MOCA Goes Dark: Night Visions Dance and Art Party on August 17

For the first time ever MOCA Goes Dark, and invites you to explore  the museum transformed by the artists and curators of the exhibition “An Index” from the Akin Studio Program at MOCA.

Come see MOCA transformed into an interactive art party by some of Toronto’s best emerging artists. 158 Sterling Road was once the site of illicit dance parties, raves, and punk gigs that were legendary. Taking inspiration from its past as an underground nightlife hub, we will relive this wild legacy for one night only with amazing art and music that will light MOCA up in the dark. Starting at nine o’clock, come play with artist-led interactive installations and activities on the ground floor. Dance among art with beats by DJ Lulu Wei on our black light dance floor.

This party is presented with the exhibition An Index, featuring twenty-four artists from the inaugural Akin Studio Program. An Index makes visible the labours of artistic creation through an open and honest charting of the processes, challenges, delights, and failures of making art in the city. Night Visions credits the importance of social play in creative production. For the first time ever MOCA Goes Dark, and invites you to explore the museum transformed by local artists. Cash-only bar will be available.

MOCA Toronto aims to be a barrier-free and accessible museum for all.

Doors at 9:00pm

Advance tickets are encouraged and are available at https://experience.museumofcontemporaryart.ca/452/802

$15 dollars regular, $10 MOCA members and students.
MOCA members log in first to add tickets to your cart.

REUNION: Sunday Drive returns in August with an immersive art show in Lakefield, Ontario

SUNDAY DRIVE ART PROJECTS is once again exposing audiences to art in unexpected places, this time presenting contemporary art in the picturesque rural setting of the Kawarthas. Returning with a new show format, in a new town, Sunday Drive will present REUNION, an immersive art experience on a private farm just outside of Peterborough in Douro-Dummer, running Friday and Saturday evenings in August 2019. 

For Torontonians, Sunday Drive is providing buses leaving from Toronto on specific nights. These buses are exceptionally fun with food and drinks provided. REUNION happens at sundown in open fields and wooded areas. Once you arrive in Lakefield, a bus hosted by the farm’s owners, is waiting to take visitors to REUNION, ten minutes away. This short ride provides time for visitors to get the full backstory of how REUNION came to be, to meet the artists who own the farm and deepen the experience they are about to have.

The show runs approximately 90 minutes. Tickets are $20. Group rates are available.

SHOW DATES: August 9, 10, 16 and 17 (please note, busses from Toronto are only for select shows).
BUSSES FROM TORONTO: August 10 and 17 (Future dates will be announced as current dates get filled. )

“We’re not providing too many details so that audiences get the most from the experience. This is definitely a show you need to experience for yourself.”

- Tania Thompson, Sunday Drive’s Creative Director

ABOUT SUNDAY DRIVE:
Sunday Drive is a registered not-for-profit organization presenting contemporary arts events to audiences in unexpected places. Run by a passionate group of arts professionals drawn to open spaces and concentrated culture. Sunday Drive has one foot in the city and one foot in the country, believing contemporary art should be accessible to everyone, everywhere. For more information visit www.sundaydrive.org or call 416-985-3369

Art Bus 2019

From June through October, get on board the Art Bus that will travel from downtown Toronto directly to the McMichael in Kleinburg. For only $15 + general admission, spend the day viewing the exhibitions, and walking the grounds on 100 acres of forested land along the Humber River. The McMichael is a major public gallery uniquely devoted to collecting the art of Canada located in the charming Village of Kleinburg, approximately a 30 minute drive from the city of Toronto.

Toronto departure: 11 am
McMichael departure: 4 pm
Departure point: 80 Spadina Ave.
Departure dates: July 21, July 28, August 4, August 11, August 18, August 28, September 1, September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, October 6, October 13, October 20 and October 27

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is located on the original lands of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe People. It is uniquely situated along the Carrying Place Trail which historically provided an integral connection for Aboriginal people between Ontario’s Lakeshore and the Lake Simcoe-Georgian Bay Region. As an institution, McMichael recognizes the importance of acknowledging the original territories of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe First Nations people.

