2015-16 Programming

Feminist Art Conference (FAC) OCAD University Sept 24-27 2015.
http://factoronto.org/

FAC Satellite - Exhibitions with WIAprojects, Centre for Women’s Studies in Education,

Ontario institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Site Satellite Project Co-ordinators: Pam Patterson & Leena Raudvee.

Site Satellite Project Committee: Pam Patterson, Leena Raudvee, Mary Wright, (WIAprojects); Angela Miles, Yoko Ueda, Lakshya Dunghana, Frieda Forman, Paula Bourne (CWSE), Ginger Scott/Natasha Mytnowych (Artscape Youngplace), Meaghan Barry.

Making Feminism (In)Visible

Our interest is in the creative use, and transgressive potential of, non-institutional spaces, the spaces in between and outside of the conventional galleries or academic settings where women and feminism, as praxis in particular, leak out of the cracks and make a mark. We do not intend to define feminism per se but rather to map a presence - perhaps intangible and ill-defined but certainly energetic, active, and persistent - in culture and in society. 
Three independent yet interrelated exhibitions address these considerations in very different ways: Women’s Poster Project: Feminist Organizing takes cultural artifacts and uses them as touchstones to mark the passion of past feminist organising; Feminist Architectures  uses the work of three artists (two working in collaboration) in photo-based work (ARTIFACTS) and mixed media abstract drawing (Reynolds) to explore the presence/absence of women as contemporary site (sight) and [insert feminism] explores the work of young contemporary  artists as they reach for strategies to define their experiences within feminism .

Women’s Poster Project: Feminist Organizing!

CWSE Hallway Gallery

OISE/UT

252  Bloor Street West, 2nd floor, Toronto

Sept 10, 2015 -April 30, 2016

View the history of feminist organising through historic posters which detail key cultural, social and political events in the women’s community.

CWSE with WIAprojects

Co-ordinator: Leena Raudvee, Associate Director, WIAprojects with Yoko Ueda and Laksya Dunghana CWSE.

Co-Curators: Paula Bourne CWSE Senior Associate and former CWSE Head & Frieda Forman CWSE Senior Associate, OISE/UT

Artscape Youngplace:

Feminist Architectures

2^nd floor Hallway Gallery

Opening Reception:  Wednesday Sept 23, 6.30 pm with Panel at 7 pm 

Exhibit Dates: Sept. 16 – 27

ARTIFACTS -
Original photo documentation by Miklos Legrady

Adrienne Reynolds

WIAprojects for 2015-16, is interested in the creative use, and transgressive potential of, non-institutional spaces, the spaces in between and outside of the conventional galleries or academic settings where women and feminism, as praxis in particular, leak out of the cracks and make a mark. We do not intend to define feminism per se but rather to map a presence - perhaps intangible and ill-defined but certainly energetic, active, and persistent - in culture and in society. T

Wall works by New York artist Adrienne Reynolds and Toronto-based ARTIFACTS (Pam Patterson & Leena Raudvee) explore imagery which defines how, and engages with, the limitations and potentials of feminist theoretical and architectural space. They articulate imagery through vectors of activity and/or, as bodies contained by/in structures. The work is critiqued and reframed by academic and cultural critic Dina Georgis. This critique (presented in the opening panel on Wednesday Sept 23) will stimulate discussion and affect how the work will be re-presented in future exhibitions.  

ARTIFACTS (Pam Patterson & Leena Raudvee) http://www.mikloslegrady.com/photo/artifacts/pentimenti/
(ARTIFACTS with Miklos Legrady: Legrady documents ARTIFACTS, interprets and extends its concepts and practice through photo, video, and web.)

& Adrienne Reynolds http://www.adriennereynolds.com/index.php?/projects/new/

[insert feminism]

Artscape Youngplace

1st floor "Monitor" Gallery

Curator: Julia Pereira

The online intersectional feminist movement frequented by young artists is filled with uplifting propaganda complete with pastel color palettes, sparkles, transparent backgrounds and pretty girls of all sizes and skin colors telling the people to “Fight like a girl” and “No does not mean convince me.” This differs from the more established theory based artworks that frequent galleries in that these art pieces are meant to cater to young people and make the complicated ideas of feminism easier to digest. The goal is to get people excited: about body positivity, different races, genders, sexualities and being kinder to yourself. It is about being inclusive and making people unafraid of the word feminist. When examining the artworks, you can easily see these underlying messages the artists have consciously put behind the pastel colors and sparkles.It’s important to recognize the things closest to the hearts of teenagers and young adults because it is sometimes the first kind of feminism young people experience, and they will be the critical thinkers that will dominate the discussion in the future. Insert Feminism is an online exhibit created by Julia Pereira and is designed to showcase this positive and supportive space for emerging feminist thinkers.

