Art

Art, math and knowing yourself: Paris Ouma reflects on her journey from Kenya to U of T

mattimar — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:54:36 +0000

Art, math and knowing yourself: Paris Ouma reflects on her journey from Kenya to U of T

mattimar Wed, 09/20/2023 - 10:54

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Paris Ouma, pictured here with her artwork, is beginning her studies at U of T Mississauga this fall with the support of the university’s Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship (all images courtesy of Paris Ouma)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Global Lens

Back to School 2023

UTogether

Art

Global

Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship

Math

Mathematics

U of T Mississauga

Paris Ouma says she always feels hesitant before she begins to paint, questioning herself and her artistic abilities.

But her confidence inevitably returns with each brushstroke.

“What I love about art is how much it encapsulates so much of myself in every way,” she says. “Painting to me is a physical manifestation of how I re-learn over and over again to trust the process and myself.”

Ouma, who lived hours away from her family at age 12 while attending boarding school in Kenya, will once again be looking within herself as she prepares to embark on her next big chapter: moving to Canada to attend the University of Toronto as a Lester B. Pearson scholar.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to cry a lot,” says Ouma, who is enrolled in a social sciences program at U of T Mississauga. “But I’m ready for change more often than not.”

Named after Lester B. Pearson, a U of T alumnus, former prime minister and Nobel Prize recipient, the Pearson scholarship was created by U of T to bring exceptional students from around the world to study at the university. Awarded to those who demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and are recognized as leaders within their high school, the scholarship covers four years of study for first-entry students in undergraduate programs, including tuition, books, incidental fees and residence support.

Ouma says creating art teaches her how to trust herself and the artistic process

Ouma, one of 38 students to be awarded the scholarship this year, says attending boarding school in Molo, Kenya at such a young age taught her discipline, independence and, above all, the importance of speaking up for herself.

The self-confidence she gained through the experience made it easier to trust her instincts and follow her interests, even when they pointed in seemingly different directions.

That’s how she ended up becoming an artist with a passion for solving math problems, which she describes as “a thrill.”

“I used to be really bad at math, so my grandma tutored me. I got my first A in year eight and that’s when I started liking it,” says Ouma, who studied art, math and history in high school.

“It’s so satisfying when you get it.”

While math and art may seem worlds apart, they share a range of creative and cognitive skills that are increasingly valued in a wide range of fields, from medicine to business.

At U of T Mississauga, Ouma plans to pursue a degree that will lead to a career in wealth management or private equity – with a minor in art, of course.

She is also keen to help others discover themselves.

At her boarding school, she mentored younger students, empowering them to take pride in their native language and lending a helping hand in their exam preparations.

“I like listening and sitting down and being in people’s presence,” she says. “There’s so much people can offer you and you can offer them.”

Upon arriving in Canada, Ouma plans to explore the outdoors, including the natural beauty that surrounds the U of T Mississauga campus along the serene banks of Credit River. She has already made connections with fellow Pearson scholars through a group chat and says she’s excited to meet her soon to be roommate Natran Ambaye Tewoldemedhin, who is coming to U of T Mississauga from Ethiopia.

As she was preparing for her flight, Ouma packed her life into three suitcases – bringing with her essential hair products, two puffer jackets to combat the Toronto winter and a secret ingredient to make every meal special.

“It’s a seasoning blend called Royco – it’s Kenyan and I put it on everything.”

Robert Houle, who redefined contemporary Indigenous art, receives honorary degree

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 17:02:20 +0000

Robert Houle, who redefined contemporary Indigenous art, receives honorary degree Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 06/15/2023 - 13:02

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(photo by Lisa Sakulensky)

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One of the foremost artists and curators of his generation, Robert Houle has played a pivotal role in working for change against the continued effects of colonization.

His art, exhibited in leading museums and galleries around the world, blends Indigenous experiences and traditions with contemporary visual ideas. And his curated exhibitions have helped redefine contemporary Indigenous art and bring it to wider Canadian and international audiences.

Today, for his excellence in the arts as an internationally recognized Indigenous artist and curator, Houle will receive a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from the University of Toronto.

Houle was born in St. Boniface, Man. in 1947, the eldest of 15 children. With his family belonging to the Plains Ojibwa, or Anishnabe Saulteaux, Houle spent his early childhood in Sandy Bay First Nation on the western shore of Lake Manitoba and learned the Saulteaux culture and language. Raised as a Roman Catholic, he was forced to attend residential schools in Sandy Bay and Winnipeg. In 1972, he earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Manitoba.

After graduating, he attended the Salzburg International Summer Academy, where he focused on painting and drawing. He completed a bachelor of education degree at McGill University in 1975.

