I will be participating as a speaker in Blackwood Gallery‘s exciting two-day hybrid panel/presentation/event/talk series.

I need you.
I often perform with others in my work. Some projects feature prepped performers, while other projects ask the audience to complete the intended action. Drawing examples from Make a wish! (2007), The Kiss (2008-2011), _scape with 6 and 7 (2009-2010), and Knowhere (2011), I will talk about how needing others motivates my ideas, and how their bodies perform in my practice.

A TWO DAY HYBRID* EVENT
LED BY FOUR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS:

Michael Fernandes (artist, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design) Peggy Gale (independent curator, Toronto), Sheila Heti (writer, Toronto) and Mark Lanctôt (curator, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal). Moderated by Suzanne Carte (independent curator, New York/Toronto).

*Part-workshop, part-conference, part-crit session, part-masterclass, part pechakucha (but longer), part ignite (but longer still).

How do ideas take form? How does one embark on the process of extracting, editing and distilling an idea into a presentable format? One half of this intensive two day event (May 5–6) will be led by four distinguished guests who will model the process by which they each move from the conceptual to the final stages of a project. They will present the successes and failures of both in-progress and finished work in a series of engaging presentations.

The conference will take place on Saturday May 5 & Sunday May 6 (10am to 5pm) at the Blackwood Gallery, Kaneff Centre (UTM). You must register in advance to attend.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS
HOW TO REGISTER
FUNDERS & PARTNERS

Materials: Baltic Birch, nickel and glass lens, cloth, tooth, nails, hair, and photographs
Dimensions: 2 x 2 x 4.25 inches

Tooth and nail (and hair) is a small, tactile sculpture created for a silent auction and exhibition in mMOCCA, a traveling, miniature model gallery that exhibits small scale works of contemporary art by emerging Canadian artists.

The silent-auction was organized by main Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (mMOCCA), Art History Graduate Students Association (AHGSA at York University), and hosted at Gendai Workstation.

For more information on the silent auction (being held March 3, 2012), please click here.

Special thanks to Rick Saulnier

I’m excited to present a new, small-scale sculpture (pictured above) entitled tooth and nail (and hair) at a silent-auction organized by main Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (mMOCCA), Art History Graduate Students Association (AHGSA at York University), and hosted at Gendai Workstation.

Half of the funds raised will go toward supporting AHGSA’s 11th annual symposium (to be held March 31st, 2012), developed in collaboration with the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The remaining portion of the auction sale price will go to the artist who created the work.

Preview and Silent Auction are held at:
Gendai Workstation
1265 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Phone: 416.534.1693

Preview dates:
Tuesday February 28 to Saturday March 3, from 11-6pm

Silent Auction date:
Saturday March 3, from 7pm-12am

The project I created for the Artists’ Soup Kitchen is an interactive performative exercise that asks the audience to consider the action of asking for more. Inspired by the initial curatorial prompt of offering a soup kitchen for artists, I chose to explore the idea of class structure and the power dynamic of wanting, and asking for more, whether the desire is social, economic, or abstract.

I chose to stage a lunch where each person’s meal is scaled down to a miniature version of a balanced lunch. Artist-visitors are encouraged (and even required) to raise their ‘hand’ [an edition of 100 wooden cut-out hands with the text 'I want more' branded on each] to ask for more food in order to get a fair serving. Using the wooden hand as a starting point, attendees are encouraged to engage with each other and consider what s/he as an artist might want more of, perhaps more inspiration, support, dialogue, or attention…For me, what I find most curious is the individual’s process of recognizing when s/he wants more, what it is s/he wants more of, and subsequently how and why s/he eventually chooses to make her/his desire known.

Curated by the Starving Artists Collective (Catherine Clarke, Jess Dobkin, and Stephanie Springgay)
Photographs by Julie Smitka

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Additional thanks to volunteers/performers:
Kate Barry
Alison Creba
Kathleen Edwards
Leanne Gillard
Arden Hagedorn
Adam Herst
Johanna Householder
Sandra Liu
David Reyes
Sean Smith
Connie Tsang
Karen Wielonda
Rick Saulnier

Thanks to Starving Artists Collective (Catherine Clarke, Jess Dobkin and Stephanie Springgay) for curating a great 6 weeks of artist lunches, and to all the volunteer performers who made I want more a fun-filled afternoon:

Kate Barry
Alison Creba
Kathleen Edwards
Leanne Gillard
Arden Hagedorn
Adam Herst
Johanna Householder
Sandra Liu
David Reyes
Sean Smith
Connie Tsang

For six Monday afternoons this winter artists are invited to come to the Artists’ Soup Kitchen for a FREE HOT LUNCH. Each week is hosted by different artists who will bring their creative practices to the Soup Kitchen.

