2012-2013 Programming



Fall Book Launch: Border Crossings: An "Erotic" Affair? date TBC

Fall Exhibition:
Exhibition postponed due to labour action by Ontario teachers.I Belong, You Belong, We Belong: Challenging Intersectionality in Modern Society (Oct, 1 - 26, 2012) is a drawing- and painting-based exhibition that investigates and challenges the “isms” present in modern society. Under the direction of Ashley Taylor and Mallory Diaczun, both artists and educators, select students in grades 6-8 from Earnscliffe Senior Public School have reflected and responded to the social injustice they have seen or experienced related to gender, sexual orientation, race, faith, ability, age, and class. By examining the interconnectedness of their own identities, the students hope to confront the viewer and suggest ways in which to create and maintain more welcoming, equitable, and inclusive environments. Exhibit: CWSE Hallway Gallery, Oct, 1 - 26, 2012
Opening: Oct 1st 5.30-7pm.

Fall Event:
FOOD=NEED (Oct 31 - Nov 1, 2012)
Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Commmunity and Health Centre (DPNCHC)
FOOD=NEED curators Pam Patterson, Leena Raudvee & Trisha Lamie would like to thank the Toronto Arts Council for project funding for this event. 

Description:
Food is a basic human need which shapes desires and yields many kinds of enjoyment. But food and our relationship to it, are much more complex. While food may be important for celebration, basic for sustenance, essential as a display, and offer pleasure, it also can also breed competition. FOOD=NEED intends to use performance as: a tool to animate conversation, generate creative ideas, and build solidarity among artists, cultural producers and social activists; explore performance as a medium for communicating through unusual and direct forms/forums – outside around a bonfire, in a community hall, and at the edge of a sidewalk and through shared cooking and eating; encourage dialogue across need and sustenance and across country.

 Artists: Margaret Dragu (Richmond, BC), claude wittmann (Toronto), Chrissy Poitras (Prince Edward County, ON), ARTIFACTS (Toronto). 

 Community Partners: Arts4All  (http://dpnchc.com/portfolio/arts-4-all/), Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Community and Health Centre (http://dpnchc.com/), SparkBox Studio (http://sparkboxstudio.com/), Tamarind Eco Art Projects (http://www.tamarindecoart.org/), Centre for Women's Studies in Education (http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/cwse/), University of Toronto Scarborough (http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/acm/programs/theatre) Dufferin Grove Park (http://dufferinpark.ca/home/wiki/wiki.php) and Cath Campbell (http://www.neighbourhoodartsnetwork.org/members/cath-campbell).

FOOD=NEED intends to: use performance as a tool to animate conversation, generate creative ideas, and build solidarity among artists, cultural producers and social activists; explore performance as a medium for communicating through unusual and direct forms/forums – outside around a bonfire, in a community hall, and at the edge of a sidewalk and through shared cooking and eating; encourage dialogue across need and sustenance and across country.

Performances:

Rising
Pomegranate
claude wittmann
ARTIFACTS
RISING (Margaret Dragu) is an 8-hour durational performance comprising 8 hours of bread-making performed in front of a videotape of Dragu’s fishing village of Finn Slough in Richmond, BC. It employs time, yeast, sugar, flour, water, oil, fire and sweat and audience participation.

the chicken arrives around 2.30pm (claude wittmann). "This piece is curious about what happens when on "the day of the dead", a fire, a garden, a chicken, chicken meat and a grace-digging human being meet and meet with you." Link to video of Claude's performance:  Chicken arrives video excerpt

Pomegranate (Chrissy Poitras) remembers: “As a young girl my father and I would celebrate the winter season with a tradition. This tradition was to sit down with two bowls and a pomegranate. This performance speaks to these questions of memory, loss, ritual and reenactment.

ARTIFACTS (Patterson and Raudvee) has an over 25 year history of working together as artists, curators, and feminist organizers. Here they intend to take on activity in response to the almost week-long event. As both are artists with disabilities, this influences content and presentation; for example, Raudvee is celiac and she can’t eat the bread Dragu makes; Patterson is mobility challenged; both have vision issues. In dialogue with each other and with Dragu, wittman & Poitras they intend to generate personal and specific images and responses that speak to disability, endurance, persistence, patience, community, and collaboration.