Online at: http://insertfeminism.tumblr.com/

Opening as video: 

Artscape Youngplace

2^nd floor Hallway Gallery

Opening Reception:  Wednesday Sept 23, 6.30 pm 

Exhibit Dates: Sept. 16 – 27

Also showing in the 1st floor Vitrines: 
Girls Art League presents "Gal Pals" an exhibition of small works of various mediums from the Girls Art League community. 

Biographies:

Women’s Poster Project: Feminist Organizing!

Paula Bourne is a Canadian historian and professional educator. She received  undergraduate degrees in history and education from the University of Leeds, England and an M.A. in education from the University of Toronto.

Currently she is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education  (CWSE) Ontario  Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)  University of Toronto. She served as Head of the Centre from 1999-2006. Her research, writing and teaching has focused on Canadian women’s history, contemporary issues facing Canadian women and gender issues and education. She has taught  courses on gender equity in schools and classroom at the undergraduate and graduate level and has lectured on the history of Canadian women and gender equity in education both in Canada and internationally, including  Pakistan (Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University, Karachi); Japan (Ibaraki University, Mito City, Kanagawa University, Yokohama); and Costa Rica (University of Costa Rica, San Juan). 

Her work for the Ontario Government includes developing curriculum resources to help teachers deal with violence in schools, developing materials to combat date and acquaintance rape on college and university campuses, and leading an expert education panel which produced two handbooks and a DVD for elementary teachers designed to help them identify children in their classrooms who are or maybe witnessing woman abuse at home. Teacher training based on the materials produced by this panel continues to take place across Ontario including in many Aboriginal communities

She is also the recipient of many research grants related to her work on the history of Canadian women and gender equity and education.

Frieda Forman was born in Vienna and spent her early childhood as a refugee in Switzerland. At City College and City University of New York, she specialized in philosophy and German literature. She married, had 2 children, and was active in the antiwar movement before immigrating to Toronto in 1970. She introduced the first Women’s Studies course at the Ontario College of Art (OCA), and subsequently founded and established the Women’s Educational Resources Center (WERC) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She is currently a Senior Associate Scholar for the Center for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE).  Forman is the author of Jewish Refugees in Switzerland During the Holocaust, The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers, the editor of Found Treasures and Taking Our Time, and her articles have appeared in anthologies and encyclopedia. She is also the founder of Kids Can Press.

Feminist Architectures

ARTIFACTS: http:/ccca.concordia.ca/artists/artist_info.html?languagePref=en&link_id=11021&artist=ARTIFACTS+%28Pam+Patterson+and+Leena+Raudvee%29)%20

ARTIFACTS was formed in 1983 by Pam Patterson and Leena Raudvee to produce collaborative works which combine the sensibilities and concerns of art and theatre. Over the years this practice has become interdisciplinary performance art. ARTIFACTS explores culture, looking at myths, assumptions, and fantasies, and places them in a new context. The work is informed by feminism.  Performance art well suits this process and, while the performances may contain many personal and specific images and text, our intention is to investigate how women have been/are being formed, and to reveal our attempts to negotiate this formation.  The tension is between the personal and the formal, which raises questions for us as to the nature of feminist art practices and women’s roles in society. While concentrating on performance, ARTIFACTS has also created sound and video works and visual exhibitions.  Recent works include: Pentimenti, Gallery 1313 and  Individual Points of Fiction, A Space Gallery in Toronto 2012; Pacing the Cage, Collisions 2006, Victoria;  The Voyage Out for Buddies in Bad Times’ Hysteria : A Festival of Women; and Passing (2001), 7A11D International Performance Art Festival. Other works include: Detale (detail), presented for Roundup, 89; Attending II, staged as part of the series Access to the Process at A Space Gallery; Attending the Interior, performed at The Banff Centre; and Suburban Mirage, staged in the Danceworks series at Winchester St. Theatre, Toronto.  Earlier works included performances in theatres, the street, and at the Theatre Centre and Partisan Gallery.