The McMichael’s permanent collection consists of over 6,500 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, their contemporaries, and First Nations, Métis, Inuit and contemporary artists who have contributed to the development of Canadian art.

Aisle 4 presents In Residence: July-November 2019 at the Scarborough Museum

Aisle 4 is a Toronto-based curatorial project that initiates and promotes socially engaged artwork. Through collaborations with artists from a range of disciplines, they present critical public art experiences that reach beyond core arts audiences to animate unsuspecting spaces and connect communities.

In Residence is an artist-in-residence series at the Scarborough Museum that examines the role of a colonial house museum in present-day Scarborough. Seeking to expand the museum’s institutional capacity, five participating artists and collectives will introduce new narratives, perspectives, and timeframes that build stronger linkages with the surrounding Bendale neighbourhood. The residency participants are Sameer Farooq, Petrina Ng, Serena Lee, Annie Wong, and the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective.

Focusing on ideas of intergenerational, diasporic traditions; cross-cultural hauntologies; traditional labour and leisure practices; and experimental culinary interventions, the artists will activate the site with attention on the targeted demographics adjacent to the museum.

In Residence is a collaboration with the dedicated staff at the Scarborough Museum to both challenge and enhance its function as an operating “historical” site through contemporary art and social practice. Each artist/collective will inhabit a space at the Museum and create work in conversation with local residents, business owners, and community organizations during their projected residency period. The Museum will become a temporary home, office, or studio in which artists can conduct research, create work, workshop ideas, host meetings, and run public programs.

The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders

Every summer and winter, monarch butterflies migrate across the North American continent. Coinciding with the arrival of monarch butterflies in Canada and their departure to Mexico, the Davenport Perth Community Ministry, alongside Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization, held a series workshops and events within the Davenport Perth community. These workshops led to the creation of a multitude of ceramic butterflies that highlight Turtle Island’s connection with ancient Indigenous cultures and the monarch.

When: Thu Aug 22 to Sep 04, 2019

Where: Gardiner Museum, 111 Queen’s Park, Toronto

Part of the Community Arts Space: What we long for
Artists-In-Residence
Co-presented with Akin and Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization

Facilitated by Monterrey, Mexico-born artist Lourdes (Lumy) Fuentes and Community Minister and artist Tina Conlon during their residency at Akin St Clair, these art-making activities explore the challeng­es faced by migrants in the context of the monarch but­terfly’s risk of extinction. These ceramic butterflies, installed in the Gardiner’s Exhibition Hall and Ancient Americas Gallery, are intended to mobilize conversation and action surrounding the both decline of the monarch and the migrant crisis.

Image source: Gardiner Museum

Programming

July 17, 6 – 9 pm
Clay & Conversation
Make ceramic butterflies that will be part of The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project.

July 24, 6 – 9 pm
Clay & Conversation
Make ceramic butterflies that will be part of The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project.

August 22, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition Launch
All are welcome to attend the public opening of The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project, featuring a butterfly dance performed by seniors of the Davenport-Perth Community, music, refreshments, and more.

August 25, 11 am – 3 pm
Family Sunday: Spread Your Wings
Just before the monarch butterflies begin their annual migration to Mexico, join us for a special ceramic butterfly-making workshop in English and Spanish.

About Community Arts Space: What we long for

Grounded in the ability of clay to transform, Community Arts Space is a platform for experimentation and socially-engaged art. Established in 2016, the project connects artists, makers, organizers, and residents through the creation of public projects that inspire social action. This year, the Gardiner is showcasing four public projects inspired by the theme “What we long for.”

An Index: Exhibition of Artists from the Akin Studio Program at MOCA

An Index
July 25 - September 8, 2019
Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada - Floor 4

An Index Opening Reception
Wednesday, July 24, 6-9pm
Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada - Floor 4

The exhibition, An Index, exposes work by the first cohort of residency artists who entered Akin’s Studio Program 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 Akin’s open-plan studio structure for the last nine months.

