Exhibition: May 5 – June 25, 2022 Gallery: Doris McCarthy Gallery University of Toronto Scarborough 1265 Military Trail Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4
Now You See Me is an exhibition that brings together artists who consider the power dynamics of image-making through their distinct practices. Dayna Danger, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Gaëlle Elma, Leila Fatemi, Kablusiak, Meryl McMaster, and Vivek Shraya variously identify as women, femme, and non-binary, and use photography to explore issues related to gender and cultural identity.
Employing tactics of performing, concealing, and revealing their bodies and those of their collaborators, the artists produce works that challenge normative, colonial assumptions. They address pressing political realities that are closely tied to their personal histories, and reveal paradoxes inherent in representations of racialized bodies. Although the works in the exhibition are generated from different perspectives and experiences, they share a reckoning with the historical and contemporary uses of the camera as a tool to perpetuate degradative narratives. Asserting themselves as directors of their own images, the artists pose questions about the complex cultural and gender-related politics that underlie self-representation, shifting perceptions of the politics that inform image-making with sharp critique and blatant defiance, while kicking the door open for new stories and conversations.
‘Now You See Me’ is curated by Sandy Saad-Smith and is a Core Exhibition in the 2022 CONTACT Photography Festival.
Exhibition: Human Learning. What Machines Teach Us
Date: February 05th, 2020 – April 17th, 2020
Opening: February 4th, 2020 6-8pm
Gallery: Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris
Address: 130 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris
Human Learning. What Machines Teach Us is an exhibition that documents the world using the technologies that shape it. The works in the exhibition feature a large variety of styles: interactive devices that make us learn their playabilities, generative installations whose processes are entirely autonomous and digital creations made out of digital forms.
The concept of artificial intelligence emerged in the 1950s. It served as a vehicle for an imaginary world immediately adopted by science-fiction writers who endowed machines with the ability to “think”. In the 1980s, the idea that machines could themselves learn, by deduction, appeared. This is known as “machine learning”. Finally, since the turn of the millennium, the term “deep learning” has been used for the processing of vast quantities of data by computers.
We have taught everything to machines and continue to supply them so that they pursue the “desire” for autonomy we would like to grant them. Isn’t it time that we started thinking that we, too, learn from them by observing their specificities or qualities? If there is one community that observes the world to give us its interpretations of its transformations, it is the artistic community.
Artists have always made use of the tools and materials of their times. Thus, more and more of them are turning to the creative potential of digital technologies, which are also used by researchers in their laboratories. In doing so, they accept what the machines offer them while adding an element of unpredictability to their creations. Sometimes, they distance themselves from their works, which run so that their modes of actions may be observed better. Machines or robots are also the subjects of photographs or films that other artists produce to encourage new forms of empathy in us. It is not an application or a service that does not work as soon as it opens. From the special-effect filters of mass-market software to the networks of artificial neurones that artists share with researchers. They both learn and appropriate these technologies by rubbing shoulders with them.
We have a certain proximity with the works that emerge from the use and/or observation of the technologies that shape our relationship to the world, to others and to ourselves. Recognizing the technologies of our daily lives in an artistic context makes us envisage them differently. Knowing that it is through contact with others that we build ourselves, it is about time to think about the “mechanical” other we increasingly frequent without being too aware of it. Dedicating an exhibition to machines and ideas or the resulting aesthetics amounts to accepting their teachings.
Works by Matthew Biederman, Emilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Grégory Chatonsky, Douglas Coupland, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Emilie Gervais, Sabrina Ratté, David Rokeby, Justine Emard, Louis-Philippe Rondeau, Samuel St-Aubin, Skawennati, Xavier Snelgrove & Mattie Tesfaldet, with an exterior installation by Olivier Ratsi.
Group Exhibition: Meaningful Code
Curated by Katie Micak
Exhibition date: October 26 – January 12, 2020
Opening reception: Thursday, November 7, 6 – 8 pm
Address: Living Arts Centre
4141 Living Arts Drive, Mississauga ON L5B 4B8
Meaningful Code looks at the ways in which artists are engaging with emerging technologies and tools in order to speculate on what our collective future might look like.
Featuring works in video, animation, 3D printing, photography, digital collage, augmented reality, AI and hacking, these works explore how we are integrating technology into our lives, how digital futures might change the ways we see ourselves, and what it might mean to live alongside artificial life forms.
I am having a group exhibition at Museo de la Cancillería, Mexico City, from July 11 to August 23, created by Elizabeth Ross. I also do a performance on July 13 at 4:00pm.
For press at China Hoy, please visit here
chick here for the press at Paso Libre
Exhibition: Trames narratives / Storylines
Gallery: Centre d’exposition L’Imagier
Date: May 24 – July 28, 2019
Opening: May 24 at 6:00pm
address: 9, Front St., Gatineau (Aylmer), Quebec, Canada
In addition to present my photographic work, ” Skin Deep,” I will present a performance, ” Come Home” at the opening, start at 5:00pm
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The Centre d’exposition L’Imagier is pleased to present Trames narratives / Storylines, the very first exhibition presented in its new building.
The opening will be held on Friday, May 24th, 6 p.m., at Centre d’exposition L’Imagier, 9, Front St., Gatineau (Aylmer).
The inaugural exhibition of the new L’Imagier seeks to showcase a multiplicity of practices and perspectives by bringing together six curators: Katarzyna (Kasia) Basta, Marianne Breton, Paul Brunet, Marie-Hélène Leblanc, Stefan St-Laurent and Julie Tremble. Artists Chun Hua Catherine Dong, David Elliott, Kablusiak, Kim Kielhofner, Carl Trahan, Jennifer Lefort and Mélanie Myers present discourses, experiences and stories weaving different narrative layers. By promoting the sharing of artistic visions, knowledge and interests, the exhibition fosters dialogue.
