Artist Talk with Leala Hewak & Laura Shintani

Artist Talk with Leala Hewak & Laura Shintani

Left: Laura Shintani, Bodywashi!, 2019, installation view; Right: Leala Hewak, Clone, 2018, pigment print (detail)

TYPE: ARTIST TALK, EXHIBITION

Join us for an artist talk with Leala Hewak and Laura Shintani, the artists in the Fault Lines exhibition.

About the Exhibition

Acceptance of change and change through acceptance—Fault Lines explores processes emblematic of observant insight and growth gained from conditions of challenge and disruption. It approaches disturbance with openness and optimism and challenges the problematic and commonly accepted ideas about disability and aesthetics. Using altered photographs, video, fabricated materials, and immersive installations, artists Leala Hewak and Laura Shintani mindfully embrace ambiguity through spirited works that speak to lived experiences of neurodiversity and embodied difference. Reclaiming trauma and uncertainty, the artists explore ways of constructively reframing notions of recovery, adjustment, and adaptation. Fault Lines honours how these nuanced investigations of brokenness reconcile in relation to the unique formation of identities, experiences, and ways of being.

Fault Lines is presented by two of the leaders in disability and mental health in the arts: Tangled Art + Disability operates Canada’s first disability art gallery, and Workman Arts is a multidisciplinary arts organization that promotes a greater understanding of mental health and addiction issues through creation and presentation.

Curated by Claudette Abrams and Sean Lee, Fault Lines is a CONTACT Photography Festival Featured Exhibition.

Directions:
Tangled Art Gallery is located in studio 122 on the main floor on the 401 Richmond Building. The closest accessible subway station is at Osgoode Station. The closest accessible streetcar stop is the 510 Spadina Queen Street West Stop (going south from Spadina Station), and the 510 Spadina Richmond Street Stop (going north from Union Station).

Images
Left: Laura Shintani, Bodywashi!, 2019, installation view; Right: Leala Hewak, Clone, 2018, pigment print (detail)

  • May 18, 2 – 4 pm

FREE

Tangled Art + Disability

401 Richmond St W., Ste 122
Toronto, Ontario

ACCESSIBILITY

Tangled Art Gallery is in a barrier-free location. Audio description will be available for the exhibit. We will have ASL interpreters and attendant care present during public engagements. Service animals are welcome. We request that you help us to make this a scent-free environment. The exhibition and related events are free to attend.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Tangled Art + Disability
PART OF THE
Contact Photography Festival logo

BROWSE CURRENT EVENTS

No recommended events under this criteria

Fault Lines: Leala Hewak & Laura Shintani

Fault Lines: Leala Hewak & Laura Shintani

Left: Laura Shintani, Bodywashi!, 2019, installation view; Right: Leala Hewak, Clone, 2018, pigment print (detail)

TYPE: EXHIBITION

A co-presentation by Tangled Art + Disability and Workman Arts

A Contact Photography Festival Featured Exhibition

Acceptance of change and change through acceptance—Fault Lines explores processes emblematic of observant insight and growth gained from conditions of challenge and disruption. It approaches disturbance with openness and optimism and challenges the problematic and commonly accepted ideas about disability and aesthetics. Using altered photographs, video, fabricated materials, and immersive installations, artists Leala Hewak and Laura Shintani mindfully embrace ambiguity through spirited works that speak to lived experiences of neurodiversity and embodied difference. Reclaiming trauma and uncertainty, the artists explore ways of constructively reframing notions of recovery, adjustment, and adaptation. Fault Lines honours how these nuanced investigations of brokenness reconcile in relation to the unique formation of identities, experiences, and ways of being.

Fault Lines is presented by two of the leaders in disability and mental health in the arts: Tangled Art + Disability operates Canada’s first disability art gallery, and Workman Arts is a multidisciplinary arts organization that promotes a greater understanding of mental health and addiction issues through creation and presentation.

Curated by Claudette Abrams and Sean Lee

Directions:
Tangled Art Gallery is located in studio 122 on the main floor on the 401 Richmond Building. The closest accessible subway station is at Osgoode Station. The closest accessible streetcar stop is the 510 Spadina Queen Street West Stop (going south from Spadina Station), and the 510 Spadina Richmond Street Stop (going north from Union Station).

  • May 3 – June 1, 2019
  • Opening Reception: May 3, 6 – 8pm
  • Artist Talk: May 18, 2 – 4 pm

FREE

Tangled Art + Disability

401 Richmond St W., Ste 122
Toronto, Ontario

ACCESSIBILITY

Tangled Art Gallery is in a barrier-free location. Audio description will be available for the exhibit. We will have ASL interpreters and attendant care present during public engagements. Service animals are welcome. We request that you help us to make this a scent-free environment. The exhibition and related events are free to attend.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Tangled Art + Disability
PART OF THE
Contact Photography Festival logo

BROWSE CURRENT EVENTS

No recommended events under this criteria

Making Mad: How Expressions of Vulnerability Connect Us

Making Mad: How Expressions of Vulnerability Connect Us

Featured Artists: Alison Crouse, Peter Dillman, Esmond Lee, Ben McCarthy & SpekWork, Sarah Trad and Véronique Vallières

Curated by Claudette Abrams

Through humour and pathos, the artists in Making Mad explore the ways in which depictions of vulnerability in their work resonate on a human scale. Deep-diving into personal touchstones that go beyond the individual, these works relate in poignant and absurd ways to our condition as a collective of fallible, temporal beings. 

Vulnerability is rarely associated with courage, yet it is central to survival. Happiness and contentment require little consideration—fitting well within our expectations and ideals—yet pain and uncertainty seem to demand justification in order to understand their purpose and meaning (especially in the absence of any explanation). 