 Schedule: 
Tues. Oct. 30, 4-6pm: Margaret Dragu performance/presentation, Leigha Lee Browne Theatre, University of Toronto Scarborough. Contact: Trisha Lamie: lamie@utsc.utoronto.ca
Wed. Oct. 31, 1-3.30pm: Margaret Dragu performing as Nuestra Senora del Pan in RISING, in Early Years Centre, DPNCHC.
Wed. Oct. 31, 3.30-4:30pm: Conversation with Margaret Dragu facilitated by Toronto Community Arts Curator/Co-ordinator Cath Campbell with Liz Rucker (Arts4All ) & Chrissy Poitras (SparkBox Studio),
Early Years Centre, DPNCHC.
Thur. Nov. 1, 2-5pm: claude wittmann performs at Dufferin Grove Park
Thur. Nov. 1, 5-6pm: Community Display & Reception at DPNCHC.
Thur. Nov. 1, 6-8pm: Performance by Chrissy Poitras with actions or installations by claude wittmann, ARTIFACTS and Margaret Dragu, Tamarind Eco Arts Projects, Sanctuary, DPNCHC. Group conversation and closing action facilitated by Liz Rucker & Arts4All at 7.30pm.

 Locations: 
Leigha Lee Browne Theatre, University of Toronto Scarborough
(Directions: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~advancement/find/)
DPNCHC (Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Community & Health Centre)
1900 Davenport Road (west of Dufferin St.) Toronto (http://dpnchc.ca/)
Dufferin Grove Park (south of Bloor on Dufferin St.)
Toronto (http://dufferinpark.ca/home/wiki/wiki.php)


Winter Seminar:
Paulette Brockington: Dancer & Artist
Brown Bag (Mary Wright)
Feb 2013: (Date TBA)

Winter Exhibit and Workshops:

Leesa Streifler & Cendres Lavy: CONTESTED BODies

Co-curators : Pam Patterson & Sevan Injejikian

Curatorial Assistance: Hilda Hashimoto 
Production Assistance: Michelle Ramalho 
Installation, Curatorial & Catalogue Design – Leena Raudvee

Exhibition Opening & Artist/Curator Remarks at CWSE Gallery, OISE/UT:  March 4th, 5.30pm - 7pm, Exhibit runs to March 30, 2013.

OCADU/AGO/WIAprojects Perspectives for Contemporary Art & Design Education Symposium: Tues. March 5, 11.30-2.30 pm, Art Gallery of Ontario, Westin Family Learning Centre (Leesa Streifler, Amy Swartz & AGO/OCAD educators).
UTSC Streifler Artist Talk: Wednesday March 6, from 11am - 1 PM  in the Arts Administration (AA) Buildiing Room 304 is  presented by Cultural Pluralism & the Arts, Department of Arts, Media & Culture (Yael Brotman) and Women’s Studies (Connie Guberman) on visual practice, body image, feminism  and gender.





Leesa Streifler: 

Leesa Streifler is a Professor of Visual Art at the University of Regina, in Saskatchewan, Canada, where she teaches painting and drawing. An established artist, her practice is focused on painting, drawing and photography combined with text. She is known for her feminist work investigating the female body as an expressive site of cultural affect. Streifler has received numerous awards for her work and it is included in public and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada. 

The works in the exhibition CONTESTED BODIES are inkjet prints of large-scale paintings made between 2010 and 2012. My work deals with feminine identity, and is specifically based on the corporeal. I am interested in the body as a receptacle of experience, focusing on sexuality, beauty, childhood, othering, body image, aging, illness and mortality. I work intuitively, creating imagery inspired by my personal experience and history. While the work is autobiographical, it is also a conflation of my knowledge of other women’s lives to critically reflect contemporary issues.

Toronto curator Pam Patterson will work with Leena Raudvee and Streifler to present her work for WIAprojects at the CWSE Gallery.

Cendres Lavy:
Cendres Lavy’s (Toulouse France/ Genève Switzerland) evocative mixed media works will be shown with Leesa Streifler’s in March 2013.  As an artist and author, Lavy’s career has developed on the edge of philosophy and art; two disciplines which she practices and studies in parallel.
Montreal curator Sevan Injejikian will be assisting Cendres to bring her work to Canada.



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