September 12 – December 4, 2012
Reception: Wednesday, September 12, 6 – 9 p.m.
ART GALLERY OF YORK UNIVERSITY
Accolade East Building, York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto ON, M3J 1P3
T: 416-736-5169
E-mail: agyu [at] yorku.ca
www.theAGYUisOutThere.org
Hours: Mon-Fri 10–4, Wed 10–8, Sun 12–5p.m
This fall the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) charts new territories, crossing actual and perceived cultural borders and geographic boundaries, going the distance, and moving further out there in the process. But this time we’ve finally fallen off the known map: by forging our own cartographies, our self-imagined exile is also a furtive attempt to belong simultaneously to many other communities. Working under the radar, our stealth movement outward has changed whom we are inside. Welcome to your Imaginary Homelands.
Curated by Emelie Chhangur, Assistant Director/Curator, AGYU
Imaginary Homelands is the culmination of a three-year experimental residency project with Colombian artists Carlos Bonil, Nicolás Consuegra, Miler Lagos, Mateo López, Mateo Rivano, María Isabel Rueda, Daniel Santiago, Angélica Teuta, and Icaro Zorbar that explored how the oscillation of people, ideas, and materials between two real places—in this case Bogotá and Toronto—could become a point of departure toward “locating” a fictionalized mid-way point. A product of this experiment, the exhibition is an imaginary place situated somewhere between the two locations, made tangible through a series of artworks created specifically for, and as, an “Imaginary Homeland” at AGYU.
Imaginary Homelands opens with a public reception on Wednesday, 12 September 2012, from 6-9 pm. The artists will be present.
Throughout the series of residencies, artists considered their projects from the position of being in and being from these two places simultaneously: allowing both to inform their experiences; inflect their understanding of “the local;” and provide differing social and cultural contexts, available materials, etc., for the development of their work. As hybrid creations that draw upon and from so many different sources, materials, stories, and experiences (from visiting paper mills and recycling plants, to flea markets and shipping docks; from travelling to the Arctic, Niagara Falls, and Northern Ontario; to taking ravine walks and river rides), the resulting works in Imaginary Homelands are more than mere translations. Imaginary Homelands is a “third space,” open to imaginative projections as part of an ongoing process of creation. The exhibition continues until Sunday, December 4, 2012 and is curated by Emelie Chhangur, Assistant Director/Curator, AGYU.
Your journey out there begins with Toronto’s Miles Collyer on The Performance Bus!
Unfortunately, even an “Imaginary Homeland” has immigration inspection. The border between downtown Toronto and North York is now under lockdown. In spite of the need for passports and appropriate travel documents, The Performance Bus will take freedom seekers to the safety of AGYU’s Imaginary Homelands on Wednesday, 12 September 2012. The Performance Bus is free, departs OCADU (100 McCaul St.) at 6 pm sharp, and returns downtown at 9 pm. Due to a large number of urban nationalists fleeing across the border, MegaCity authorities request your assistance in identifying suspicious individuals during your journey “out there.” Trust us, we know a thing or two about the difficulties of moving people and materials between downtown Toronto and North York…
Out there, seeing isn’t necessarily believing. Toronto artist Alex Snukal’s project for AGYU Vitrines is a case in point. By definition, a vitrine is always a little not there. It’s either just another section of the wall or a reflective surface, which occludes everything inside. The same could be said of “dazzle patterns” used in biology or military applications, which aren’t really camouflage. They’re conspicuous visual illusions meant to disrupt a predator’s sense of direction, extension, and depth. So… Snukal takes the vitrines at face value, and, playing with ideas of surface, camouflage, and disappearance, creates a new site specific work that is both visible and invisible, evading detection from passers-by while trying to blind them to the exact dimensions of the work.
This fall, visit the AGYU’s Studio Blog and learn how to take care of oneself in order to take care of strangers all over the world with artist-curator Lena Suksi and curator-multimedia-artist-singing-sensation-popess Lido Pimienta at www.theAGYUisOutThere.org/studioblog
The Art Gallery of York University is a university-affiliated public non-profit contemporary art gallery supported by York University, The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, and our membership.