(photo by Lisa Sakulensky)

The time he spent in Sandy Bay at the residential school was difficult. According to Shirley Madill’s biography of the artist, Robert Houle: Life & Work, Houle was not allowed to paint sacred objects or experiences from his own culture – or to speak to his sisters, who also attended the school. After Houle joined his family for their annual Sun Dance ceremony, the priest would force him to go to confession for worshipping false gods. These experiences would inform art he created much later in life.

When Houle graduated from McGill, exhibitions of Indigenous art at mainstream museums and private galleries were uncommon. A 1975 show in Montreal organized by Professional Native Artists Inc. challenged colonial thinking – and represented Indigenous Peoples in a way that was eye-opening for Houle. “Before seeing this exhibition, I was not aware of work by contemporary Indigenous artists and was struck by the power of their work,” he told Madill, the biographer.

In the late 1970s, Houle worked for Ottawa’s National Museum of Man as its first Indigenous curator of contemporary Indian art. But after a few years there, he says he grew tired of how the museum treated ceremonial Indigenous objects. “Presented in a context that isolated them from life and reality, all I could think of was that I wanted to liberate them,” he told an interviewer at Muse magazine. He resigned, and decided that the best way for him to advance Indigenous art and representation was as an artist.

Around this time, Houle moved to Toronto with his life partner, Paul Gardner. During the 1980s, his art became more overtly political. He revisited the painful experiences of his childhood and youth in works such as Sandy Bay (1998-99.) He focused on the histories of Indigenous Peoples and recording the names of North American Indigenous nations, many of which colonization had erased. A trip to Amsterdam inspired a lifelong interest in the colour-field painting of Abstract Expressionism, which he found “perfectly suited to communicating his own Indigenous spirituality,” Madill observed.

Since then, Houle’s work has helped redefine contemporary Indigenous art and bring it to a wider audience in Canadian and abroad.

In 1990, he took on a newly established position as professor of Native studies at the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University), becoming the first person to hold such a role. He taught there for 15 years, mentoring a new generation of Indigenous artists and curators. At the same time, Houle continued to create art that transformed audiences, such as his iconic Kanata (1992) which reworks Benjamin West's 1770 painting "The Death of General Wolfe" and the multimedia piece, Kanehsatake (1990-1993) and Kanehsatake X (2000).

Houle has curated and co-curated a number of influential exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous art, including at the National Gallery of Canada. He has been a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts since 2000 and has received numerous awards including the Governor General Award for the Arts in 2015, the Toronto Arts Award for Visual Arts in 2001 and two honorary doctorates. In 2021, the Art Gallery of Ontario presented a major career retrospective of his work.

With zoological illustrations, U of T graphic artist Irene Nosyk brought science to life

siddiq22 — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 16:38:01 +0000

With zoological illustrations, U of T graphic artist Irene Nosyk brought science to life

siddiq22 Tue, 02/07/2023 - 11:38

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Pioneering illustrator Irene Nosyk at work in her studio in U of T's former department of zoology (photo courtesy of University of Toronto Archives)

Topic

Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Faculty & Staff

Faculty of Arts & Science

Today, sophisticated data visualization tools and advanced imaging technology make it easier than ever for scientists and instructors to create their own images for use in research and teaching.

Irene Nosyk's detailed illustration of a crustacean (University of
Toronto Archives)

But prior to the advent of this technology, it was the job of gifted scientific illustrators to take data, field notes, samples and specimens and turn them into scientifically accurate illustrations for use in papers and lectures.

“When I joined the University of Toronto in 1963, the technology associated with teaching was starting to change,” says Harold Harvey, a professor emeritus in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “But before that, you would come to your lecture with your hand-painted wallchart – maybe four by five feet in size – hang it up at the front of the classroom and teach with it.”

In what was then known as the department of zoology, those illustrations and charts were the creations of the late Irene Nosyk, a U of T staff artist from 1952 to 1976. During that time, she produced some 2,000 illustrations, paintings and wallcharts for use in publications and lectures.

It was a remarkable array of work, depicting a menagerie of organisms from marine invertebrates to insects to protozoa. She frequently sketched specimens while peering at them through a microscope. According to a 1957 Toronto Daily Star article, her work “received praise from other Canadian universities and from centres in New York.”

A wallchart by Nosyk showing the skulls of various
mammals (University of Toronto Archives)

When Nosyk joined U of T, her first studio was in the botany building at 6 Queen’s Park Crescent until she moved into the new Ramsay Wright Zoological Laboratories building in 1965. (A restructuring of biological sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science saw zoology and botany reorganized into the current departments of ecology and evolutionary biology and cell and systems biology.)

Nosyk was born in Chortkiv in western Ukraine in 1928. Following the Second World War, her family moved to Prague and then to Austria where she received artistic training at the University of Innsbruck, as well as the art academy of the Austrian artist Anton Kirchmayr. As she grew as an artist, her works were included in exhibitions and she was eventually offered a scholarship in Rome.