Leena Raudvee: Leena Raudvee is a Toronto-based visual and performance artist. As Co-Artistic Director of ARTIFACTS she has performed for festivals, in galleries and on the street. Recently, she has been developing work on memory and displacement, performing at the DCAC in Washington D.C. and in Process at Artscape Youngplace in Toronto. She has exhibited work at the Fleishman Gallery, in juried shows at the AWOL Gallery and for the OSA at the Aird Gallery in Toronto. Leena Raudvee is a curatorial, programming and publication associate for WIAprojects and a member of the WIAprojects collective. As such, she curates exhibitions, facilitates and assists with programs and designs the exhibition catalogues. 

Pam Patterson: Pam Patterson (PhD) is a curator, writer, researcher, educator, and artist. Patterson taught in Education, Art Gallery on Ontario for over 10 years, currently teaches for OCAD University, and is Senior Associate for the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education at OISE/UT. Her curatorial projects include: A Celebration of Women in the Arts, The Banff Centre;  Body as (ready to be re-) made, Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts; gender/Troubling, XPACE, Toronto; and various WIAprojects exhibitions and events. She is Founder and Director for the interdisciplinary arts-informed feminist presentation, educational, and research program WIAprojects at the University of Toronto and Director of Research for the Canadian Society for Education through Art. Patterson was on the founding board for FADO Performance Inc. and performs internationally. Her work deals with the body-in-extremis as a pedagogical and political site. Recent performance events include: Visualeyze, Edmonton and Performance DOM, Dominican Republic.

Adrienne Reynolds: Adrienne Reynolds is a cross-disciplinary visual artist. Born in Morris, Minnesota, and raised in Canada, Adrienne currently splits her time between New York City and Toronto. She has shown in Chile, Mexico, Serbia, Brazil, Toronto and New York City. She has a Masters in Fine Arts from Parsons, the New School for Design (2008), was a participant in the Toronto School of the Arts Independent Studio Program (2006), and is an Associate of the Ontario College of Art & Design (1991). She is currently a Part-Time Assistant Professor at Parsons, the New School for Design in New York City. Grants/scholarships include Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, the Parsons Deans Graduate Scholarship and the LCU Foundation grant.

Dina Georgis: Dina Georgis is an Associate Professor at the Women and Gender Studies Institute. Situated in the fields of postcolonial and queer studies, Dina Georgis’ work draws on psychoanalytic concepts to think through how political cultures are responses to the affective remains of the past. She is particularly interested in how narrative and art articulate provide the conditions to engage the past and imagine new futures. Her book, The better story: queer affects from the Middle East (SUNY, 2013), considers the emotional dynamics of political conflict, the stories and subjectivities they produce, and what it means to make an ethical relationship to conflict.

[insert feminsim]

Julia Pereira is a new artist and writer currently living in Brampton Ontario and studying in the Illustration program at OCAD University. She works mainly with inks, markers and pens on board or paper. She also loves coffee, music, petting animals, reading fantasy books and creating dynamic female characters.
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FEMINIST FOMO NOMO 

OCAD U: FEMINIST ART EXHIBITION, NOVEMBER 2015

From November 10 to December 6, The Learning Zone at OCAD U will exhibit the collaborative creativity of artists reflecting on feminism. For a month, interact within a feminist space that connects artists across ages, mediums and perspectives.  

For further information about the exhibit and the events which will be happening over the month contact Coordinators: Nazanin Khani & Julia Pereira at  feministfomonomo@gmail.com 

The Learning Zone is located on level one of the Village by the Grange building. The space can be accessed through the entrances at 113 McCaul Street and 122 St. Patrick Street. Bike parking is available outside the space at the St. Patrick Street entrance.

This exhibition is sponsored by WIAprojects at CWSE/OISE University of Toronto, the OCAD University Library’s Learning Zone, OCAD U's Office of Diversity, Equity and Sustainability Issues (ODESI) and the Feminist Art Conference (FAC). 

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Women's Poster Project Panel CWSE/OISE 252 Bloor St W, 2nd Floor, March 9th 7-9 pm

Come check out some amazing designers speak about the historical and contemporary graphic design from the Women's Movement in Toronto!

About the panelists:

Frieda Forman: Frieda Forman established the Women's Educational Resources Centre at OISE and has worked with the CWSE for nearly twenty-five years. Frieda's central research and writing interests have focused on the various manifestations of feminism and the women’s movement.

Sarah Dugan: Sarah Dugan is a queer aspiring art director, practicing graphic designer, and intersectional activist. She completed her Bachelor of Design at Alberta College of Art + Design in 2012, and is nearing the completion of her Master of Design from York University. Sarah’s work explores the role of graphic design as an agent for social change.

