MOCA Artist Series: Maren Boedeker, Raoul Olou, and Emma White

There are only a few weeks left in Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , a new and unique studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is honored to continue sharing profiles of the multi-talented group of artists from our inaugural cohort. We have posted profiles over the past few weeks of some of the artists and will continue until September; you can click here to see previous posts. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Maren Boedeker, Raoul Olou, and Emma White.

Image source: Maren Boedeker. Untitled 1, 2018.

Maren Boedeker

Maren Boedeker studied visual arts and art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Münster, Germany.

Her abstract, large-scale canvases have been shown in galleries in Germany, Belgium and Canada. She received the artist-in-residency-grant Liguria, Italy and was awarded first place in the exhibition "Art for Europe", curated by the European Community in Brussels, Belgium.

Besides her artistic practice, she has continuously been working with children, teens and adults as an art teacher and instructor.

https://www.marenboedeker.com/

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Image source: Sarah Bodri @sarahbodri

Raoul Olou

Raoul Olou is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Toronto. His work focus on home, belonging and archiving the mundane.

https://raoulolou.com/

https://www.instagram.com/raoul_o

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Image source: Emma White. Vita Coco, 2019

Emma White

Emma White is a recent graduate of Fine Art at Queen’s University, and is new to Toronto. Her main focus is oil painting, although she works with many mediums (such as sculpture and collage) in the process of creating a final painting. 

She is extremely influenced by her surrounding environment. This can be a natural setting or a parking lot; it can be somewhere she has lived for years or a vacation spot she passed through in a few minutes. What makes these places important to me is that she has seen them, and through the act of looking, she has left her trace there forever.

This irreversible act of occupying a space is something that she attempts to express through her work. When someone looks at my piece, they’ve now touched the work themselves, as well as the place that the piece depicts. She thinks of the artworks as portals to these special places. 

www.emmawhite.net/

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You can see work by Maren, Raoul and Emma from now until–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last nine months. 

We also hope you can join us for MOCA Goes Dark, an interactive art party on August 17 by the artists and curators of the exhibition An Index. Come see MOCA transformed into an interactive art party by some of Toronto’s best emerging artists.

MOCA Artist Series: Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Humboldt Magnussen, Adria Mirabelli and Tanya Louise Workman

There are only two months left in Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , a unique studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is honored to continue sharing profiles of the remarkable group of artists from our inaugural cohort. We have posted profiles over the past few weeks of some of the artists and will continue until September; you can click here to see previous posts. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Humboldt Magnussen and Adria Mirabelli.

Image source: Ghazaleh Avarzamani

Ghazaleh Avarzamani

Ghazaleh Avarzamani (b. 1980, Tehran) is an artist currently based in Toronto. She was trained in painting at Azad Art University, Tehran and holds a Master of Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, London. Avarzamani’s practice examines the role of experience, memory, psychology, modern rationality and educational methodologies in the construction of knowledge. Considering a range of spaces, structures and devices for interactivity, self-development and play, her work questions the contextual biases that shape meanings and values. Exploring these concerns in relation to growth and erasure, Avarzamani aims to expose the paradoxical realities beneath the surface of society.

Her art practice encompasses a variety of forms, including sewing, needlework, patchwork, printing, ceramics and installation. This craft dimension of her work is combined with research that seeks to discover the socio-historical relevance of these disciplines, as it reflects on her own experience and larger cultural issues.

www.ghazalehavarzamani.com
www.instagram.com/ghazaleh.avarzamani

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Image source: www.instagram.com/humboldtmagnussen

Humboldt Magnussen

Humboldt Magnussen is an artist and curator from rural Saskatchewan. Magnussen holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at OCAD University focusing on performance art and masculinity studies and a BFA from Concordia University from 2011 in Studio Arts. Humboldt weaves in autobiographical elements with larger political and social context to talk about the lack of safety and protection for queer people, even in designated “Safe Spaces”. He is interested in ways to visualize complicated notions of identity and gender / sexuality which can contribute to the growing conversation on these topics in Canada.

