VISUAL ARTS/Film & Video
Workers
On Site: Artist Talk and Site Tour
Saturday
May 7, 1:30 pm, Free
Evergreen
Brick Works, 550 Bayview Avenue
Workers on Site is a three-part installation of large-scale photographic portraits that Dan Bergeron created for Evergreen Brick Works. The series portrays more than 50 years of labour history on the site. Six large scale portraits of former brick workers from the industrial plant were installed literally brick by brick in the abandoned kiln building. The photographs of the six men are recent, and their presentation reflects on how time has marked their faces and the building where they produced millions of bricks.
In contrast, 13 full figure portraits (12 men and 1 woman slightly larger than life-size) installed in the south stair well of Building 12 represent different trades involved in the recently completed construction of the LEED platinum certified building on the Brick Works site. A group portrait of members of the Eastern Construction crew is mounted on the new utilities shed in Building 16.These workers were instrumental to the transformation of the abandoned industrial site into what became Evergreen Brick Works. The tour of the site will be followed by a talk by Dan Bergeron. Exhibition curated by Ingrid Mayrhofer.
Co-sponsored
by Evergreen Brick Works.
The
Boilermakers and Ironworkers Union
Monday
May 9 - Sunday May 15, Free
Opening
Reception: Monday May 9, 6-9 pm
Artists'
Talk: Monday May 9, 7:30 pm
Beaver
Hall Gallery, 29 McCaul Street
The Boilermakers and Ironworkers Union brings together the work of artists Camille Turner and Rick Hill, curated by Jennifer LaFontaine. Growing up in the family of boilermakers and ironworkers respectively, both Camille and Rick have carved out their own life paths from these working families to becoming working artists. Both draw on their family experiences and infuse these identities into their artistic practices.
When she was nine years old, Camille came to Canada with her mother and sister to live with her father. They settled in Hamilton, where her father, a boilermaker, made his living in the steel industry.Hometown Queen is a series of staged photographs of Miss Canadiana, in full-colour, posing in front of panoramic sepia-toned views of Hamilton's steel mills. Through her hallmark use of humour and irony, she both pays homage and explores her contradictory relationship to her hometown.
Also presented in this exhibition is Sankta Barbara, a video work collaboratively created by Camille Turner in collaboration with composer Paulo C. Chagas. The work was created in 2003 during Interaktions-Labor, a residency in an abandoned coalmine in Germany. It draws on the energy of Shango, an African diety who is syncretized with Sankta Barbara, to form a meditation on the unseen and unacknowledged work performed by men in the mine each day.
As Native artist Rick Hill says in his digital story Decisive Moments, "I didn't hear about the Creation story, the Great Law or any of that. All I heard about was being an ironworker. I thought that was my destiny." He recounts his path from ironworker to artist, and the ripple effect it had through his family. His large collection of black and white photographs documents the lives of ironworkers, "to help others see the lives of my heroes as I saw them." The photos and video pieces selected for this exhibit include ironworkers, family, photographers and craftspeople who taught Rick about art, how it shaped his own sense of self, and where his art has evolved from these inspirations.
Co-sponsored by Digital Storytelling Toronto.
Land
of Destiny
Screening
and Artist Talk: Tuesday May 10, 7 pm, $5
Toronto
Free Gallery, 1277 Bloor Street West
Land of Destiny, written and directed by Brett Story, is about how a hard working petrochemical town is rocked by revelations that its workers suffer an epidemic of cancers. But even more terrifying is the looming spectre of de-industrialization and joblessness. Tattooed men serving fries, basement musicians, boilermakers and volunteer fire fighters, heartbroken widows and an optimistic mayor - the lives of a diverse medley of characters intersect to reveal the dramas and contradictions of an industrial town out of sync with a post-industrial economy. In the rich fabric of the city's landscape - rows of boarded storefronts, the bright sprawl of petrochemical plants and the swollen rooms of hospital wards and crowded bars - one finds a microcosm of the 21st century. A portrait of a working-class city in paralysis and a meditation on work and place in the modern economy, Land of Destiny offers an intimate story about work, struggle and survival.
Co-sponsored by Toronto Free Gallery.
The
Faces of Son Jarocho and FBI Family
Wednesday
May 11 - Tuesday May 29, Free
Opening
Reception: Wednesday May 11, 7-9 pm
Artists'
Talk: Wednesday May 11, 7:30 pm
Toronto
Free Gallery, 1277 Bloor Street West
This year Mayworks presents two solo shows in one location, and a chance to hear and meet the artists on the opening night.
The Faces of Son Jarocho is a multidisciplinary project combining oral history, field recordings and portraits using printmaking as a medium. Alec Dempster documents elderly musicians, singers and dancers from the state of Veracruz, Mexico whose lives have all revolved around the music called Son Jarocho. Although this genre is becoming increasingly popular in places as far afield as Los Angeles and Seattle, the effects of migration and other factors are threatening the survival of the music in the rural context in which it originated and has evolved during the past three centuries. By combining his prints with field recordings he took in the area around the town of Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz, Dempster documents unique styles that are in danger of disappearing. This series is a small tribute to some of the people who have spent most of their lives playing Son Jarocho and have actively struggled to preserve the traditions of their communities. This exhibition, shown in the U.S.A. and Mexico, is being exhibited here for the first time in Toronto.
Combining 1950's family photos with her mother's FBI files, Amy Gottlieb's series FBI Family speaks to historic and contemporary issues around state surveillance as well as the personal and political textures of security. For Gottlieb, these FBI files were the constant wallpaper of her life as a red diaper baby growing up in New York. Both of her parents were members of the Communist Party and dinner conversation always included a large helping of political discussion and passing mention of phones being tapped and calls from the FBI. While the family photos she subverts seem ordinary and representative of domestic photography of the period, the layering injects a counter-narrative of classification, suspicion and control. These days Gottlieb's fears are for the ongoing power of the state to classify, control and demonize dissent. These images ask the viewer to think about the power of the 'security state' and dominant notions of 'public safety' and their impact on democracy.
Co-sponsored by Toronto Free Gallery.
Resilience
Thursday
May 12 - Sunday May 22, Free
Opening
Reception: Thursday May 12, 6-10 pm
The
Raging Spoon, 761 Queen Street West
Resilience is a collaborative visual art installation that celebrates Toronto's LGBTTQ2SIA spectrum people of colour as working people, as bodies of resilience and resistance, and as storytellers. Queer people of colour in Toronto often find themselves trapped in a paradox. Facing violence, oppression and systemic barriers to decent wages, healthy working conditions and a living culture. Meanwhile, on some very specific fronts, 'queer positivity' is being mainstreamed. Toronto hosts one of the world's largest Gay Pride Parades and widespread 'diversity' rhetoric makes it seem as though with a bit of effort, queer and trans people of colour can be "just like everybody else." When confronted with these mainstreaming ideas, we ask ourselves: whose queer agenda is being represented? Do these representations truly empower us and our communities? Resilience celebrates the resistance to these things with a collaborative visual art installation. This installation involves photography, short video and multi-media works by Eshan Rafi, Erin Kosm, Nadijah Robinson, Heidi Cho and Huellas Importadas.
Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Development Council and The People Project.