Before she could accept and continue her artistic training, her family moved to Winnipeg in 1949. Soon after, they moved to Toronto, where her father found work as a lab assistant in U of T's department of zoology. Nosyk attended the Ontario College of Art before being hired as the zoology department’s illustrator.

Nosyk’s personal paintings were often
inspired by the illustrations she created
for the department of zoology (University of Toronto
Archives)

Nosyk died in 2016, but the charts and some of her related paintings are preserved at the University of Toronto Archives & Records Management Services (UTARMS) thanks to the care and forethought of Janet Mannone, the undergraduate coordinator in the department of zoology for many years; Garron Wells, former university archivist; and Marnee Gamble, special media archivist at UTARMS.

A selection of Nosyk’s work is currently on display in the St. George lobby of the Ramsay Wright building – a reminder not only of her artistry and scientific acumen, but also of a bygone era of research and academia.

Local artist forges a connection with pow wow mural at Hart House

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 13:31:08 +0000

Local artist forges a connection with pow wow mural at Hart House

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/28/2022 - 09:31

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“Intertribal, 2022” is a mixed media mural by Quinn Hopkins installed at Hart House.

Topic

Visitors to the University of Toronto’s Hart House will be treated to a visually stunning piece of art this fall: “Intertribal, 2022,” a mixed media mural at the end of the eastern corridor on the lower level of the building.

The mural by Quinn Hopkins – his first major solo project – depicts a pow wow in Toronto and merges technology with art in a provocative and highly original way. Broadly speaking, his work, which has garnered national media attention, is multi-layered and political.

Hopkins says the mural tells a powerful story, depicting the Na-Me-Res Traditional Pow Wow at Toronto’s Fort York as seen against the city’s skyline. The piece includes a light feature, a light sculpture and an augmented reality component.

“It’s part of a pow wow, a celebration of life. It’s a place to share culture, food, songs and dances,” he says of the mural, noting that “Intertribal” is the name of a specific dance.

“It’s an invitation to anyone at the pow wow to come into the circle and dance. I think that’s a beautiful representation of community, unity and diversity.”

The latest example of Hart House’s commitment to expanding Indigenous education programming, the installation is in a student-focused location that provides ample opportunities for young people to engage with it.

Hopkins says he takes inspiration from new, innovative technologies and, through his art, he connects this technology with the land and his roots.

Hopkins grew up seeing well-known Indigenous artists’ work at his best friend’s house. “I was fortunate to go to their home and see this massive collection,” he says. “In their house, the artwork went from floor to ceiling, every wall was covered in beautiful Indigenous art. That was a huge, fundamental inspiration for me.”

Hopkins says Indigenous educator and art dealer Conrad Bobiwash was a mentor to him, teaching him the first forms and central ideas of the Woodland painting style at a young age.

He takes inspiration from new, innovative technologies and, through his art, he connects this technology with the land and his roots as an Anishinaabe person. He also seeks to find new ways to visualize the spirit of the land and thereby reveal the many truths about humanity’s relationship with the land. Never afraid to experiment with new tools and mediums, Hopkins uses state-of-the-art techniques such as 3D modeling, digital drawing, editing, creative coding and machine learning.

‘Intertribal’ as an invitation

As for the mural at Hart House, he says he loves the mood it depicts.

“Everyone’s always having a good time, smiling,” he says of the pow wow. “You get the tiny tots dancing in their regalia, the elders walking around and nodding to the beat, Native and non-Native folks having a good time, feeling like they’re part of it. It’s an invitation to participate in something that you usually think is exclusive.”

The eagle (Miigizi) has a powerful message, too. “In the seven grandfather teachings, the eagle is love (Zaagidiwin),” he says. “That’s what I felt when I was thinking of the pow wow and Intertribal: love; community; and love of the place, Tkaronto, where we’re standing and feeling represented. I love how the eagle is a sort of umbrella that holds everyone under one roof in that piece.”

Inspiring people through art

Since the pandemic, Hopkins has been seeking to engage with audiences in new and profound ways. “It’s hugely meaningful to me to inspire people and teach them new things,” he says.

Through “Intertribal,” he sought “to remind viewers that Indigenous people are modern and cutting-edge innovators. We have a history of taking the newest tools and adapting them to our own purposes. We’re not stuck in the past. We look seven generations into the future.

“Having my work in Hart House is looking at the next generation, those students, those warriors who are learning and propelling our communities and our society into the future. It’s an honour to have them learn something new from this mural or just enjoy it; sit there, meditate or whatever people do when they look at art. Maybe it's a quick glance, but whatever it is, I hope it brightens their day or they feel something.”