His practice is interdisciplinary in nature. Often his work is rooted in performance and includes the creation and use of elaborate masks and helmets. He utilizes elements of humour and glamour to make difficult topics more accessible and to create entry points for people to engage with the work.

www.instagram.com/humboldtmagnussen

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Image source: Adria Mirabelli

Adria Mirabelli

Adria Mirabelli graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2015 with a major in Drawing and Painting and Minor in Textiles. Having also studied at Parsons Paris her work is influenced by conceptual themes and narratives alongside art and craft processes. Adria uses a variety of media and practices to create her works, utilizing collage, drawing, textile manipulation, installation, poetry and sculpture. Her works are often autobiographical and explore themes of space + place, temporality, belonging, love, and longing. Her process involves the collection of extensive, rotational archives of physical materials including ephemera, photographs, digital images, and texts, often saved from spaces of lived experience. This ever-developing catalog serves as the inspiration and materials for her final works, which manifest in various physical and digital forms.

Adria strives to create works that explore experiences of fear, desire, and love in regard to personhood, place and nostalgia. She makes work in an effort to create spaces of connection and acceptance through moments of beauty.

www.adriamirabelli.com
www.instagram.com/adriamirabelli

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Photo by Sean Patenaude

Tanya Louise Workman

Tanya Louise Workman is a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary artist, storytelling facilitator and journalist who works with audio, images and text to unravel the relationships between voice and our embodied selves. Her photographic, multimedia and audio work has been exhibited and screened in spaces in Toronto and internationally. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University, a post-graduate certificate in creative writing from the Humber School for Writers and a photojournalism diploma from Loyalist College.

Through spoken word, sound, installation, images and writing, I tune in to the embodied experience. My body is a radio, both a receiver and a transmitter; I listen in to make audible, visible and tactile what the body holds – what reverberates between interior and exterior selves, between what is seen and heard.

Tanya is a candidate in the low-residency MFA program at Maine Media College + Workshops in Rockport, Maine, and is one of the artists-in-residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto as part of the inaugural Akin Studio Program at MOCA. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University, a post-graduate certificate in creative writing from the Humber School for Writers and a photojournalism diploma from Loyalist College.

She is currently working on her first book.

www.tanyaworkman.com
www.instagram.com/tanyalouiseworkman

You can see work by Humboldt, Adria and Tanya from now until–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last nine months. 

We also hope you can join us for MOCA Goes Dark, an interactive art party on August 17 by the artists and curators of the exhibition An Index. Come see MOCA transformed into an interactive art party by some of Toronto’s best emerging artists.

MOCA Artist Series: Steve Lee, Emily Woudenberg and Nuff

There is a little more than two months left in Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , an independent and collaborative studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is thrilled to continue sharing profiles of the talented group of artists from our year 1 artists. We have posted profiles over the past few weeks of some of the artists and will continue until September; you can click here to see previous posts. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Steve Lee, Emily Woudenberg and Nuff.

Image source: A’Design Award & Competition

Steve Lee

Steve is the founder and lead designer at Aprilli Design Studio, mostly focusing on architectural design projects and interactive art installations. He is a licensed architect in California and Ontario with 8+ years of working experience in Seoul, New York and Los Angeles prior to opening Aprilli Design Studio. As principal in charge, he focuses on design development and project actualization through all phases of projects including architectural design and product design. Steve has deep interest in creating innovative objects, spaces and atmospheric conditions which aesthetically, psychologically and functionally enhance the quality of living environments.

Prior to founding Aprilli Design Studio, he has worked at architectural design firms such as Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Koetter Kim Associates and RTKL Associates focusing on international high rise, mixed use and hospitality projects in various countries.

Since 2014, he has been a lecturer at various universities including UCLA March II program “Suprastudio” and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

www.aprilli.com/
www.instagram.com/aprilli_design_studio/

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Image source: Emily Woudenberg

Emily Woudenberg

Strike is a Toronto-based design studio founded and lead by Emily Woudenberg that offers frank design consultancy, innovative strategy and striking solutions for print and screens — with a client portfolio ranging from creative industries to corporations.

Emily is an entrepreneurial designer that is passionate about using design processes to bridge mediums and messages. With experience in art direction, product development, digital brand strategy and design thinking.

www.strikedesignstudio.com/

www.instagram.com/studioonstrike/

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Image source: Nuff

Nuff

Nuff creates quite design with simple forms. In an anti-disciplinary practice, he uses whatever he can to make a mark. His work spans from commercial to fine art and lives in both public and private spaces.

Nuff has been doing computer-creative-artsy-media things since about 2001, when a friend showed up at the studio with a CD containing basically every piece of software under the sun. Professionally, Nuff has been working since graduating in 2007.