A new menu each week!
Monday, January 9: Ulysses Castellanos
Monday, January 16: Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling
Monday, January 23: Tobaron Waxman
Monday, January 30: Naty Tremblay
Monday, February 6: Annie Onyi Cheung
Monday, February 13: Swintak

Artists’ Soup Kitchen Mondays ONLY
Series runs Jan 9 to Feb 13, from 12-3pm
The Raging Spoon Cafe
761 Queen Street West, Toronto
Wheelchair accessible space

Volunteer at the Soup Kitchen!
Contact: StarvingArtistSoupKitchen@gmail.com
Info: jessdobkin.com

The Starving Artists Collective
(Catherine Clarke, Jess Dobkin and Stephanie Springgay)

Made possible with support from the Toronto Arts Council and SSHRC

2 of my videos are now on view at art+drinks, a moving images space by John Oswald.

_scape with 6 and 7 and Untitled [black+grey] will be on view occasionally from now through to the end of the year. Oswald switches up the selection on view on a near-nightly-basis, choosing from work by Michael Snow, David Rokeby, John Oswald, Renée Lear, Bettina Hoffmann, Laurel MacDonald, Max Dean, Mani Mazinani, Annie Onyi Cheung, and Mark Reale.

About art+drinks – A storefront location in Toronto on Dundas West (at the intersection of Palmerston) is a comfortable viewing lounge/observia connected to a bar/café which is connected to a locavore deli; a new place to eat and drink and talk, and especially to watch images unfold.

open Tuesday – Saturday from sunset to 11pm
800 Dundas Street West, Toronto   ON   M6J 1V1
phone: 647-665-8585

elastic body / elastischen Körper, 2011
1:50 minutes

This video was exhibited as part of Gwen MacGregor and Sandra Rechico‘s recent collaborative exhibition at A trans Pavilion in Berlin, Germany. The video was made in response to their series Call + Response; I chose to respond to Dan Hudson’s ‘Berlin Commute’.

Backtrack Berlin / A serendipi(ci)ty #04
by Gwen MacGregor and Sandra Rechico

Through a shared interest in the art and language of mapping Canadian artists Gwen MacGregor and Sandra Rechico turn the A trans Pavilion into a LAB environment. The serendipity of these chance encounters with the public, will provide the data needed for the artists to create an installation that will be a collective portrait of the city based on where and when people travel

Collaborators in this endeavour are: Annie Onyi Cheung, Shannon Cooney, Dan Hudson, David Kripppendorff, Mareike Lee, Sonya Schoenberger and Christof Zwiener, Maria Sewcz, and Molly Sigalet.

Photograph by Gwen MacGregor

Photograph by Cheol Joon Baek (for NOW Magazine)

2 channel indoor video projection
70 minutes, looped

This installation further developed “The Kiss”, a video installation.

The images on each video channel specifically relate to one another, and are displayed as pairings of independently produced ‘video portraits’. I have created a looped series of 4 video projections, focusing on the gesture of The Kiss, using closely framed video images of faces enacting a kiss.

Each performer has been filmed independently, performing the gesture without a partner.
Each performer’s face has been filmed from two perspectives: Frontal, and profile.

This is an exploration into human intimacy through the use of the architectural boundaries and structural obstructions, the amplified scale of the body, as well as an intent focus on the human face captured in a moment of uncommon vulnerability and familiarity.

The intended effect is to bridge gaps where intimacy does not usually exist. Architectural spaces often house innumerable tenants who scarcely connect. This installation will allow performers and viewers to connect with those they may never meet, through spirit, time and space, by sharing this simple and universal gesture.

Sincerest thanks to all participant performers:
Adam, Alexander, Alise, Annie, Asad, Caitlin, Carl, Claire, David, Deanna, Emma, Erin, Joanna, Jonathan, Jon, Kim, Lannie, Laura, Leanne, Lora, Marla, Matthew, Meg, Mimi, Natalie, Nayeon, Paul, Rick, Risa, Russel, Shannon, Tharmila, Van, Vika, and Will

exhibition history:
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and Hart House, 2011 (Canada); U of T Celebration of the Arts, Arts & Administration Building, University of Toronto at Scarborough, 2009 (Canada); Art Side Out, University of Toronto at Scarborough, 2008 (Canada)

A Piece of a City is a neighbourhood-based curatorial initiative commissioned for Toronto’s Art of the Danforth Festival (May 2012). The project brings together a group of emerging and established artists to envision a series of site-specific installations and performances that address the interlocking themes of locality, community & contemporary art practice.

Over the course of 6 months, project curators and artists will work within the Danforth East community to conceive, research, document, and finally build a series of contemporary art projects for the festival. This website will serve as our show & tell space. All projects will be documented here from the ground up.

About the AOD Festival:

Art of the Danforth is a month-long multidisciplinary arts festival held along Danforth Ave East between Greenwood Ave and Woodbine Ave in Toronto, Ontario. This year’s festival will host three distinct curatorial zones, each zone produced by a commissioned curatorial collective.

A Piece of a City Project is curated by east-end artists, Annie Onyi Cheung, John Loerchner & Laura Mendes and will run from Coxwell Ave to West Lynn Ave in Zone 2 of the festival.

*Depending on size & scale, artists will be given a budget to conceive their projects.

*Toronto east-end artists and applicants from the neighbourhood are strongly encouraged to apply.

Visit www.apieceofacity.com for more submission guidelines and more details.