Guided by the notion of narration, the curators present artists whose works testify to their genesis, the experience of the artist or the observation of society. The works of various artistic mediums – photography, drawing, collage, sculpture and performance – are highlighted both in their differences and in their common filiations. While some appear closer to reality, others appeal more freely to fiction. Blurring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, the exhibition promotes a contact with a plurality of truths.
Trames narratives / Storylines
Le Centre d’exposition L’Imagier est heureux de vous présenter Trames narratives / Storylines, la toute première exposition présentée dans son nouvel espace.
Le vernissage se déroulera le vendredi 24 mai 2019, à 18 h, au Centre d’exposition L’Imagier situé au 9, rue Front, Gatineau (secteur Aylmer).
L’exposition inaugurale du nouveau Centre d’exposition L’Imagier cherche à mettre en valeur une multiplicité de pratiques et de points de vue en réunissant six commissaires : Katarzyna (Kasia) Basta, Marianne Breton, Paul Brunet, Marie-Hélène Leblanc, Stefan St-Laurent et Julie Tremble. Ceux-ci présentent les artistes Chun Hua Catherine Dong, David Elliott, Kablusiak, Kim Kielhofner, Carl Trahan, Jennifer Lefort et Mélanie Myers, qui offrent aux visiteurs des discours, des expériences, des récits tissant différentes couches narratives. En favorisant le partage de visions artistiques, de connaissances et d’intérêts, l’exposition se veut un lieu de dialogue.
Guidés par la notion de narration, les commissaires ont sélectionné des artistes dont les œuvres témoignent de leur genèse, de l’expérience de l’artiste ou de l’observation de la société. Les œuvres de diverses disciplines artistiques – la photographie, le dessin, le collage, la sculpture et la performance – sont mises en lumière tant dans leurs différences que leurs filiations communes. Si certaines apparaissent plus proches de la réalité, d’autres font appel plus librement à la fiction. Ces croisements entre le réel et l’imaginaire, au sein de l’exposition, favorisent un contact avec une vérité plurielle. For more info
I am very glad to announce that I have a group exhibition. The Breadth of Distance, at L Space, Humber Galleries, Toronto
Exhibition: February 4, 2019 – April 5, 2019
Opening: Wednesday, February 6th, 5-8pm
Curated by: Alize Zorlutuna
Address: Humber College, Lakeshore Campus L Building, 19 Colonel Samuel Smith Park Drive, Toronto, ON M8V 4B
we carry continents,
cross oceans,
traverse vast distances while still.
the scent of comfort,
is also longing.
what goes unsaid,
a kind of knowing.
how do elsewheres live in the body?
in dreams?
half-remembered tongues.
in what cannot be named.
Bringing together photography, video, installation, and sculpture, these artworks shift across geographies, cultural perspectives, and time. Considering grief, longing, care and resilience, they articulate how relationships to place, representation, and belief shape who we are and how we move in the present.
This exhibition asks us to reckon with how we came to be here on this land. Whether we are Indigenous, multi-generational settlers, or recent immigrants, our current moment demands we think through how we might build mutual understanding and empathy while recognizing our many differences.
I am very pleasured to announce that I have a group exhibition. Once Per Annum, at The Istanbul Cumhuriyet Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, presented by KADEM Women and Democracy Association
Exhibition:December 29,2018 – January 30, 2019,
Opening : Dec29th, 2018
Location : Cumhuriyet sanata galerisi , also called Taksim Republic Art Gallery, Istanbul
15:00 – 15: 30 Press conference
15:30 – 16:00 Cocktail
16:00 – 16:30 Opening ceremony
18:00 – 20:30 Artist conversations (in The Marmara Hotel, Taksim)
I am very pleased to announce that I will perform ” A Fair Day’s Work,” at Nuit Blanche, presented by Art Souterrain, 7:00pm-10:00pm March 3, 2018, Place Bonaventure, and other different public spaces in Montreal.
Feb 26, 2018, 7:00pm-8:00pm, dans le hall de Bibiotheque (BAnQ), Montreal
March 3, 2018, 7:00pm-10:00pm, Place Bonaventure
Mar 19, 2018, 12:00pm-13:00pm, 1000 de la Gauchetirere, Montreal
Mar 20, 2018,12:00pm-13:00pm, Montreal’s World Trade Centre, Montreal
Mar 22, 2018, 12:00pm-13:00pm, Complexe Guy Fauvreau, Montreal
“A Fair Days’ Work” is a durational performance piece that explores relationship between time and labor in working environment. “Work” is often defined as paid actives links to the market. While paid work remain visible, the unpaid work in arts, as a phenomenon, remains unrecognized and undervalued. “A Fair Days’ Work” is not only a test of mental and physical endurance, but also a satire that echoes the condition of artistic labor in relation to capitalist economy and subsidy culture, providing a justification for the artists’ vulnerability.
I am very pleased to announce that I will have a group exhibition, ” Change Agent,” at Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Montreal, Canada, on March 3-April 10, 2018. My new ” Skin Deep” series is exhibited there.
Opening: 2:00pm-6:00pm, March 3, 2018
Exhibition: March 3-April 10, 2018
Gallery: Patrick Mikhail Gallery
Address: 4815 Boul Saint-Laurent, Montreal, CA. H2T 1R6
I am very pleased to announce that my work, ” Husbands and I,” presented by La biennale de Quebec, will be exhibited at MAC VAL in France, October 20, 2017- January 28, 2018.
Exhibition Date: October 20, 2017- January 28, 2018
Opening: October 20, 2017 at 6:30 pm
Addess:Place de la Libération, 94400 Vitry-sur-Seine, France