Currently, Nuff spends most days designing brand identities, digital products and illustrations, and nights making interactive installations. Nuff is generally available to work with you within a few weeks, depending on current workload.

www..designbynuff.com/
www.instagram.com/designbynuff/

You can see work by Emily and Nuff from now until–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last nine months. 

We also hope you can join us for MOCA Goes Dark, an interactive art party on August 17 by the artists and curators of the exhibition An Index. Come see MOCA transformed into an interactive art party by some of Toronto’s best emerging artists.

Studio spaces available for rent now at Akin River! Get in touch today to book a tour!

Akin River has many new dedicated studio spaces available to rent immediately! These workspaces are bright, clean, and freshly renovated and are suitable for artists, creatives and entrepreneurs looking for quiet workspace in a growing artist community. Located at 7 Labatt Avenue, near Dundas Street East and River St, the studios are situated on the third floor of the building with stairs access only (no elevator); Akin regrets this barrier to access.

Akin River sits on the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, the Métis, and most recently, the territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Dedicated studio spaces range in size from 30 square feet - 250 square feet. Rent ranges from $185/month - $800/month and includes 24/7 access to the space, WiFi, insurance, and access to kitchen, bathrooms, shared workspace, shared storage, and a rooftop patio. Rent is month-to-month and there is a two month minimum when joining. Studios are unfurnished.

This location also has a large shared area for those do who do not require their own dedicated space. Shared memberships are $70/month and include 24/7 access to the shared workspaces, WiFi, insurance, and access to kitchen, bathrooms, shared storage, and the rooftop patio. Shared workspaces are furnished with work tables, chairs and easles.

Our studios provide a working environment that maintains a friendly and inspiring atmosphere where people can work on creative endeavors and entrepreneurial undertakings of all kinds. We build community through monthly art critiques, workshops, open studio events, gallery tours, exhibitions, as well as various other art projects.

Please get in touch if you are interested in renting a space at Akin River. To become a member you must first meet the studio manager and have a tour. Tours are by appointment only. If there is an available spot that you would like to move in to then we require a last month's rent deposit and first month's rent payment and for you to sign our online contract. Minimum rental term is 2 months and new renters are required to adhere to Akin’s Code of Conduct and Health and Safety Policy.

Contact Erin Candela, the Akin River studio manager at erin@akincollective.com to schedule a tour. Please note that email response time is approximately 3-5 business days.

Akin would like to thank TAS for their special collaboration on this space. See images below or get in touch to book a tour and see the space in person!

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Introducing the Akin Studio Program at MOCA 2018/2019 Cohort

Akin is pleased to announce the inaugural cohort of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA. These artists will be starting their one-year studio residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada in September and will share their practices with the museum’s visitors through programs such as open studio events. The studios vary in size from approximately 25 to 250 square feet and were designed by Akin to create a light and welcoming environment for artists to develop their work. Similar to Akin’s other locations, the space will foster a community atmosphere and the exchange of ideas.

The artists: 
 
Adria Mirabelli
Carrie Chisholm
Christian Milan Butterfield
David Constantino Salazar
David Frankovich
Emily Woudenberg
Emma White
Eugenia Elder
Eva Kolcze
Ghazaleh Avarzamani
Helen Liene Dreifelds
Humboldt Magnussen
Jamie Ellis Pasquale
Jennifer Dany Aubé
Jess Thalmann
Jieun June Kim
Leone McComas
Liang Wang
Maggie McCutcheon
Maren Boedeker
Michaela Macleod
Nuff
Raoul Olou
Raquel Da Silva
Samar Hejazi
Sara Mozafari
Stanzie Tooth
Stephanie Avery
Stephanie Fortin
Steve Lee
Su Bin Ee
Tanya Louise Workman
Walter Segers

We invite you to come and visit the studios during the International Grand Opening of MOCA Toronto Canada on September 22 and 23, 2018 from 10am-5pm. The Akin Studio Program is located on the 4th floor. Following the official ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday morning, explore all five floors of the museum all weekend for free! An Akin staff member will be on site on to answers questions about Akin. Several artists will be in attendance throughout the weekend. 
 

Click here to RSVP

Accessibility: 

MOCA Toronto is a barrier-free and accessible museum for all. We are located on floors one to five of the Tower Automotive Building, with elevator serving each floor. The museum has wheelchair and stroller parking as well as two walkers and wheelchairs available onsite for use. If you have other needs we should know about, contact us at visitorexperience@moca.caahead of time to make any arrangements.
 

Akin King: Akin relocates group of 100 artists to new downtown studios at King and Spadina.

