Grad Gallery & Beyond:
Graduate Thesis Exhibitions

“On Walking: rhythm, repetition, movement”
Naama Freeman, CCP MFA candidate
March 16 - 27: Grad Gallery 205 Richmond St. W. 

It is with great excitement that I invite you to my graduate thesis exhibition “On Walking: rhythm, repetition, movement”, March 16-27 at the Graduate Gallery at OCAD University (205 Richmond St. West).

“On Walking: rhythm, repetition, movement” looks to the action of walking as a method to measure oneself against the earth and foster connection, belonging, and bring new awareness to the places we move through. The exhibition brings into conversation new works by emerging contemporary artists Naomi Boyd (@nodealbig), Anita Cazzola (@neatcazzola), Abedar Kamgari (@kamgara), and the Roving Designers Collective (@rovingdesigners), each offering a unique vantage point to presence oneself and expand through creative dialogue. “On Walking” investigates peripatetic movement through the micro-local and explores what it means to become enmeshed, responsible, relational, and accountable all through distinct walking praxis, making space more malleable and porous in the process.

Celebratory vernissage is on March 17 from 5-7pm. Due to capacity limits, please RSVP to me directly (naama.freeman@gmail.com) if you would like to attend the opening evening. Otherwise, the exhibition is open daily from 12-4pm from March 16-27 – Hope to see you there!!

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Stephanie Singh | TEXTILES] EXHIBITION

I am proud to announce my MFA final exhibition.
BLACK FOLIAGE the preservation processes of botanicals in human-nature experience will be open to the public.

BLACK FOLIAGE is the exploration of preserving botanical materials through the lens of memory and culture. The investigations of blackness, black culture, and black material explored though tactile and interdisciplinary materials. A series of plant-based forms serving their “Ital” properties exploring the rich, beautiful and vibrant textures of my Jamaican Culture.

Opening Reception:
March 30th, 2022 at 4-7pm.
Location:
205 Richmond St West, Toronto | Room 118
Exhibition Dates: March 31st | 11am- 4pm
April 1st | 11am-6pm
April 2nd | 11am-4pm
April 3rd | 11am-4pm

For booking and visits please contact me at Stephanie.singh@ocadu.ca
DM on IG Stephanie Singh | TEXTILES] Upon arrival Hope to see you there!

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Anna Pollice, Wefting the Warp 
“Wefting the Warp” is on exhibit at OCADU
205 Richmond St. W. RM 418
Thursday March 31st to Sunday April 3rd.

"My work explores difference-becoming-movement through a simple weaving technique on a modified frame loom. The woven textiles move “off the grid” taking on forms with no starting point, no end point and certainly no definitive centre. The improvisational movements engage in the positivity of difference."

Images Descriptions: 1 – An invitation to the exhibit outlining the title, dates, and times next to a picture of a woven textile on a loom. 2 – Red and orange fabric strips in an entangled pile. 3 – A close-up image of a section of the woven textile pictured in the invitation.

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Opening March 30th, through April 3rd: "Walking Near Water" in the Grad Gallery (205 Richmond St. W.) a MFA Thesis Exhibition by Mary McIntyre

"I am a metalsmith. My practice is grounded in materials and making, an on generational connections of my Scots-English-Canadian family to the Tkaronto waterfront and the Wonscotonach (Don) and Cobechenonk (Humber) watersheds.

I'm re-thinking my relations with these lands, walking between two rows: one of craft knowledge founded on European traditions of design and making, and one influenced by Indigenous ways of knowing that are rooted in this place.

Each row honours reciprocal knowledge-sharing, embedded in materiality and community – cultures of making and visiting. With that in mind, I have framed personal memories and family stories in works that combine metalsmithing techniques with materials gathered from local sites meaningful to me and my family.

The work itself combines metal working, large-scale cyanotype printing, and audio collage."

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MFA THESIS EXHIBITION

I am so delighted to share my MFA thesis exhibit, Fragments of an inner child, with y'all! Starting next week, Friday April 1st.

Fragments of an inner child is a healing journey of me as a survivor. Through the making of masks and paper dolls, I am reforming and reconnecting with my inner child and unlearning the uninvited sensory language my body learned over the years. This exhibit is shaped by auto-ethnographic praxis, arts-based research, and performative art. As I reform my inner child, I invite you all to create your paper dolls as an act of reflecting on your inner child.

Location:
EMS Lab 
205, Richmond St West, Toronto

Exhibition Dates:
April 1st to 4th

Timings:
11 AM - 7 PM
In case you need to get in, kindly DM me on IG

#fragmentsofaninnerchild #unlearninganuninvitedsensorylanguage #thisisthesis

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STILL LIFE WITH... ARRANGEMENTS OF VIBRANT THINGS

SOLID THINGS 

April 5 - May 1
The Window Gallery
588 Church St, Toronto
24/7 (street-facing)

ARRANGING THINGS

April 12 - 17
Remote Gallery
568 Richmond St W, Toronto
12 - 6 pm daily*

FLUID THINGS

April 20 - 21
Experimental Media Space (EMS) OCAD U**
205 Richmond St W, Toronto
Ground Floor
12 - 6 pm 

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MFA Thesis Exhibition: Melissa Johns

She:kon everyone. I'm that grad student with a laugh that can pop mosquitoes in mid-air. I've become a bit of a recluse over covid⁠—I'm best enjoyed in person. Speaking of, I've made a pretty cool virtual reality installation that I'd love to share with you. 