To find common points of departure for an exhibition, MOCA has invited curators Marsya Maharani and Marjan Verstappen, associated with the Younger than Beyoncé Gallery, to work with the 24 participating artists. The curators’ proposal, An Index, speaks to process and production, to the varied artistic approaches found within one context and the relationships built through this programme.

Left: Photo of artist Samar Hejazi. Photo by Shannon McClatchey. Right: Adria Mirabelli’s studio. Courtesy of the artist.

Taking their inspiration from Akin’s residency at MOCA, in the former Tower Automotive building, Maharani and Verstappen drew on the site’s history as a car parts factory and also a venue for raves and artist studios. “Throughout the past year, the fourth floor of MOCA served to extend this legacy by opening space for studios, residencies, as well as programmes exploring art’s utilitarian role in contemporary society,” they explained.

“In the context of the site’s histories, this exhibition features works by artists who have produced within this space as part of the inaugural Akin Studio Program. An Index makes visible the labours of artistic creation through an open and honest charting of the processes, challenges, delights, and failures of making art in the city.”

The exhibition comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by:

Adria Mirabelli, Carrie Chisholm, David Constantino Salazar, Emily Woudenberg, Emma White, Eva Kolcze, Helen Liene Dreifelds, Humboldt Magnussen, Jennifer Dany Aubé, Jessica Thalmann, Jieun June Kim, Leone McComas, Liang Wang, Maren Boedeker, Nuff, Polymetis, Raoul Olou, Raquel Da Silva, Samar Hejazi, Sara Mozafari, Stephanie Avery, Su Bin Ee, Tanya Louise Workman, and Walter Segers.

Over the next couple of months, Akin will be sharing profiles on our blog of all of the artists from Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA. Click here to see the most recent posts in the Akin MOCA Series.

Photo of artist Leone McComas. Photo by Jessica Thalmann

Accessibility
MOCA Toronto aims to be a barrier-free and accessible museum for all. Each floor has elevator access. Two wheelchairs that are available to borrow. Service animals are welcome.

Akin Projects at Zine Dream 12 - Don't miss this FREE, one-day-only event

Akin is excited to exhibit at ZINE DREAM 12 alongside over 100 creative vendors at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA). Exhibitors will be showcasing self published books, comics, music, zines, handmade crafts, prints & much more! One day only!

Date: Sunday July 21
Time: 10am-5pm
Location: MOCA - 158 Sterling Road
Cost: FREE!

The Akin Projects table will be featuring work by Akin artists:

Emily Woudenberg - www.strikedesignstudio.com
Enas Satir - www.instagram.com/enas.satir
Jessie Elliot-Brunning - www.stomatacollective.com
Mia Zhou
Nuff - www.designbynuff.com
Minerva Mullally
Sherlyn Choe - www.smchoe.com
Stephanie Avery - www.stephanieavery.com

Akin artists Jenn Woodall, Loretta Miauw and Wenting Li as well as Akin alumni Jenn Kitagawa and Jackie Lee will be at Zine Dream exhibiting their work independently.

Art Metropole will exhibit their back catalogue of zines, featuring work by local and international artists collected by the organization over their 45 year history. This extensive zine library will be available to browse and buy at Art Metropole's storefront space on the ground floor of the MOCA all weekend long.

As a bonus you can enjoy free admission to the Museum exhibitions from 10am-2pm while you’re at Zine Dream!

Visit zinedream.com for more information including a full exhibitor list.

Also, we hope that you can join us for the official launch party of Zine Dream co-presented by Art Metropole featuring Readings & Musical Performances!