Facing evictions from four studios across two locations, Akin relocates group of 100 artists to new downtown studios at King and Spadina.

After nine years at 444 Dufferin Street and six years on the first floor of 87 Wade Avenue, Akin artists will relocate their studios to our new location at 511, 525 and 527 King Street West, thanks to a unique collaboration with Allied Properties REIT who are leasing us space as the site awaits development. Thanks to our friends at Small who have facilitated this arrangement, we are able to keep our artistic community intact, and simply shift it into a new space. For more information on Allied’s site development plans, please see here.

How can Akin move to King & Spadina?
By working together. As Toronto rents become impossibly high and artists look to Hamilton and beyond, Akin continues to find new space and maintain studio affordability by negotiating short to medium-term rentals in properties that are actively in transition, as is the case with the new Akin King location.

As artists we recognize that we may only have the same space for years (or even months) rather than decades, but, by relocating in this way, Akin can keep entire artist communities intact along with the friendships and collaborations that make them so important. Instead of facing eviction alone, artists can shift with us as a unit- maintaining a practice in an affordable space as part of an active, vibrant and supportive artistic community in downtown Toronto. Property owners and developers, in this case Allied Properties REIT, are able to lease properties that would otherwise sit empty and unused during the period before demolition and development begin, enabling Akin to create social and economic value from buildings that would otherwise remain vacant. In other cities, notably in London and across the UK, ‘meanwhile’ leasing of dormant space like this has effectively supported artists for years. Similarly to this new location, at our other recently opened studios, Akin St Clair (a local meat shop that sat empty pending development) and Akin River(underused storage and office space that will become a 38 storey tower) we provide studio space for nearly 50 artists in the interim. 

As the Toronto Star ’s Murray Whyte puts it, “in a place that has embraced the popular notion of “creative city” economics espoused by Richard Florida...skyrocketing commercial rents have had an unintended irony, having all but purged such workers from the core.” Akin is offering a solution to this challenge by rethinking how unused and underused properties can become usable studio space for artists- finding useful life for buildings that have been abandoned by commerce during years of development planning, construction design and securing of permits.

Akin strives to ensure that there is always studio space for artists and creatives of all kinds and at all levels across our city while engaging, connecting and educating communities through art. As with all of our  locations, Akin’s month-to month rentals include 24/7 access to the studios, taxes, insurance, utilities, wifi, access to communal working areas as well as storage, kitchen, and bathroom. 'Akin King' is  easily accessible by subway, streetcar, bus, bike, or car.

Akin artists Rebekah Andrade and Verity Griscti help load their studio supplies into Akin's moving trucks!

The first of multiple trips, moving artists from Akin Dufferin to the new Akin King location.

The first of multiple trips, moving artists from Akin Dufferin to the new Akin King location.

Artists packing up Akin Dufferin to move to their new studio spaces.

For more information about any of our locations, book a tour or to share ideas, please get in touch:

CONTACT:
jen@akincollective.com

Please share widely!

The Gardiner Museum announces 2018 Community Art Space Partners!

Since the summer of 2016, the Gardiner Museum’s Community Arts Space program has acted as an incubator for arts-based community projects. Inspired by the transformative aspects of ceramics, both real and metaphorical, the Community Arts Space initiates both dialogue, and the hands-on creation of equitable and inclusive cultural initiatives that engage and give voice to local communities.

The Community Arts Space project will be running for the summer of 2018 from July 3 to August 31. This year’s theme, Recent Histories, is inspired the Gardiner’s mission to be an active force in the community, and to truly reflect the histories, lived experiences, and traditions of its publics. Through five different project streams, our partners will transform the Museum according to this theme, activating our 307-square-metre third-floor Exhibition Hall as well as our Outdoor Plaza.

Akin is pleased to be a community partner on this project and will be providing studio space for Louis Esmé, one of the 2018 Community Art Space project partners.

Louis Esmé (Mi’kmaq-Acadian, Irish) is an artist, writer, and illustrator whose social art practice spans over 20 years working within grassroots, artist-run, and academic spaces. A co-founder of Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak // Bluejays Dancing Together Collective, which has gathered knowledge, stories, and desires for re-urbanized Two-Spirit people and their relations since 2012, Esmé’s work is granny craft/old media with social commentary akin to Statler & Waldorf from Sesame Street. For the Gardiner’s Intervention Project, which will evoke participation and educational potential within the expanded field of ceram­ics, Esmé will make seven clay districts representing the Mi’kmaq Seven Directions in the Gardiner’s Exhibition Hall, lobby, and permanent collection galleries. Vessels referencing Woodland pottery forms will reckon with ongoing colonialisms, while offering witness to Indigenous survivance on the Dish with One Spoon Territory. You can see Esmé’s work on display at the Gardiner Museum from August 21-31, 2018. 

