There’s darkness and light in Zone C – Spadina to Jameson, Dundas to Lake Shore – where works in Multiple Selves – Strange Destinations, curated by Haema Sivanesan, explore diversity in unsettling ways and Dave Dyment programs installations based on the theme of hope and expectation in Beginning To See The Light.
This Singapore-born artist of Indian descent, who has lived in Australia and is currently based in Toronto, constructs Sniff, Lick, Pinch, Nibble, Swallow… , a stylized representation of the female body, out of brightly coloured coconut and other food materials on the pavement of a pedestrian walkway. The sensual, ephemeral construction creates a bridge between East and West, referencing the tradition of kolam or rangoli (designs that Indian women draw with flour to serve as welcome mats in front of their homes) and the flower paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. A version of the piece was in the 2003 Havana Biennale.
Montrealer de Broin repurposes familiar technology. He parked his RV entered by crawling through a large, rear-installed orifice in a red light district his paved road tangled into an impassable knot his Shared Propulsion Car, a pedal-powered 86 Buick, got him charged with operating an unsafe vehicle when he took it for a spin in Toronto as part of a Mercer Union show last year. Olafur Eliasson brought waterfalls to New York this summer de Broin gives Toronto Overflow, the spectacle of water cascading from a third-storey window of a former prison chapel. Liberty Village, indeed!
The Toronto Arts Council has put together A 35 Step Program to celebrate the arts funding body’s 35th anniversary. The interactive project takes the form of 35 election-style lawn signs scattered around Zone C, so keep an eye out for them as you wander about. Each has instructions by a local luminary like Peggy Baker, Patricia Rozema or Darren O’Donnell that encourage you to “make art, enjoy art, perform art and/or think about art differently.” It’s a good bet that some will address Harper’s culture cuts. The signs are designed by eight emerging artists, including NOW’s Caitlyn Terry. Share your experiences or give your own instructions at torontoarts.org/35steps or Facebook group A Campaign For Participation: A 35 Step Program.
A Kenyan-born Canadian of Indian heritage based in Toronto and New York, Fernandes makes installations that often use safaris and hunting as a metaphor for the West’s false images of Africa and the predatory nature of capitalism. (See his piece in Dyed Roots, currently at MOCCA.) Here he adopts another globalization symbol, shipping containers, piled to resemble Moshe Safdie’s Habitat apartments constructed for Expo 67. Emitting a Morse code SOS signal, the containers comment on illegal immigration, the failure of 60s utopianism and neighbourhood gentrification.
