As part of Workman Arts commitment towards engaging our community with professional and critical opportunities, this opportunity offers one of our members to investigate the progression of urgent curatorial themes in Toronto. Over the past ten years Toronto witnessed a proliferate curatorial practice addressing many topics, whether it is about migration, reconciliation, decolonialism or sustainability, these topics overlap and intersect in different ways. 

Cross-Pollination is a series of research based talks/panels focused on mapping the connections between different curatorial practices, with an aim to activate curatorial-archival material and build a sense of community that fosters our mental health as art workers/professionals. 

How the sociopolitical issues and demographics in Toronto contributed to this process of cross-pollination? How can we slow down, rewind and examine past exhibitions and projects that overlapped or intersected without notice? 

How curators and art workers/professionals cross-pollinate common topics as a way to support each other? 

In this inaugural edition of Cross-Pollination, Workman Arts’ member Casper Sutton-Fosman will lead the research and present a public talk/panel in conversation with WA visual arts manager Fatma Hendawy. 

This event is open to the public and doesn’t require registration. This is part of the Being Scene 2025 public program. 

Please contact info@workmanarts.com for accessibility requests/needs (Active Listening and ASL)

Please note that the program will take place in one of the gallery spaces (Room 8), making the artworks in that gallery space inaccessible for the duration of the program.

Image Credit: Emma Joy

Join performance collective, Same As Sister (S.A.S.)/Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi and York University’s 3Dance research team – VR advisor Lora Appel & disability arts advisor Rachel da Silveira Gorman, for an open conversation and demonstration about their project in development, Upstairs, In Our Bedroom. 

Upstairs, In Our Bedroom is an interdisciplinary performance that places Same As Sister’s experiences as female identical twins of color next to the real-life story of outsider authors June & Jennifer Gibbons (a.k.a. The Silent Twins). Utilizing dance, text, mobile VR technology, and puppetry they will reveal the dual struggles to be recognized as individuals within a pairing and within a racist and patriarchal society.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 

Same As Sister (S.A.S.) is a NYC and Toronto-based performance collective led by twin choreographers Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi. Initiated in 2013 to make experimental narrative performance accessible to a diverse audience through collaborative and interdisciplinary practices, their commissions have been presented at The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance (Toronto); Base: Experimental Arts + Space (Seattle); Archaeological Museum of Messenia (Greece); Danspace Project (NYC); Centre d’Art Marnay Art Centre (France); BRIC Arts | Media House (NYC); and New York Live Arts (NYC), among other venues. S.A.S.’s 2022 commission, This is NOT a Remount, was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Production (Dance). They were an Alternate and Finalist for the Jerome Foundation’s 2021-22 and 2019-20 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (Dance), and are the recipients of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ 2022 and 2017 Emergency Grant (Dance); Queens Council on the Arts’ 2020 Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant (Multi-Discipline); and a New York Foundation for the Arts’ 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship (Choreography). Same As Sister is currently a commissioned resident artist of the 2023 HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) in NYC. 

Lora Appel is an Associate Professor of Health Informatics at the Faculty of Health at York University; Adjunct Researcher at Michael Garron Hospital; and a Collaborating Scientist at University Health Network, the largest medical research organization in Canada. Lora heads the Prescribing Virtual Reality (VRx) Lab, which designs and conducts studies that introduce and evaluate AR/VR/MR therapeutic interventions for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers in different settings ranging from acute-care hospitals to community care. She has received several grants from the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation to pursue this work in aging and dementia care. More recently her research has expanded into novel uses of VR for other patient populations and clinical conditions, such as those living with epilepsy, specialized dentistry with stroke patients, and low-vision therapy for pediatric oncology patients and seniors with AMD. She is very enthusiastic about creating technological interventions that are preventative, holistic, and tailored to the individual with a special focus on sensory-health. Lora’s love for the arts (as complementary to the sciences) has led her to explore the potential applications of VR in choreography, dance pedagogy, and performance. 

