Akin Artist's Spring Courses at Toronto School of Art

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Akin members Rebecca Houston, Jess Thalmann, and Candice Davies are instructors of some amazing courses happening this spring at the Toronto School of Art. Join these Spring interdisciplinary courses that follow our belief of Artists Teaching Artists!

Mouldmaking and Multiples with Rebecca Houston  
starting wednesday May 9, 6PM-9PM 

Artists create multiples to emphasize a contemplation of form, to challenge us to see difference or the unique in the face of repetition, to ask questions about value in an age of disposable, identical consumer products or as a meditation on the very process of making. In this course, we will make a series of objects using moulds in plaster and create installations with those objects. Projects will include making push moulds of symmetrical objects and creating multiples with air-drying or oven-hardening clay, making a larger object cast in plaster and a collaborative project in which students will swap cast objects. Casting in plaster has certain limitations as compared to silicone, but also certain benefits. It is cheaper, less toxic and can be used for ceramic slip casting.

Beyond the flat: The photograph as Material and Object with Jessica Thalmann
starting Thursday May 10, 6PM-9PM 

This course investigates the intersection of contemporary photography with sculpture, print, painting, drawings and new media. Since Conceptual Photography, artists have been challenging the ideas and implications of the image, pushing the boundaries of what can be considered a photograph. The inherent qualities of the medium will be explored in this class as it brings together a group of stylistically diverse but similarly innovative artists. Students are guided through technical demonstrations to alter photographs including paper folding, cutting, embroidery, surface treatments and digital interventions. Beginning with the waning days of conceptual art, this class presents a wide variety of artists including Matthew Brandt, Marco Breuer, Alison Rossiter, Letha Wilson, Sigmar Polke, Julie Cockburn, Jessica Eaton, and Gerhard Richter— all of which have reconsidered and reinvented the role of light, color, composition, materiality, and subject in the both analogue and digital photography.

Beyond the Surface: A Contemporary Approach to Drawing with Candice Davies
starting Wednesday, May 2, 10AM-1PM

This course examines the link between drawing, material and space, with a key emphasis placed on contemporary approaches to drawing. Students will reconsider the relationship between the drawn surface and the conceptual/physical concepts of form, space and display. The following questions will be asked:  What defines a drawing?  Are there limits to drawing, and if so how do you overcome them or exploit them?  What are contemporary approaches to drawing?  How can a drawing exist in space, from the space on the page to physical space of ones surrounding?  Can a drawing be a three dimensional object and how can material transform the drawn surface?  What are alternative methods of display in drawing and how can these methods enhance the drawn surface?

This course consists of weekly exercises, discussions, and group critiques. Traditional elements of drawing are utilized, such as various types and sizes of paper and the graphite pencil, providing a foundation in which to build upon. Students are encouraged to think outside the box, to think beyond traditional notions of drawing and display, in order to reconsider drawing in contemporary art.

Akin Projects and the Artists' Health Alliance present a Panel Discussion: Myths And Realities Of Artists’ Health

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October 19, 2017 / 6:30-8:00pm / Glad Day Bookshop - 499 Church St / PWYC please register to attend at http://artistshealth.com/workshops/registration-artists-toolbox/  If you have any accessibility needs, please email michael@akincollective.com at least one week before the event and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.

Co-presented by Artists’ Health Alliance and Akin Projects and hosted by Glad Day Bookshop , this panel discussion is one of five events in the Artists' Toolbox Workshop Series put on by the Artists' Health Alliance. The Artists’ Toolbox series are open to all artists. They run September 2017 – June 2018 and include skills-building workshops, exploratory experiences and public discussions under the theme 'Journeys in Health: A Season of Stories and Wellbeing for Artists'. This narrative approach to health education offers artists the freedom to discover, articulate and share the ways that health and wellbeing are interwoven into every aspect of your artistic life. 

Be part of this groundbreaking conversation as a panel of multidisciplinary artists and an arts medicine practitioner dispel myths and tell truths about artists’ health.

This panel opens up a crucial discussion about artists’ health by identifying the ideas that stand in its way. The starving artist, the mad artist and the solitary genius are just a few of the deeply entrenched myths about artists which glorify states of illness – hunger, mental illness, isolation.