Date: Friday July 19
Time: 8pm
Location: MOCA
Cost: $10

Vector Festival presents Speculative Ecologies: Media Art at the Anthropocenic Precipice / July 11-14

Speculative Ecologies: Media Art at the Anthropocenic Precipice
At a time when humanity’s collective dithering in the face of impending ecological disaster is threatening to harm our world beyond repair, Vector Festival 2019 explores how contemporary media art reflects on this dire state of affairs. Featuring interactive installations, screen-based works, experimental games, generative art, performances, sound art, and other digital works, the festival’s curators invite you to join us in speculating on possible futures, alternative realities, and post-calamity archaeologies of the mess we have created for ourselves.

Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing digital games and creative media practices. This year, Vector Festival is happening from July 11-14 and the full schedule of programming includes screenings, lectures, workshops, panels, exhibitions and more! The theme of this year’s festival is Speculative Ecologies: Media Art at the Anthropocenic Precipice.

Events are happening at locations all over Toronto, including InterAccess, MOCA, the Ontario Science Centre, Trinity Square Video, Artscape Youngplace and more. Visit www.vectorfestival.org for a full schedule of events (Although many events are free, some are ticketed and require registration - an All-Access Pass is $25).

Vector Festival is brought to you by InterAccess, a non-profit gallery, educational facility, and production studio. The mission of InterAccess is to expand the cultural significance of art and technology by fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition.

Vector Festival Launch Party & Opening Reception:
Join us on July 11 from 
7-10pm in celebrating the launch of Vector Festival 2019, and the opening of the festival’s flagship exhibition, Future Relics, curated by Katie Micak and Martin Zeilinger. The party is located at 950 Dupont St., Unit 1 and is FREE!

About Future Relics:
How will post-extinction media archaeologists rediscover our lost civilisation? What will robots have to say about the last days of humanity? What possible futures are already inscribed in the technologies and digital tools we use today? Future Relics, this year’s Vector Festival flagship exhibition, presents media artists whose work offers insights and outlooks on digital culture and the environment that oscillate between the playful and the critical, the hopeful and the dystopian.

Akin Summer Programming

Akin is pleased to present our July and August programming. We hope to see you at some of these events this summer! 

Pointillism at the Beach, an Afternoon with Seurat
July 14 / 12pm-2pm / $5-$10 (sliding scale) / Woodbine Beach

Calling all creatives, artists and hobbyists! Join us for some Georges Seurat style pointillism on the beach! Come meet other creatives, explore and draw beachy scenes from life with us in this fun-filled and summer space!

We will begin with some quick and expressive warm ups, moving on to more focused Summer forms and scenes and we will end the day with a free-for-all drawing period. All levels and media are welcome - no toxic materials please. Bring your own materials. 

Click here to register or for more information

Akin Projects at Zine Dream 12
July 21 / 10am-5pm / FREE / MOCA Toronto Canada

Akin is excited to exhibit at ZINE DREAM 12 alongside over 100 creative vendors this July. Exhibitors will be showcasing self published books, comics, music, zines, handmade crafts, prints & much more! One day only!

Click here for more information

An Index - Opening Reception
July 24 / 6pm-9pm / FREE / MOCA Toronto Canada

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. The exhibition runs from July 25–September 8, 2019 at MOCA Toronto Canada. Join us on July 24 for the opening reception! 

Click here for more information

Akin River Launch Party + Potluck
July 25 / 4pm-10pm / FREE / Akin River

Akin invites fellow artists, friends and family members to celebrate the opening of our new 3rd floor River Studios 2 & 3 !! Please join us on the patio Thursday July 25th for food and drinks and a little summer camaraderie. Let's get to know each other and the space!

Click here for more information

There is more coming soon! Save the date for these August Events at Akin: 

August 7 - Show & Tell at Akin MOCA - 4th Floor Studios at MOCA

August 14 - Flag Book Workshop with Jessica Thalmann - Remote Gallery

August 17 - MOCA After Dark Dance Party - MOCAToronto Canada

August 22 - Akin Ossington Launch Party + Backyard BBQ - 888 Dupont St.