Alumna’s massive self-portrait, shot in her bedroom, becomes part of Doris McCarthy Gallery's collection

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 18 May 2022 19:38:49 +0000

Alumna’s massive self-portrait, shot in her bedroom, becomes part of Doris McCarthy Gallery's collection

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 05/18/2022 - 15:38

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At nearly seven feet wide, Mariam Magsi’s artwork will be one of the longest pieces the Doris McCarthy Gallery's permanent collection at U of T Scarborough (photo by Mariam Magsi)

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A massive self-portrait – nearly seven feet wide – will become a part of the Doris McCarthy Gallery’s permanent collection at the University of Toronto Scarborough thanks to students in a unique course.

Created by photographer Mariam Magsi, an alumna of U of T Scarborough, Kabilay ki Baiti (Daughter of the Tribe) will join more than 150 artworks displayed around the campus.

Every two years, students in the studio arts course “Curatorial Perspectives II” select a new piece for the collection.

Mariam Magsi (photo courtesy of Magsi)

“The history of photography is deeply colonial,” Magsi says. “With recording tools in our hands, we are documenting our humanity with dignity and respect.”

In Kabilay ki Baiti, Magsi is dressed in garments hand-stitched by her ancestral people, the Magsi clan. Over seven photos, she gradually performs a hand gesture the group uses to show devotional love, called mai sadway jawan in Urdu. It means: "I sacrifice myself for you."

“In this piece, I’m actually performing the gesture for myself, while channeling what I have learnt from ancestors,” says Magsi. “These kinds of gestures are active, but I'm also forgetting them. And I'm not the only one.”

The Magsi clan is a subset of the Baloch people, who speak Balochi and inhabit the Balochistan region in Pakistan. They’re known for their intricate, hand-made clothing, which Magsi has used to reconnect with her paternal ancestry. She’s even noticed recurring shapes in the embroidery that illustrate the group’s way of life, such as chicken feet and flower petals.

“It’s very interesting to see communication and language happening through embroidery,” says Magsi, who often wears Balochi clothing to events. “I’m trying to bring the clothes from the performative to the functional, but it’s telling that I find Western clothing more comfortable than those from my culture.”

Magsi wears an embroidered veil called a chadar in her self-portrait; much of her work explores Western reactions to Islamic clothing. Though she grew up in Pakistan, a majority Muslim country, Magsi went to a Catholic school. She still remembers the day a teacher cut a student’s necklace off because it had an Islamic symbol. Now a dual citizen of Pakistan and Canada, she’s seen family members harassed in Toronto for wearing traditional clothes.

“I'm in between all of these worlds, trying to fight them – but also trying to understand them,” she says. “It's a very interesting space to be in. It has a lot of complexity and nuance, and you can often be an observer, a witness.”

The gesture Mariam Magsi performs in her artwork is one Balochi mothers often use to show love to their children (photo by Mariam Magsi)

Magsi, who first came to Canada as an international student, believes her story resonated with students in “Curatorial Perspectives II.” In her talk with the class, Magsi revealed that she took the photos for Kabilay ki Baiti herself, in her bedroom, using only a few lights, a black backdrop and a remote trigger for the camera.

“The world is your studio. You don't need a lot of people or money and you can still create powerful impactful work, and through the online world it has a global reach,” she says.

Armed with research, a budget and a shortlist of artists, students chose Magsi’s work in last fall’s edition of the course. It was taught by award-winning artist and visiting lecturer Anique Jordan, whose own art was chosen for the permanent collection by students in a past course.

“The students were really careful with how they made their decision and then really strong with how they advocated for what they thought was important,” Jordan says. “I think it was the meaning behind the gesture in Daughter of the Tribe that resonated.”

Ann MacDonald, executive director and chief curator of the Doris McCarthy Gallery (standing, far left), took students to the studio of Anique Jordan (standing, far right) when the class was considering Jordan's work for the Doris McCarthy Gallery’s permanent collection.

The course was created in 2015 by Ann MacDonald, executive director and chief curator of the Doris McCarthy Gallery. MacDonald has a rule for who ends up on the shortlist given to students: the artist needs to have past or present connections to Scarborough or a body of work that illustrates the cultural landscape of the eastern GTA (though this limitation didn’t apply to Indigenous artists).

“The course is part of the awakening as to how special Scarborough is and the creative force within the artists who live here,” says MacDonald. “The focus of the course is on building sustainable relationships, rather than competition.”

At nearly seven feet wide and one-and-a-half feet tall, Magsi’s will be one of the longest pieces in the gallery’s permanent collection, which has grown to more than 1,700 objects in its almost 60 years. It will be displayed at U of T Scarborough following a custom frame job.

“It's such a full circle. This is where my journey as a migrant began as an international student,” Magsi says. “To have my work up there with me in it – it just adds all these layers. It’s very powerful and I can't wait to see it in person.”