Find out more about the Gardiner Museum's Community Art Space Partners by clicking the link below: 

Creative Users new website - Accessing the Arts!

After a two year long journey, Creative Users, an initiative of Akin Dupont member Lindsay Fisher, is thrilled to officially launch their new website and accessible events listing thanks to the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

This website features information about Creative User projects, as well it provides an events listing, "Accessing the Arts" which features accessible arts and disability arts happening in Toronto. Creative Users' goal for the next two years is to research and evaluate the usability of this site, to expand the scope of resources to include accessible and inclusive curatorial practices happening nationally with information, news articles and documentation on making the arts accessible along with updates on what's happening in the disability arts scene. 

Creative Users is a disability-led artist platform that explores the intersection of art and design practices, accessibility, and disability. Creative Users is a shapeshifter, cultural connector and sector builder of disability arts and accessible curatorial practice. The work stems from a desire to activate art and make visible an inclusive arts culture. creativeusers.net

Introducing Akin Collective Career Launcher Award Winner Kathy Zhou!

Congratulations to Kathy Hong Zhou, recent OCAD University Drawing & Painting graduate and winner of the 2017 Akin Collective Career Launcher award! We look forward to having Kathy join us at the studio! Kathy will receive a period of free studio space at one of Akin’s studios in 2017–2018, valued at $2000, as well as a $500 cash award.

The Career Launchers are unique, high-profile opportunities for graduating students of OCAD University, developed in partnership with industry organizations such as Akin in order to help new graduates start their professional practice after school. 

Kathy was born in Chengdu, China, in 1987. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada. She is an interdisciplinary artist with knowledge and practice in fine art, animation, illustration and graphic design. Zhou is focusing on experimenting materials such as wood and Leather. Find out about her work at http://kathyhzhou.format.com

Akin & The Toronto Art Book Fair

Akin is thrilled to participate in the second annual Toronto Art Book Fair (TOABF) from June 15th - 18th 2017 at Artscape Youngplace and present an incredible selection of art books, zines, prints, flair, multiples and more created by a diverse range of our talented studio artists.

The Toronto Art Book Fair will feature over 80 Canadian and international exhibitors, three curated exhibitions, and community programming that includes readings, panel discussions, book launches, performances, and workshops.

Akin will be participating along with hundreds of local and international artists, publications, small presses, independent publishers, archives, contemporary art galleries, critics, designers, writers, and performers. TOABF is free to the public and suitable for all ages. For more information visit www.torontoartbookfair.com

Programming Partnership!
Akin is pleased to be hosting two events as a part of Toronto Art Book Week- a series of city-wide events that parallel the Toronto Art Book Fair. Art book week will feature book launches, performances, talks, pop-up exhibitions, and screenings throughout Toronto. The goal of art book week is to bring attention to new and exciting artist’s book projects as well as increase the visibility of Toronto’s art publishing community.

Akin Creative: Zine Jam // www.universe.com/zinejam
Wed June 14 / 6:30-9pm / $10 / Akin Lansdowne, studio 101 - 87 Wade Ave
Hands-on zine workshop with materials provided, beer sales and tunes. Bring an in-progress zine or an idea for a new zine! Beginners welcome! Limited seating, please register online.

Akin Gallery Crawl: Toronto Art Book Week // www.facebook.com/events/128383227716708/
Sat June 17 / 12:30-4:00pm / FREE / Meet at The Public - 58 Lansdowne Ave
Join us as we visit galleries and spaces that are showcasing and celebrating artists' books and print featuring highlights from Toronto Art Book Week. Free for all, everyone welcome!

We can't wait to see you at the fair, zine jam and crawl!

Thesis Award Winners

Congratulations to Annunziata Morant and Jennifer Byrnes, the recipients of our first annual student Thesis Award, a collaboration between ARTiculations, Graven Feather and AKIN Collective!

Annunziata and Jennifer will both receive two week solo exhibitions in addition to credit for studio. Overwhelmed by the response, we extend a huge thank you to all of the applicants from post secondary institutions across the province and we look forward to seeing you at the opening receptions in May!