Mani Manzinani
ANCIENTLY HEARD (HIP HOP AS ANCIENT THOUGHT TRANSMISSION)
Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen West)
We’ve heard old-school hip-hop, but what if its true origins went beyond the South Bronx of the late 70s and back to the neolithic? Manzinani searches for hip-hop’s deepest roots by slowing classic records down to the point where they create abstract sound fields that reveal the ancient energy beneath the urban kick. DJ
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew
THE VIRTUAL IMMIGRANT
Royal Ontario Museum (100 Queen’s Park)
A sizable number of people from across the Indian Subcontinent spend their workdays speaking to North Americans, making these phone workers “virtual immigrants.” Matthew explores the dichotomy of citizens who work in a virtually foreign environment, often donning western clothes for the office and returning to their more traditional garb at home. Come have a closer look at the employees who fixed your browser issues. DJ
Abdullah M.I. Syed
LIGHT UPON LIGHT!
TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West)
The Pakistan-born, Australia-based multimedia artist – who also does photography, sculpts with cut-up paper money and uses the Brut perfume brand to comment on masculinity – here considers concepts of beauty, purity and divinity in the form of a glowing moon-like sphere made of Islamic prayer caps. The moon controls the Muslim lunar calendar, the hats form a geometric pattern characteristic of Islamic design, and a fountain-like reflecting pool of blue glass beneath the orb completes the contemplative installation. FS
Ekow Nimako
SILENT KNIGHT
Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (111 Queen’s Park)
Local LEGO wizard Nimako sculpts startlingly real and imaginary creatures, figures and masks exclusively from the plastic construction toys. In Silent Knight, his giant outdoor sculpture made with more than 50,000 pieces of LEGO, the artist pays tribute to the barn owl, a beautiful, endangered nocturnal bird. Its installation outside the Gardiner Museum draws links between plastic and ceramics as materials, and to the museum’s upcoming Kent Monkman exhibit, which also touches on animal extinctions. FS