Art exhibit at U of T Scarborough challenges visitors to view disability differently

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:53:23 +0000

Art exhibit at U of T Scarborough challenges visitors to view disability differently

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 03/24/2022 - 11:53

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Called #CripRitual, the exhibit at U of T Scarborough's Doris McCarthy Gallery explores the ways rituals impact disability culture through work from more than 20 artists (photo courtesy of #CripRitual)

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A new exhibit at the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Doris McCarthy Gallery features artwork that hangs lower on the walls – a way to challenge the idea of “standard” height and make those using mobility devices feel seen.

“There’s something about seeing your own experience reflected in an artwork that can be validating,” says Cassandra Hartblay, co-curator of the exhibit, called #CripRitual, and assistant professor in the department of health and society.

The exhibit explores the ways rituals impact disability culture through work from more than 20 artists. Each piece has a unique QR code that pulls up accessibility features when scanned, including American Sign Language translations and image and video descriptions.

The exhibit’s title comes from a movement to reclaim the term “crip” – a shortened version of a slur for those with disabilities – and “crip theory,” a concept in disability studies that explores how societies define “normal” bodies. The exhibit’s curators also wanted to counter the cultural norm, or ritual, of associating disability with limitations.

“We wanted to look at ritual and disability in a different way,” says Hartblay, who is also director of the Centre for Global Disability Studies. “Ritual is actually a way that folks in disability culture are sharing ideas, using the same symbols and passing on traditions.”

Those rituals fall into four categories: self-care, creating access, art-making and protest. Amid the exhibit, a bright blue bench reads “MUSEUM VISITS ARE HARD ON MY BODY,” highlighting ableism in art spaces without places to sit. One piece looks at how the Quran views disability while another examines living with mental illness as an Indigenous community member.

Hartblay hopes attendees pick up some new terminology and recognize diversity in the disability community. Participants can also submit their own crip rituals and take resources on ways to bring people with disabilities into art spaces.

#CripRitual is running in two galleries, the Doris McCarthy Gallery and Tangled Art + Disability in downtown Toronto.

Unsure if pandemic restrictions would allow an in-person gallery, curators also built the exhibit an online presence. The site will now be an archive of #CripRitual’s artwork, accessibility features and participant feedback – one that will long outlive its physical galleries.

“We’re imagining it as a longer-term project that will exist as a teaching tool,” Hartblay says.

U of T prof hosts ‘McLuhanesque’ marathon talk with Margaret Atwood, Mayor John Tory and others

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 13:53:21 +0000

U of T prof hosts ‘McLuhanesque’ marathon talk with Margaret Atwood, Mayor John Tory and others

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 07/20/2021 - 09:53

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Clockwise from top left; John Tory, Riley Yesno, Margaret Atwood, Paolo Granata, Mark Kingwell, Joe Wong, Derrick de Kerckhove and the late U of T professor, philosopher and renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan.

Yanan Wang

Topic

Global Lens

French

Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Indigenous

Marshall McLuhan

Philosophy

St. Michael's College

University Health Network

Victoria College

In the 1970s, the late University of Toronto professor, philosopher and renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan regularly hosted gatherings at his home on Monday nights, when an eclectic group of students, fellow faculty and others came together to answer his open-ended question: “What’s on your mind?”

A lengthy discussion would ensue, with no specific agenda or subject. The purpose of the dialogue was not to draw conclusions, but rather to keep the conversation going.

Paolo Granata
(photo by Martyn Jones)

In the same spirit of free-flowing inquiry, Paolo Granata will host the second-annual Global Village Day today – a 12-hour online streaming marathon that runs noon until midnight and features speakers from a range of cultures and disciplines.

“Global Village Day is a way to gather an international community of scholars, thinkers and artists to not only celebrate one of the most iconic Canadian philosophers, but also to conceive of Toronto as a global village,” says Granata, an assistant professor of book and media studies at St. Michael’s College, referencing the term famously coined by McLuhan.

In partnership with the McLuhan Institute and the Marshall McLuhan Estate, the event aims to tackle questions surrounding place, public art and global governance that have arisen from the pandemic. Much like McLuhan’s own gatherings, the discussion aims to be free-flowing and open-ended. The speakers have been placed into groups of three to five, with each group occupying an hour of the marathon. They will address three core questions on lessons from the pandemic and how the global village can be reimagined for a sustainable future.

The event will be highly interactive and participatory, Granata says. The marathon will be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, and audience members are invited to submit comments and questions, which Granata will in turn pose to the guest speakers.

Hailing from 12 different countries, guests will include: world-renowned author Margaret Atwood, a graduate of U of T’s Victoria College; Joe Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international; Mark Kingwell, a writer and professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Riley Yesno, an Anishinaabe writer who graduated from Victoria College this year; Derrick de Kerckhove, former director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and a professor emeritus in the department of French; and Roda Muse, secretary-general of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.

Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Ontario’s lieutenant governor, and Toronto Mayor John Tory, a graduate of U of T’s Trinity College, will kick off the marathon with remarks. In his greeting, Tory will also introduce ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021-2022, a slate of public artworks and related programming set to officially launch this September.

Professor Marshall McLuhan with students and other faculty during one of his famous evening seminars (photo by Robert Lansdale Photography via U of T Archives)

“I’m sure McLuhan would be struck by the vibrant media arts landscape that Toronto has created,” Tory says in a pre-recorded greeting. “And, of course, we can continue to thank him for teaching us that in a diverse city like this, a global village in a big city, communication is vital to understanding and to mutual support.”

U of T has worked with the city and other partners on a number of projects for ArtworxTO, including upcoming exhibitions and programming at the U of T Art Museum on the St. George campus and at U of T Scarborough, collaborating with the city on the annual Nuit Blanche event, student-led research through U of T’s School of Cities to evaluate the Year of Public Art and a future mural honouring Terry Fox at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, part of the University Health Network.

The initiatives emphasize how U of T and the city of Toronto are connected, says Barbara Fischer, executive director of the U of T Art Museum.

“The university is at the heart of the city and vice versa,” Fischer says. “The projects will highlight how much art informs our sense of place and how intertwined the city is with the U of T campus.”

Screenshots from last year’s Global Village Day event, which was held online due to the pandemic.

One project is already underway at Hart House Green, where an Indigenous Landscape will ultimately be formed on the site. In the meantime, Assistant Professors Maria Hupfield and Mikinaak Migwans are working with Indigenous artists to develop murals celebrating Indigenous relations to the land that will adorn the hoarding currently used to protect existing trees.

Moreover, U of T Scarborough is working with the city to develop an app that will allow users to take self-guided tours of public art around Toronto. Graduate students are working with the U of T Art Museum to develop the script for the audio tour, which will introduce perspectives and ideas surrounding public art that can be found in various neighbourhoods, parks and streets.

ArtworxTO is part of a years-long effort connected to Toronto’s designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts, for which Granata was the principal driver in 2017.

“U of T has played an instrumental role in fostering media arts, technology and creativity in the city of Toronto,” Granata says.

While the first Global Village Day took place during the early days of the pandemic last summer, this year’s event will highlight the lessons gleaned from a year and a half of upheaval.

“Now is the time to reflect on a fundamental question: what did we learn during this pandemic?” Granata says. “It is time to take account of all the valuable lessons in terms of cultural participation, higher education and all other fields. What really matters to us in a post-pandemic world? If we don’t address these questions, we may go back to the old normal without really growing as a society.

He added that COVID-19 underscored the need for global governance.

“We need the flexibility of different countries working together and making decisions for the common good.”

While this year’s Global Village Day will once again be entirely virtual, participants will show themselves passing around the marathon’s “torch” on their screens: an object of their choosing that they believe represents the idea of the global village in the 21^st century. At the close of the event at midnight, there will be a toast to McLuhan to mark the 110^th anniversary of his birth on July 21.

“As McLuhan said, ‘I don’t explain, I explore,’” Granata says. “So, we will be explorers celebrating his legacy.”

Students at U of T Mississauga gallery publish collection exploring time and place during COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 19:18:45 +0000

Students at U of T Mississauga gallery publish collection exploring time and place during COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 08/26/2020 - 15:18

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Emily Roe, Electrical Gardens, mixed media triptych, 20 cm x 20 cm, 2020 (image supplied)

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Undergraduate Students

Work-study students at the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Blackwood Gallery have created a digital publication called Time Out that explores our relationship with time since the COVID-19 pandemic first struck.

The students typically work as gallery attendants, supporting the centre’s offsite programming and conducting outreach and research for upcoming Blackwood programs. But with the physical gallery closed, their work went digital over the summer.

With support from Blackwood staff, the work-study participants – James Legaspi, Jessica Velasco, Kaitlin Simpson, Nancy Hamdy and Camilla Peng – sought to collect the perspective of fellow students during a strange time. They put out a call for art and writing that reflects upon the current moment and received submissions from across Canada. Time Out features 13 contributors working in media and methods that range from painting and mechanical installation to reportage.

Karina Garcia Casanova, Under the High Chair - April 6, 2020 - Breakfast, digital photography, 2020

“We wanted to engage with how unsatisfactory the ending of the spring semester was,” says Legaspi, who is entering his fifth year in the U of T Mississauga art and art history program and served as one of two curatorial research assistants on the work-study team.

“Things like studio spaces, final critique sessions, gallery spaces and scheduled exhibitions, as well as exhibition opportunities themselves and networking opportunities – access to these were all cut or postponed indefinitely, so we wanted to make a space for emerging voices and to amplify these student voices. We wanted to provide an opportunity for peers to see how peers are thinking.”