Rachel da Silveira Gorman is an interdisciplinary scholar, choreographer, and curator working across fine arts, humanities, and sciences. Gorman’s current projects focus on disability data justice, AI bias, and machine learning; dance and VR; biochemical mechanisms of health inequity; and aesthetic ideologies of disability and race. Gorman has created 20 dance-theatre, site-specific, and screendance productions, ten of which have been remounted or rescreened at festivals. Critic Paula Citron called Waking the Living “a disturbing and riveting reality check,” and Passing Dark a “melancholy journey… of intense sadness.” Gorman served on the editorial committee of Fuse Magazine, and on the curatorial committee at A Space Gallery, where they curated a cycle of four exhibitions on political grieving. Gorman’s writings on ideologies of disability and race have appeared in American Quarterly, thirdspace, and the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. They hold a PhD from the University of Toronto and an MFA from York University. 

Upstairs, In Our Bedroom is being commissioned and developed through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), NYC, with additional support from Dancemakers (Toronto). The project was developed in part during a 2022-2023 Plug-N-Play Residency at Toronto Dance Theatre.

Winner of the Cinema Fan Award at the 2020 PIA Film Festival at the National Film Archive of Japan, Luginsky is an incredibly unique animated film replete with early and modern computer graphics, still photography and a collage of cut-outs, which are dizzyingly utilized to maximum effect to tell a story which seems as delirious as the protagonist. The main character of the film is named Deerman, whose head is a deer and who recently endured an accident resulting in chronic hallucinations. Deerman has recently lost his job, and in a series of events that led him to become reliant on alcohol, frequently is beaten up as a result of his drunken behaviours. His addiction takes an even worse turn when he stumbles upon a panther-barmanpriest who creates a forbidden cocktail for Deerman designed by an ex-boxer named Luginsky that alters his life even further with so-called reality and fantasy dancing in unprecedented ways. A most unique film of fantastical visions you won’t soon forget.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH DIRECTOR HAIENA
Please join film artist Haiena for a virtual Q&A to discuss his experience creating the unique
animated reality of Luginsky. The discussion will be moderated by animator animator Jeff Chiba
Stearns with Japanese to English interpretation, ASL interpretation and captioning.

Keywords: Addictions | Alcoholism | Animation | Class | Surrealism

Jenny Chen

Jenny is a visual artist living in Toronto. She makes art to process information about the world around her while raising questions about existentialism and spirituality. Her work uses symbols to create mystical environments inspiring viewers to wonder about life beyond the material world. She graduated from OCAD University  in 2016 with a major in Drawing and Painting and a minor in Illustration. Since then, Jenny has worked mainly in watercolour, pen and clay.

Artist Jenny Chen talks about the work she has made in the past three years. She covers her inspiration and creative processes across multiple mediums. She emphasizes pattern making in her work. At the end of the talk, she demonstrates that you can create your own pattern drawing at home.

Websites;
https://www.jennychen.me/
https://www.instagram.com/jennychen.me/

Apanaki Temitayo

Apanaki Temitayo M is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. Born in Toronto and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Apanaki Temitayo M is a bi-sexual, single mother of three. She is an author, spoken word poet, actor, multimedia artist and teacher. Her canvas compositions are an expression of her Trinidadian heritage and spirituality. Apanaki is currently the CAMH 1st Artist in Wellness, and she is featured in the Kuumba Exhibit, Where She Went, She Thrived at Harbourfront Centre, presented by Nia Centre for the Arts.

Journey As A Canadian Artist: A Critique of the AGO” ​is an in-depth exploration and discussion ​led by author, spoken word poet, actor, multimedia artist and teacher Apanaki Temitayo M on the issues related to the lack of representation of Black, Indigenous and People of Color at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the impact on the Canadian art landscape ​as a whole.

Website: apanaki-temitayo-m.pixels.com

Social Media: @ShopApanaki