THIS IS SERIOUS: Canadian Indie Comics

THIS IS SERIOUS: Canadian Indie Comics
at the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Opening June 21, 2019

THIS IS SERIOUS: Canadian Indie Comics presents a survey of contemporary Canadian artists working in the expansive genre of cartooning and indie comics. On the international stage, the comic arts are highly regarded, but in Canada, it is arguable that cartoonists don't receive the same level of art world recognition. Despite this, Canadians make considerable contributions to the greater field of international comics, and Toronto, Montreal, and Hamilton are all significant centres of comic art production.

In response to this void in the Canadian museum context, THIS IS SERIOUS takes the energy of underground artistic production and indie publishing as its impetus to make visible the breadth of activity by a diverse range of artists working in this genre, throughout Canada. Co-curated by award-winning graphic novelist Joe Ollmann and Alana Traficante, the exhibition is national in scope and features the work of 47 artists. THIS IS SERIOUS presents the recent arc of production that has helped shaped the current state of graphic storytelling, here and now on home soil.

Julie Doucet (Canadian b. 1965), Dirty Plotte (detail), ink on illustration board. Courtesy of the artist and Drawn and Quarterly.

Artists include: Sami Alwani, Ho Che Anderson, Kate Beaton, Marc Bell, Blaine, Simon Bossé, David Boswell, Chester Brown, Nina Bunjevac, Jessica Campbell, Geneviève Castrée, Marta Chudolinska, David Collier, Katherine Collins, Michael DeForge, Julie Delporte, Aminder Dhaliwal, Julie Doucet, Pascal Girard, Gord Hill, Jesse Jacobs, Patrick Kyle, Ginette Lapalme, Ness Lee, Hartley Lin, Graeme MacKay, Billy Mavreas, Carel Moiseiwitsch, Sylvia Nickerson, Obom, Simon Orpana, Meredith Park, Cole Pauls, Michel Rabagliati, Rebecca Rosen, Gord Pullar, Seth, Walter Scott, James Simpkins, Fiona Smyth, Jillian Tamaki, Maurice Vellekoop, Kat Verhoeven, Eric Kostiuk Williams, Connor Willumsen, Jenn Woodall, Doug Wright

Co-curated by Joe Ollmann and Alana Traficante
#AGHComics

2019 Summer Opening
Join us for the Summer Opening Thursday, June 20 at 6:00 pm celebrating the launch of THIS IS SERIOUS: Canadian Indie Comics along with This is Moving: Illustration on Screenand My Back Pages: The Art of Zines and Indie Publishing. The evening will feature a drum, dance, and storytelling performance led by Rod Nettagog, followed by a free outdoor screening of the celebrated Canadian film The Road Forward as part of National Indigenous History Month and Hamilton Arts Week!

Akin Vitrine Gallery + Laura Kay Keeling

Akin Vitrine Galleries are delighted to welcome Akin Dupont artist, Laura Kay Keeling back into our exhibition spaces for the months of June and July! Working primarily in collage, Laura is bringing one of her prints to life with her installation, Rocks and TV LIVE.

Opening this month on the second floor of 1485 Dupont St, Rocks and TV LIVE will move to 1747 St. Clair Avenue West for the month of July and will be visible at street level on St. Clair West.

“As an artist, I strive to explore and capture the magic that comes from everyday life. From the way the sunshine catches my eye, how the flowers look after it rains, a well groomed front lawn. I try to take moments that sometimes may be overlooked and give them a second chance to be admired. I am obsessed with landscape and how it changes in different regions, how nature’s colour palette is so vibrant and engaging and how we are so fortunate to have such beauty around us in so many different shapes and sizes. I love allowing the viewer to create their own narrative from a captured moment in time and hope my work evokes feelings from the viewer, whatever that may entail such that they can be engaged with the piece. With my 'HOT ROCKS' collage series, I feature interesting and beautiful images found in gemstone field guides which have been cut apart and put back together in a new way. Not only do I love photographing nature, I love allowing it to inspire me and guide my collages to become a new representation of things organically found in nature. My current digital collage series feature sourced imagery from National Geographic Magazines, old field guides and 35mm photos I have taken merged
together to create interesting, vibrant and engaging imagery.”

www.laurakaykeeling.com
Email: laurakay.keeling@gmail.com
Instagram: @laurakaykeeling & @lllllllllllllllllkk

Rocks and TV LIVE
Mixed media
Dimensions variable

For more information about our artists and our programming, join us on Instagram @akinvitrine.