Join Mahlikah Awe:ri, Charlie C Petch and Dr. Chase McMurren as they unpack myths about artists’ health and address those myths with their lived experience and professional knowledge, followed by a group discussion and Q&A period. This panel challenges misconceptions, offers empowering narratives in their place and, ultimately, aims to break down barriers to artists’ health.

TRANSPORTATION
Glad Day Bookshop, the world’s oldest LGBTQ Bookstore, is located at 499 Church Street, just South of Wellesley Street.
Nearest subway stop: Wellesley Station
Nearest accessible subway stop: Bloor-Yonge Station
Street parking is available, though there is no designated handicap parking.

ACCESSIBILITY
There is step free access through the front entrance, with automated doors. The main floor bathroom is wheelchair accessible with grab bars and a regular level toilet. All public areas are level and accessible, and there is (limited) street parking nearby.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Mahlikah Awe:ri Enml’ga’t Saqama’sgw (The Woman Who Walks In The Light) is a Haudenosaunee Mohawk/Mi’kmaw drum talk poetic rapologist; poet, musician, hip-hop MC, arts educator, Social Change Workshop Facilitator, performance artist, artist mentor, radio host, festival curator, Director of Programming for Neighbourhood Impact for the TD Centre of Learning Regent Park, TAC Cultural Leaders Lab Fellow, Canadian Labour Congress New Faces Of Feminism National Speaker, and founding member of Red Slam Collective, an Indigenous hiphop movement. Red Slam’s debut 14 trax Digital LP, Right Level was released this spring, and is a mash-up of lyrical content relevant to indigenous struggles and resiliency today infused with Hip-Hop beats; live instrumentation and oral storytelling. Awe:ri, a KM Hunter OAC Literary Arts Award finalist, released the spoken word EP Serpent’s Skin in 2011, is currently published in 7 literary anthologies, and is the only hiphop artist featured in the international digital storytellers project Biology Of Story which premiered at the 2016 SXSW Festival.

Recent Showcases include: Artist in Solidarity with the Chippewas of Thames First Nations and their fight against Line 9; opening Act with Red Slam for 2017 Feminist Art Conference at OCAD U; Red Slam’s Life as Ceremony, at the Theatre Centre; a featured artist for TVOKids Music Week, and headliner at The Unity Festival 10th Anniversary Concert at David Pecaut SQ. Kitchener Waterloo Poetry Slam Feature; Off The Record Hip Hop Symposium Keynote Speaker in Montreal and Relationships to Can150: Paradoxes, contradictions & questions Faculty of Education Summer Institute Key Note in Toronto; We Are Still Here: Immersive Concert at OCAD U and Nuit Blanche2017.

BC: redslamcollective.bandcamp.com | FB: @redslamcollective | IG: @redslamcollective ; @mahlikah_aweri | Youtube: RedSlamCollective | Twitter: @redslam

Charlie C Petch is a playwright, spoken word artist, haiku deathmaster, host and musical saw player. Petch’s new full-length spoken word vaudeville play “Mel Malarkey” has toured all over Canada. They have several handsome chapbooks and “Late Night Knife Fights” was published with LyricalMyrical Press. They have been published by Descant, The Toronto Quarterly, Matrix and Joypuke journals. Petch is a member of The League of Canadian Poets and “The Dildettes” a queer spoken word/comedy troupe along with Regie Cabico and David Bateman. Petch was a member of both the 2011 and 2012 Toronto Poetry Slam Teams, was the coach of the 2015 team and is the creative director of “Hot Damn It’s A Queer Slam”. Petch is happiest onstage. Find out more at www.charliecpetch.com

Dr. Chase McMurren is a psychotherapist and the Medical Director at The Al & Malka Green Artists’ Health Centre, a home-visiting physician for frail older adults who are homebound, a coroner for the Province of Ontario, and a faculty member in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Dr. McMurren believes that a person-centred, integrative approach to psychotherapy is central in helping artists identify and modify patterns that seem to get in the way of living and practicing well. In addition to training at the Mount Sinai Psychotherapy Institute, Dr. McMurren has also trained in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and recently completed restorative yoga teacher training. To keep musically active, Dr. McMurren is currently studying the pipe organ and is using it as an opportunity to learn and apply the Alexander Technique.