Suzanne Stein: Suzanne is a Foresight Analyst, Mentor, and Educator. She is the Lab Director of DMRII’s Super Ordinary and a member of OCAD U’s Digital Futures Office (established in 2009), focusing on new technologies and research methods. She is the director of fem-LED a lab that is committed to inspiring and championing women to be equipped, consider and embrace leadership in digital media enterprises in order to fully participate in the growing opportunities of the sector.

Christine Mangosing: After completing studies in Fine Arts at Langara College and Graphic Design at the Ontario College of Art & Design, Christine founded the boutique firm, CMANGO DESIGN. Since then she’s amassed an international client roster and maintained the role of art director at Exclaim! Magazine, Canada’s only nationally distributed music magazine. Christine’s work is deeply informed by her sense of personal and cultural history. As a founding member of the Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts + Culture, her roles have included establishing and overseeing the organization's visual brand and providing arts-based career mentorship.

Event Curator: Carly Friesen: carlyfriesen1@gmail.com

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OUR STORY? with Jamaican-Canadian Writer & Artist Mary Wright Tues March 8th 6-8pm

What’s our story that needs to be told, or be heard?  For centuries we, the people of African Descent and our ancestors, have been listening to and enduring the traumatic stereotypes, misrepresentations and misappropriations of our histories.

This International Women’s Day Forum encourages our fellow women of African Descent to come together to share our stories and experiences through our traditional forms of expressions, styles and production in the fine arts, orally (literature and spoken word), dance and music. 

The CWSE is co-sponsoring this event with WIAprojects' Associate Director, writer, artist and women's activist, Mary Wright. 

For further information on this event, please see the poster below or contact the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE) at: cwse@utoronto.ca or telephone 416-978-2080 or 416-769-4397.

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Joanna Black is our artist/researcher for the academic year  2015-16 and there is an exhibition of her research into university education up at the CWSE Hallway Gallery. Exhibit opened May 2nd, 2015 and will run until June 30th. 

Photo by Miklos Legrady

Sex/ism: ECHoes & ‘ReVERBS’ @ Ivory Towers

May 02 – July 1^st, 2016

Opening: May 02, 5.30 - 6.30pm

Informal Discussion with Artist: 6pm

CWSE Hallway Gallery

2nd Floor, OISE

252 Bloor Street West

(Bloor & St George)

Image by Joanna Black

Winnipeg artist/researcher Joanna Black explores prejudice in academia in Sex/ism: ECHoes & ‘ReVERBS’ @ Ivory Towers. The abundance of articles and reports about longstanding persistent sexist problems in our universities informed the content of this work. For this exhibition in particular, attention has been given to the University of Toronto (U of T).

Sexism at U of T was established in the university’s founding year, 1850. Its illustrious professor and president John McCaul firmly exclaimed at the time that the university doors would never be open to women in his day! (Canadian Encyclopedia, 2016). Even though the doors have been opened – and indeed during his day no less! – today’s glass ceiling remains intact: existent sexist attitudes are prevalent, and old boys’ networks stand strong at universities across Canada and internationally (ACPPU Bulletin, March 2016).  

For this exhibit, images are made using a stream-of-consciousness approach, in which text and imagery interact. Appropriation, multi-layering, ‘gazing’, and contextualization are used to create montages in which digital photographs are interlaced with grouped text and digital screen shots. The mundane, ubiquitous computer screen is been stilled and magnified making it more distant and unfamiliar.

Black’s intent, in using this approach, is also to address the challenges resulting from the democratization of photography: our society has created streams of cheap imagery and easily accessible digital multimodal texts.  This results in an image proliferation or what Bielicky (2008) calls, ‘cultural pollution’. We often do not take the time to gaze at these fleeting digital images. 

We live in an era where so many images proliferate in our culture yet we have saved so few. Creating playfully montaged, layered, and appropriated digital texts, by using humor, and by paying homage to the well-known feminist artist group, The Guerrilla Girls, Black highlights sexism within our academic walls.

Joanna Black is a digital artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She recently collaborated with ARTIFACTS artists, Pam Patterson & Leena Raudvee and Miklos Legrady as performance artist/composer/interpreter in/for Babble (Babel) at Hart House, U of T, 2013/14. Black works in traditional and new media specifically with video, photography, painting, blogs spaces, computerized art and sound developing arts-informed research. Black is a professor at the University of Manitoba cross-appointed with the Faculty of Education and the School of Visual Arts. She has exhibited her work in the United States and Canada.

Joanna Black's full exhibit an be viewed at: http://www.mikloslegrady.com/joanna_black_feminist/