Rocks and TV LIVE will be on view for the month of June in our Dupont Akin Vitrine Gallery, located in the Clock Factory Building at 1485 Dupont Street (entrance on Campbell Avenue). Find Akin Studio 215 on the second floor and follow the sign into the hallway around the corner. The building is open from 9am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday.

The exhibition will then travel to the Akin St. Clair Vitrine Gallery and be on view for the month of July at 1747 St. Clair Avenue West. Gallery is street level and can be viewed at any time.

For more information about Laura’s work, follow our Instagram account @akinvitrine.

Photography by Akin Sunrise artist Janne Reuss at Artscape Youngplace until June 1

There is still time to check out the Gallery 44 group show ‘Spectra’ in the Artscape Youngplace 3rd floor Hallway Gallery! ‘Spectra’ showcases work that represents a variety of photographic concepts and techniques, celebrates artistic practice, and reveals ways seemingly disparate work can intersect. Spectra reflects the spirit embodied by the community of Gallery 44.

Akin Sunrise artist Janne Reuss is exhibiting photography in this exhibition along with other members of Gallery 44 as a part of the CONTACT Photography Festival. ‘Spectra’ runs until June 1, 2019.

Artscape Youngplace
Hallway Galleries, 3rd Floor
180 Shaw Street, Toronto
Hours: 8:00am-8:00pm

About Janne Reuss:
Janne Reuss is a multidisciplinary and conceptually driven artist. Her work addresses the existential and cultural human conditions of freedom, confinement, as well as identity; especially from the female point of view, which she often performs and photographs. The spaces she creates are ambiguous and multilayered inviting the viewer to contemplate. Reuss cuts her photographs and rearranges the fragments manually. The resulting handmade collages are then scanned and printed as photographs. The final work consists of the initial original photomontage and a small edition of 3-5 digital prints. www.janneart.net

Andrea Bailey at the Riverdale Art Walk and the Rosedale Art Fair

Andrea Bailey will be showing her latest work in June at the Riverdale Art Walk and the Rosedale Art Fair. Andrea is an emerging abstract artist and Akin Lansdowne studio member. Andrea’s works have been shown in numerous galleries and art shows in Toronto and Baltimore among many other cities. Andrea has a dedicated studio practice and has produced some new and exciting images and methods for 2019 which will be on display at the shows.

The Riverdale Art Walk is a two day event on June 1 and 2 in Jimmie Simpson Park on Queen Street East. The show will be open from 11 am to 6 pm on both days. www.riverdaleartwalk.ca

The Rosedale Art Fair is the following weekend on June 8 and 9, Andrea will show again in the park space across from the LCBO at Summerhill Station on Yonge Street.  Hours are 11-6 on Saturday and 12-5 on Sunday. www.rosedalemainstreet.ca/event/art-fair

Zach Atticus solo exhibition 'Perennial' - this weekend at REMOTE Gallery

‘Perennial’ is a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by Zach Atticus of Akin Dupont happening this weekend at REMOTE Gallery. Akin invites you to join Zach for the opening night reception on Saturday evening.