Emily Roe, Electrical Gardens, mixed media triptych, 20 cm x 20 cm each, 2020 (image supplied)

In a photo series, for instance, Concordia University student Karina Garcia Casanova documents the mess left beneath her 18-month-old’s high chair after each meal – the purple splats and saucey smears like abstract expressionism paintings.

“When COVID-19 hit and daycares closed for nearly four months, I struggled with finding ways to work on my artistic projects while taking care of my two young children,” Casanova writes, adding that she cleans the floor three times a day – a regular gesture of care that goes mostly unnoticed. The photographs, she says, make that work visible.

Another project, a digital painting by Toronto artist Troy A. Lawrence, depicts time spent in quarantine and the awesome power of imagination. There is also a list, drafted in the early days of lockdown, counting the activities that its author, Sabryna R. Ekstein, missed: “Having a reason to wear jeans, reading at bars, museum visits, baseball, making out.”

Katy Poirier, At home, yourself, collaged paper on MDF board, 10 cm x 10 cm, 2020 (image supplied)

The topics broached are numerous: health care, the environment, racism, gentrification, family, identity, capitalism and colonialism. And though accounts may seem isolated and disparate, Time Out illuminates the joints and corners, exposing the larger systems at work. It elegantly maps these many connections.

Simpson, a master’s student in U of T’s Faculty of Information and one of the work-study group’s new media assistants, says that’s precisely what she learned focusing so closely on this peculiar suspended period, with all its good and bad.

“Everyone is going through something different right now and that’s OK,” Simpson says. “We still have connection and we have community.”

Art in the time of COVID-19: Finding ways to 'render the invisible visible'

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 04 May 2020 16:44:05 +0000

Art in the time of COVID-19: Finding ways to 'render the invisible visible'

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 05/04/2020 - 12:44

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John Paul Ricco, a professor at U of T Mississauga's department of visual studies, says COVID-19 has led 'a whole new awareness of ourselves in the world, and with others' (photo courtesy of John Ricco)

Topic

With much of the world locked down due to COVID-19, art and creativity has burst into living spaces through platforms like Zoom, livestreams and over social media – a development that does not surprise the University of Toronto’s John Paul Ricco, who says social upheavals and health crises has historically inspired artists.

“I do think this speaks generally to the value of art in all of its various forms, and that it is probably our principal and most developed way of being attuned to the world,” says Ricco, a professor in the department of visual studies at U of T Mississauga.

“It is a way to try to register, record and re-shape our perceptions and to really take stock. But also, I think art plays an incredibly important role in a moment when people are looking around and are really interested in art and humanities – and writing again – because when the world feels like it's imploding, art and aesthetics are there to save you.”

Ricco, who has been on faculty at U of T Mississauga since 2006, is an art historian and queer theorist whose research closely examines the relationship between art and ethics.

Ricco’s 2014 book The Decision Between Us: Art and Ethics in the Time of Scenes argues that scenes of intimacy are spaces of sharing, but that they are also spaces of separation, which has a particular resonance in the current climate.

He says the present situation is a time to ask how we can find ways of connecting while in solitude – space that allows the social to happen, but also the capacity for people to figure out how to deal with being physically separated from others.

Read John Paul Ricco’s contribution in Tilting, a publication by the Blackwood Gallery at U of T Mississauga

Ricco points to past health crises that have led to exploring similar concepts in art, particularly the AIDS outbreak when he was an undergraduate student at New York University. That health epidemic in the 1990s influenced his path throughout his graduate studies and he became involved in AIDS activism, exploring ways in which contemporary artists were contending with the situation.

For example, Ricco curated a contemporary art exhibition in Chicago in 1996 titled Disappeared that brought together artists contemplating the question of representation in relationship to AIDS. There was the “disappearance” of the people who died from the disease, as well as the loss of aesthetics that resulted from not being able to fully represent AIDS in a visual form.

He also points to a past exhibit by artist Félix González-Torres that challenged the prohibitions on physical contact to avoid the spread of the disease.

When it comes to the current COVID-19 crisis, there is once again a warning to avoid physical proximity and it is also difficult to put a shape to the invisible virus. However, Ricco feels this is part of the challenge for visual artists: rendering the invisible visible.

He suggests we are all taking part in the process by our inadvertent choreography of physical distancing in our homes and out on errands or on walks.

“I think one of the most interesting things that art can help us contend with is exactly those things that cannot be seen and what we do with that difficulty or that problem,” says Ricco.

“We can imagine art being made in the midst and in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis that takes up this prohibition of physical proximity – touching and contact – and uses that as the way to explore what it means to be in physical proximity, to have contact and how art can be a kind of stage that enables people to engage with that. I think one of the things that has happened in the midst of this is that there is a whole new awareness of ourselves in the world and with others.”