Here I Stand, Still Guarded explores Indigenous diaspora and cultural hybridity through experimental archival: come and wander this imaginary space with my generational ghosts.

The show runs from April 19-23 at the Black box in 49 McCaul. For safety and intimacy, this show will not have an opening. Please join me between 11am and 6pm with a mask and your curiosity. You can reserve a visiting slot at the link below: 

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/here-i-stand-still-guarded-thesis-exhibition-tickets-310841765087

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Masks of Folly: Portrait of tlte Idiot is an MFA thesis exhibit by Grace An that creates a portrait of the Idiot or, fool. The Idiot is an exception, one "who interrupts and blurs boundaries in the refusal of rationality. Using folly and profanation to ask
questions. The mask as a concealment of intellect, ironically unmasks. Drawing from the concepts of Mikhail Bakhtin, this exhibit functions in polyphonic utterances by way of the multitude. Multi-voicedness and the cyclical nature of the carnivalized folk, removes the concept of the individual. The site of the Idiot, the carnival, is a space where power structures are temporarily suspended. Offering the character of the Idiot as an unfinalizable being.
 

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When Tito Went on Vacation (re-imagining nostalgia)
Natasha Vasiljevic
MFA Candidate, Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design

The exhibit is open April 8 - 10, 12 - 4 pm: Reception Saturday, April 9, 1 - 3 pm.

Contemporary nostalgia sits at the intersection of imagination and memories. Not only is it a tool of redefining identities, but it is a powerful agent of social unification and cultural integration. In my thesis exhibition works I construct a visual interpretation of the concept and the experience of nostalgia through the abstract forms and movements of monument-like, large mobile sculptures made of coloured and mirrored acrylic. Through my imagined pen-pal conversations with the late Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito, my research and exhibition posit that memories of places, people, events, and sensibilities can be translated effectively into abstract objects that are at once evocative and representational.

The exhibit is at my studio at 9 Davies Avenue, #310 (Queen/Broadview). I will be there every day, so please come by and say Hi!

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Are we Home Yet? Imagining Persian Carpet as a Movable Home by Parnian Parvin 11- 14 April 2022 12-5pm The Black Box 49 McCaul St. or by appointment

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Inbetweening Beings uses the increments of animation to examine ecology in the Anthropocene. Experimenting with frame-by-frame filmmaking, installation, and the materiality of landscape, a variety of living systems are projected, asking where and how humans fit in. Referencing specific locations and relations, the installation connects human and non-human life with light and shadow, inviting reflection and implication. Focusing on urban and human-disturbed landscapes, Inbetweening Beings suggests a distinctly anthropogenic “nature” – jumbled, entangled, polluted, and resilient. 

OCAD U Great Hall, 100 McCaul St. 2nd floor
April 10,11,12,13,14,16, 2022
Sun 12-4 pm/ Mon-Thur 10 am - 6 pm/ Sat 12-6 pm
Reception Thursday 5-7 pm

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Sacred Bodies was part of a series of works that were created for my thesis at OCAD University, which I was not able to exhibit due to the unforeseen closure of the university at the beginning of the pandemic. I chose April 5th as the opening because it is the Qingming Festival where Chinese families honor their ancestors by cleaning their tombs and feeding their ancestors with a variety of foods and sweets while burning incense sticks and joss paper.

One would consider that our bodies are heirlooms from our ancestors and their spirit, memories, and experiences flow through your body. As an artist, I allow my body to be present from the moment of the preparation of the wax models of the arms to the creation of the ceramic shells to the application of the final patina on the bronze allowed my spirit and those of my ancestors to be embedded in the objects I created. There was a lot of sweat, pain and tears that went into this labor-intensive process. This close and intimate engagement with the making of bronze casts became a ritual. It becomes a ceremony. In each step, I was able to inscribe my memories of family, home and ancestors into the bronze casts. In the pouring of the bronze, the ceramic shell and the sand that supported the ceramic shell became the scaffolding for my memories.

April 5th-11th | Weekdays 11-7pm
At Clay Space | 1324 Gerrard Street East

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I am pleased to announce the launch of my website, Forced Migration: Ghosts of Familial Memory (www.ghostsoffamilialmemory.wordpress.com/), which contains my Archive of Haunting and a copy of my written thesis. My Archive of Haunting was amassed between 2020 and 2022 as part of my research into my family's participation in the United Kingdom’s child migrant scheme and is a culmination of my research for my thesis. Below is a copy of my abstract. Thank you for your interest in my project.

