhibition by OCAD U faculty and staff member Derek Liddington

Every moment can be traced back to the first time the sun touched my face is an exhibition by Toronto based artist Derek Liddington and his first solo show within a public gallery. Through a series of site specific works, Liddington explores the potential moments that can occur between the rise and fall of the sun over the horizon. Engaging with disciplines as diverse as drawing, sculpture and performance Liddington traces the sun's movement across the sky as an allegorical investigation of the human condition – specifically that of love and violence enacted within these moments. The anecdotal origin from which the exhibition draws is an offsite happening occurring on the artist’s birthday, November 21. Set to the backdrop of downtown Galt, Cambridge, a crane operator will perform the task of lifting a 300 pound circular steel plate in an action following the course of the sun’s rise from the east, to the delving of the light under the horizon to the west. The banal object celebrates both the sun’s rise and fall, engaged in a hopeless tracing of the solar gesture; an act of mimicry that is simultaneously archival and violent. However, the tension in the gesture also nods to the minimalist act of visually engaging with its surroundings, both in time and space.

In the main space of the exhibition Liddington presents a new sculptural work, A love worth fighting over (a monument to those that preceded me). Derived from his explorations of geometric composition and movement in relation to narrative, the work illustrates an operatic scene between three lovers, a car, and two ballerinas. Within the work entire segments of the narrative are concealed and revealed within the banner’s bellowing folds exploring the simultaneous expansion and compression of time, past, present and future. The surface of the banner has been dyed through a process of soaking and then rubbing powdered graphite over canvas. This process works to expose the very act of its creation leaving behind traces of the fingers and hands moving across the dyed surface. The resulting surface shimmers and flakes against the folds and reflecting light. In the wall drawing – All I could do to control my anger was stare at the endless beauty of the sun as it spilled over the horizon. All I could do to control my love was stare at the endless beauty of the sun as it spilled over the horizon. – Liddington uses mark making as a means for unveiling violence and tension. Geometric forms act as stand ins for individuals, objects and iconic imagery as we begin to see the unfolding trajectory of Liddington’s love story through the rise and fall of the sun.

Derek Liddington works and lives in Toronto. He obtained his MFA from the University of Western Ontario (London) and BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax). Liddington’s work has been exhibited in numerous public settings, including his 2010 staging of Allegory for an Opera as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche (Toronto). His most recent solo exhibition titled Modern Love is currently on view at Daniel Faria Gallery (Toronto). He has exhibited at abc 2013 (Art Berlin Contemporary), and in group shows curated by Cole Swanson and Rui Amaral. Liddington has received numerous grants and in 2011 was shortlisted for the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Artist Prize. He is represented by Daniel Faria Gallery (Toronto).

Curated by Iga Janik

Gallery Hours:
Mon – Thurs 9:30am – 8:30pm
Fri & Sat 9:30am – 5:30pm
Sun 1:00 – 5:00pm

Image: A love worth fighting over (a monument to those that preceded me), 2013. Rubbed graphite on canvas, steel, 8'x8'x8'. Photography: Jennifer Rose Sciarrino. Image courtesy of the artist.

Cambridge Galleries, Queen’s Square

1 North Square

Cambridge, Ontario

519.621.0460

derekliddington.com

Free

Venue & Address: 
Cambridge Galleries, Queen’s Square 1 North Square Cambridge, Ontario

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