Listen to an interview with John Paul Ricco on the View to the U podcast

Going all-digital, U of T Mississauga art gallery addresses COVID-19 crisis, supports arts and culture

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 15:38:07 +0000

Going all-digital, U of T Mississauga art gallery addresses COVID-19 crisis, supports arts and culture

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 04/27/2020 - 11:38

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Adam Bierling, How to Swim in a Living Room, 2020. Photo: Marcus Marriott (image courtesy the artist)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

U of T Mississauga

Visual Studies

Learn to swim in your living room. Make music from tweets. Explore the folk remedies of pandemics past. The Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga has launched an ambitious new initiative to support artists and capture the creative energy of the current moment.

Earlier this month, the Blackwood Gallery published TILTING (1), a special two-part digital publication that marks several firsts for the on-campus art centre as it adapts to the new realities imposed by a global health crisis.

The Blackwood Gallery was among the countless galleries forced to close their doors in March, leaving gallery staff to find new ways to work with established artists from around the globe and support educational programming for curatorial students enrolled in U of T Mississauga’s art and art history program, as well as a joint visual studies program with Sheridan College. Programming is supported by U of T, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

“The closure of almost all public institutions across the country meant the simultaneous cancellation of contracts for the unprotected labour force, which [includes] the art and culture industry,” says Christine Shaw, Blackwood Gallery director and curator and assistant professor, teaching stream, in U of T Mississauga’s department of visual studies.

“An entire community of makers was left without income, without support systems and without resources. That became an immediate concern for us.”

Alison Bremner, Distancing, 2020. Acrylic on paper. (image courtesy the artist)

Shaw says her team was well-positioned for the challenge and saw an opportunity to re-imagine the gallery’s printed broadsheet series, The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK). The series launched in 2017 with the Blackwood’s The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea exhibition to connect artistic production and research with interdisciplinary debates.

The Blackwood team moved the SDUK series online, issuing the first-ever open call for submissions and launching the first-ever all-digital version of the series on a revamped gallery website.

“This is a way that we might be able to support artists who are working – both in reaction to the unique social conditions created by this crisis and their own realities as freelancers who are adapting to this situation,” says Blackwood assistant curator Alison Cooley.

Aisha Ali, Atanas Bozdarov, Craig Rodmore, Florence Yee, Alternate Forms of Delivery, 2020. Laptop, framed photograph, signage (image courtesy the artists)

The project asks artists to consider how the pandemic has shifted our ideas about the world as it was, as well as the world that could be.

“We intimately connect the COVID crisis as one of a long-term pre-existing condition of oppression and injustice,” says Shaw. “The community of thinkers and makers that we collaborate with and support have fairly critical perspectives on this current moment and propositions for how to think, work and do otherwise.”

Sydney Shen, Four Thieves Vinegar (installation view), Springsteen, Baltimore, MD, 2017 (image courtesy the artist)

The first of the two-part issue launched on April 20. TILTING (1) features works by 20 artists and researchers responding to the pandemic, including original images, poems and performance projects from artists who were paid for their contributions. Among the submissions are: How to Swim in a Living Room, a performance piece from Toronto artist Adam Bierling; Four Thieves Vinegar, an installation project about folk cures for plagues by Sydney Shen; W.E.I.R.D. Uncertainty, a real-time sound performance generated by Twitter posts by Venice-based musician and digital artist Nicola Privato; and Distancing, an acrylic on paper work by Tlingit artist Alison Bremner.

Nicola Privato, W.E.I.R.D: Uncertainty (video still), 2020 (image courtesy the artist)

U of T researchers have also contributed to the project, with concept pieces by John Paul Ricco, a visual studies professor who writes about resistance and reality; Andrea Muehlebach, an associate professor of anthropology who considers the virus and the commons; and Distinguished Professor Eric Cazdyn of the department of East Asian studies who ponders the relationship between critique and crisis. Blackwood post-doctoral researcher D.T. Cochrane responds to issues of employment with a proposal for job guarantees.

“There’s a sense in which this situation might allow some people to ‘tilt’ what’s happening in order to support decisions that might shape the world more justly and more equitably,” says Cooley.

There is more to come. The Blackwood team will launch a second instalment of the project, TILTING (2), on May 1, and are re-imagining how the gallery will proceed and continue to support artists in the coming months through publications, digital workshops and more.

“We might not be able to make physical exhibitions for a while, but we are committed to research and knowledge production, and have the tools that enable us to virtually convene, gather and exchange knowledge,” says Shaw.

“The Blackwood has what it needs to go forward.”

Cover of The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 07: TILTING (1) featuring Sara Graham’s Conjecture Diagram no. 05, 2014.