The artists in Making Mad unapologetically take cues from their own misgivings to draw attention to our universal susceptibility to harm. They attempt to debunk stigma equated with weakness, shame and isolation, to embrace the compassion, intimacy and intensity of the ways in which vulnerability teaches us to live with an awareness of the likelihood of change.

  • OPENING RECEPTION
    THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 7-11 PM
  • October 11- October 20
    daily, 12 - 6 PM
    (closed Oct 14)
FREE
TMAC - Toronto Media Arts Centre

32 Lisgar St
Toronto

ARTIST TALK/PANEL

Saturday, October 12, 1-3 PM

Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Artist Talk/Panel is ASL Interpreted

ARTISTS

Alison Crouse

Devastation Portraits is a series of performative images, staged by the artist, who deliberately collapses face down in public spaces. These overt re-enactments give visibility to the often-invisible weight of anxiety and depression and challenge societal norms of what is considered “appropriate” emotional expression. Alison continues to produce these scenarios for sharing on social media, and they have been featured in BuzzFeed, Metro.uk and on the NPR Picture Show.

Alison Crouse is a Philadelphia-based artist, filmmaker, photographer and instructor. She received her MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University and her BFA in Photography from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and University of Vermont. Her award-winning film and videos have been broadcast, screened and distributed internationally. Alison Crouse’s photographic work has been published and shown in galleries across North America.

Peter Dillman

45 Homes is a body of work which chronicles the forty-five different homes that he moved in and out of throughout his life with a changing constellation of family members, house mates and partners.  Through the compilation of documentary materials, such as census data and photographs the artist reconstructs and recounts a history of domestic instability from an early age, moving to a more stable environment as he achieved autonomy.

Peter Dillman is a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary artist, curator, theatre professional and instructor. He studied Fine Art at the University of Waterloo, Theatre Design at the National Theatre School, and Culture and Heritage Management at Centennial College. His multi-media work explores themes of home and environment. Peter Dillman’s work has been exhibited across Canada and is held in corporate and private collections.

Esmond Lee

Ancestral Veneration is a photo-based series depicting the inter-generational realities of migration. As a second-generation Chinese Canadian, Lee’s work examines the nuances and ambiguities of suburban cultural evolutions. His layering of familial and familiar motifs on vinyl mesh banner material echo the clash and assimilation of ancestral values with contemporary identities and experiences.

Esmond Lee is a Toronto-based artist and architect. He holds a Master of Architecture (University of Toronto) and Bachelor of Architectural Studies (Carleton University). He has received Toronto and Ontario Art Council grants and is recognized by the Ontario Association of Architects. His work has been exhibited at Gallery 44, Koffler Centre for the Arts, Toronto Media Arts Centre and Artscape Youngplace. Recent projects include participation in the Ontario Heritage Trust’s Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program and Nuit Blanche 2019.

SpekWork

resourced is a VR documentary about the precarious labour of frontline workers. The user progresses through a series of interactive levels, each built to reflect the lived experience of street nurses, social workers, sex workers, and activists; people serving those at the margins of society who are often marginalized themselves through associated stigma and poverty.

SpekWork is a studio exploring new political narratives through game design with a focus on the dynamic relationship between work and play. The studio is a collaborative effort of Cat Bluemke, Ben McCarthy and Jonathan Carroll, post-secondary instructors teaching from the intersections of art, labour and emerging technologies. Members of the collective have been recognized through awards, grants and commissions for their individual and collective work, and supported by Rhizome, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Sarah Trad

In Sickness and in Health (but mostly, Just in Sickness) is a multi-channel video projection installation which visually shows unnoticed moments between couples and explores the difficulties of seeking companionship while faced with mental illness, codependent tendencies and metaphysical crisis. The title, partly taken from traditional marriage vows, highlights the optimistic decision to bond.

Sarah Trad is a Philadelphia-based artist. She graduated with a BFA in Art Film from Syracuse University, where she subsequently became an Engagement Fellow. She is the recipient of the 77Art Artist Residency (Rutland Vermont Art Center) and Carol N. Schmuckler Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film. Sarah has shown at The Warehouse Gallery (Syracuse, NY), Kitchen Table Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Gravy Studio and Gallery (Philadelphia, PA) and the Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY).

Véronique Vallières

I Extend my Arms/Je Tends les Bras is a multi-media installation involving a methodically storied assemblage of forms that playfully hinge on spectrums of human experience, spirited dualities and intensity of feeling. Physical interaction with material is signified as curative. Craft functions as a survival tool, patterns as armour, and scale that transforms larger-than-life, gender-fluid, soft-sculptures into delightfully embracing recliners.

Véronique Vallières is a Toronto-based, multi-media artist, working primarily in ceramics, textiles and printmaking. They hold a BFA from Concordia University and have attended residencies in Montréal, Moncton and Winnipeg. As a film curator, they co-programmed monthly film and performance events for the Revue Cinema. Véronique Vallières has received multiple grants for their work, which has been exhibited widely, and most recently, acquired for the CAMH permanent art collection.

MEDIA PARTNER

#GETMAD: JOIN THE CONVERSATION

ARTIST TALK/PANEL
Saturday, October 12, 1-3 PM
Toronto Media Arts Centre

Join the exhibiting artists in conversation with Curator Claudette Abrams as they discuss how their work explores and navigates issues of mental health and pushes back against stigmas.

For Information Contact
Paulina Wiszowata
Visual Arts Coordinator
416.583.4339, ext 6
paulina_wiszowata@workmanarts.com

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