In my website Forced Migration: Ghosts of Familial Memory (www.ghostsoffamilialmemory.wordpress.com/), I create a haunted archive through performance and recorded conversations with my mother and grandfather. Our conversations focus on my ancestors’ forced migration to Canada as children in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. Beginning in 1618, the United Kingdom shipped as many as 150,000 children to the colonies (Bean and Melville 1); I create a haunted archive of sound recordings to tell stories of my ancestors’ migrations – Joseph Hart, Louisa Hart, and Eleanor Copeland – while tracing the impact of these stories through my own embodied and performative response. Performances are recorded using video and still photography, and my mother and grandfather’s stories are accentuated through collected sound. This haunted archive contends with the official adoption records of my ancestors’ migration by highlighting the storytelling voices of my mother and grandfather. My archive lives in a website which pairs performance documentation with audio recordings. I use queer and hauntological theory to reflect on my experience as a haunted archivist in the creation of a sound and performative archive.

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I would like to invite you to come see my thesis exhibition "Tiptoe of The Patchwork Pierrot" at 205 Richmond Grad Gallery room 118.

The exhibition will be open April 17th, 19th, and 20^th from 1:00pm - 6:00pm. I look forward to seeing you

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I would like to invite you to my master's thesis exhibition from April 26 - 29 

More than Knots and Cords 

at OCAD University's Graduate Gallery,  

205 Richmond St West, Ground Floor.
 

April 26 - 29, 2022 

Tuesday - Friday 12 pm - 6 pm 

Opening Reception Thursday 28, 5 pm -7 pm 

The gallery is open to the public via the elevator. Please contact me on 416-909-2281 if you need help getting into the building, as OCADU is still restricting access. Vaccination proof and masks are required.   

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I would like to invite all of you to my thesis exhibit “O E(X)U atrás da Máscara / The E(X)U behind the Mask”. I will be held in rooms 106 and 118, at 205 Richmond Street West. 

The show opens next Sunday, April 24th and ends on Saturday, April 30th.

Viewing dates and hours are as follows:

Sunday, 24 / 2 pm to 6 pm

Monday, 25 / 3 pm to 7 pm

Tuesday to Friday, 26-29 / 1 pm to 6 pm 

Saturday, 30 / 11 am to 5 pm

Please contact me for entry assistance at: joaquim.almeida@ocadu.ca / (647) 509-2711

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SGS Alumni: Leeay Aikawa @leeay
IAMD '21

ETERNAL BECOMING
April 21 - May 31
24/7

THE J-SPOT @the_j_spot_toronto
240 Queen East, Toronto
RECEPTION: May 3, 18:00h

ETERNAL BECOMING invites you to an eco-mythological situation or a lucid dream scene through which I attempt to encapsulate the uncanny bond I have had with the invasive Spongy Moth species for the last two years.

When unpleasantly hairy Spongy Moth caterpillars infest the local landscape, they also stir up my unconscious field. They appear everywhere and manifest as Lady Death Moth who guides me to confront my own identity as an immigrant settler, and as a member of the Earth community in the Anthropocene, teaching me about human activities that impact all aspects of ecological devastation and spiritual illness we collectively face today.

This shifting and paradoxical perception toward Spongy Moths, from objects of aversion to that of reverence, signifies my realization that everything has ‘‘two sides of one coin.’

I dreamt up the dualistic window spaces of The J-Spot, which separates east from the west as a highly suitable tool to invite viewers to the middle ground and suggest the tension of the opposites in a form of craft-mystical installation.

Birth and death, love and hate, good and evil, proliferation and decay, past and future, light and dark; these are spectrums of aspects that have allowed me to appreciate each divine moment while allowing me to understand who I am eternally becoming— constantly towards the opposite.

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Thesis Exhibition: Emily Culbert

 'Quilts, Snapdragons, and Spoons' 
April 19-21, 2022
3-6:00PM
205 Richmond Street West, room 418. 

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You’re invited to attend a MFA thesis exhibition by Steven Schmid titled: 

Mish-Mish: The Makeshift Party

OCAD U Graduate Studios
205 Richmond W, Room 418

Opening: April 29, 5-7 pm
Exhibition runs: April 30 - May 5, 1-5 pm

Please email the artist at steven.schmid@ocadu.ca or send an Instagram message if you would like to arrange a meeting outside of these hours.

See you then!

Steven Schmid
https://www.stevenhschmid.com
https://www.instagram.com/stevenhschmid/

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Fluid Things is an MFA thesis exhibition by interdisciplinary artist Stephen Severn, which considers how an orientation to objects as vibrant things is an orientation to flux and open futurity. The installation includes video projection of an urn captured using a 1970s Rutt/Etra video synthesizer — an analogue raster manipulation device for real-time video animation — and photographic manipulation using the raster graphic digital image editing software, Photoshop, to engage with the vibrant thing’s orientation to possibility and indeterminate variation.