SHOW HOURS:
May 25th 5-9pm (opening reception)
May 26th 12-6pm

REMOTE Gallery
568 Richmond St W, Toronto

About Zach Atticus:
Zach Atticus is an artist and OCADU graduate based in Toronto. Zach grew up with a love of art that was passed down to him from his mother and learned much of his craft from a childhood batman colouring book. In kindergarten, Zach received animal crackers as compensation for a drawing of a brontosaurus, becoming his first commissioned piece. Today, Zach is a freelance artist and illustrator. His preferred mode of creating has evolved from drawing brontosauri with crayons to a more cultivated approach of oil painting and multi media illustration. www.zachatticus.com

an endless, formless ruin by Jessica Thalmann

Jessica Thalmann

Such Places as Memory (Seattle I)

Folded archival pigment print, unique

22" x 17"

Enquire about this work

ANGELL GALLERY is pleased to present Toronto-based artist and Akin MOCA member Jessica Thalmann’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Titled an endless, formless ruin, the exhibition presents new photographs and photo-based sculptural works, and opens on Saturday, May 4, with the public reception and artist talk on Saturday, May 11 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. The exhibition runs until Saturday, June 1.

It is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin…

                                                                        — Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities (1972)

In the novella Invisible Cities, we find about fifty short impressions of mythical cities relayed to the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan by the Italian explorer Marco Polo. Polo describes the different sensory, physical and psychological affects these cities have on their inhabitants, which have been interpreted as different aspects of one city – Venice. But, ultimately, the book is about more than a single city; rather, it raises ideas about what it means for a city to be ‘home’, and how we can feel either ‘in possession’ or ‘possessed’ by a place through our memories and experiences of it. Polo is the book’s main narrator, but we sympathize with Khan, a man who can’t rule his homeland effectively because he doesn’t truly understand it.

Jessica Thalmann is an artist, curator and writer currently based in Toronto and New York City. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard College and a BFA in Visual Arts from York University. She has worked at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, Toronto International Film Festival, C Magazine, the Art Gallery of York University and Yossi Milo Gallery.

Opening Tomorrow at MOCA: The Honest Shop & Last Chance to View Films by Chantal Akerman

Tomorrow, Friday, May 10th 2019, MOCA presents the fourth project in our Art in Use series, the Honest Shop. A self-service store that showcases and sells products handmade by people in the Junction area, the Honest Shop relies on a system of trust and generosity, where customers must record their purchases and leave cash in the ‘honesty box’ for collection. There are no salesclerks; no Air Miles; and no receipts given.

Rather than have a special selection process for what can be included in the Honest Shop, the products are only those made locally by hand. The disparate array of handcrafted items on display in the shop brings attention to the individual efforts and hidden talents of makers in the community. This unregulated model for trading offers an alternative to commercial mass consumerism—one that is driven by individuals, enthusiasm, and goodwill.

Last chance to view In the Mirror (2007) and NOW (2015) by renowned filmmaker Chantal Akerman at MOCA - these two films speak to the issues that Akerman has explored throughout her career: trauma, gender, belonging and identity.

This is the first Canadian presentation of NOW, which was originally produced for the Venice Biennale in 2015. It creates a sense of being immersed in an arid landscape. The content and controlled point of view make us very aware of the passage of time and the many-layered stories and histories of human occupation.

NOW, is set in stark contrast to the slow and gentle sense of exploration of In the Mirror. Yet both are reflections of and meditations on how we, as individuals, confront and experience our position in society and the world at large.

This exhibition is the first time that Akerman’s work is being shown in a museum in Toronto. The project was introduced to MOCA by curatorial consultant Andréa Picard who invited Akerman to exhibit in Toronto before she passed away in 2015. The opening of MOCA created an opportunity to give space and attention to this important artist. As a companion piece to this exhibition, Picard is curating a retrospective survey of Akerman’s films at TIFF Cinematheque in fall 2019.

Period of Adjustment an Exhibition by Carrie Perreault

Working primarily in sculpture and performance, Akin St. Clair member Carrie Perreault balances resistance and restraint in onerous actions that recount long-term precarity. In making her work, she expends great effort to achieve minimal results. This isn’t about labour; she prioritizes process to reflect on systems of abuse and their connection to emotional and psychological experiences. Through gestural, often repetitive acts and narratives that resist closure, she alludes to complex trauma and its residual effects. By exploring, in a visceral way, failures, vulnerabilities, and the limits of her body, Perreault makes viewers keenly aware of their own.

NAC’s Show Room Gallery
Opening Reception Friday 10 May 2019 7PM-10PM
On display until Saturday 17 August 2019

Presented as part of NAC’s Homecoming Series.

Carrie Perreault is an artist based in Toronto and New York. Her work has been included in exhibitions and projects at Idea Exchange, Cambridge Galleries, curated by Iga Janik (2019); Deathnastics, as part of Gymsick, curated by Hazel Meyer and Lucy Pawlak, Toronto (2018); Hamilton Biennale (2017); Strange Beauty, Tangled Arts +Disability Festival, Toronto (2015); Treasure Hill Artist Village, Taipei (2014). Perreault has been awarded residencies at Open Studio (Toronto), The Banff Centre and Taipei Artist Village.

Idea Exchanges Show.19 Opens Friday!

SHOW.19 brings together emerging artists from across Ontario whose works, processes and preoccupations are the latest in the ever-changing world of contemporary art. The exhibition is exclusively dedicated to those new on the scene and gives the necessary and well-deserved voice to the most ambitious and dedicated.

Idea Exchange

Where: Queen's Square, 1 North Square, Cambridge, ON

Opening Reception: Friday May 10, 2019 7:00 - 9:00 PM

SHOW.19 Features work by Akin members Nicole Crozier and Melanie Keay of Akin Ossington, and Carrie Perrault of Akin St. Clair.

Selected from an open call for submissions, the 13 artists chosen for SHOW.19 shed light on what's happening today and what Ontario has to offer the world of contemporary art in the coming years. This latest edition of SHOW presents works by: Tommy Bourque, Nicole Crozier, Rosellen D'Agostino, Laura Demers, Ioana Dragomir, Sylvia Galbraith, Mélika Hashemi, Hilary Hung, Melanie Keay, Neeko Paluzzi, Michelle Peraza, Carrie Perreault, and Tait William.

Opening Today! Satisfaction Guaranteed by Stephanie Avery

Satisfaction Guaranteed: Paintings by Stephanie Avery
Where: Flying Pony Gallery, 1481 Gerard Street East
When: May 3 - 31
Opening Reception: May 4, 4 - 7
Interactive workshop: May 12, 1 - 4. Come make some AdHacks of your very own!

Join Akin MOCA member Stephanie Avery for an exhibition of her ongoing 'AdHack' painting series. Stephanie uses reclaimed magazine ads as her canvas, painting her own whimsical additions directly onto them to critique and subvert the duplicitous aspects of consumer culture. ‘AdHack’ shifts the traditionally passive viewer/advertiser relationship into something much more active and empowering. By using humour and absurdity to co-opt advertisements, viewers gleefully disengage from the original narratives. 'AdHack' is a fun and engaging way to inspire critical thought/dialogue about advertisements and the role they play in our everyday lives.

Stephanie Avery is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist. Focusing on themes of play, discovery, identity and memory, Stephanie uses humour and absurdity to intervene with familiar objects and imagery to give them new meanings and narratives. Her goal is to inspire new perspectives and initiate critical dialogue about elements of contemporary culture that are often taken for granted.

On View Now: Kin Collective's Constructing Liminal Space

In Constructing Liminal Space, KIN portrays the personal dilemma of being an immigrant and the impact of relocation on individual identity. Jieun June Kim of Akin MOCA and Marina’s immigration experiences have forced them to straddle the boundary between their homes in Korea and Russia (respectively), and their new home in Canada. Their work reflects the duality of the “in-between” space where their identities collide such as realities and dreams, and past and present life.

KIN Collective will also be hosting a FREE family-friendly collaborative art installation, “The Place of Belonging,” on May 4.

Date: April 25 – May 13
Opening Reception: April 25

Opening Reception: 6pm – 9pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Friday 1pm to 6pm
Thursday, May 2 the Gallery will be open until 8pm

Place: Toronto Centre for the Arts, Lower Gallery