Tools for Learning

At our third Biennial, local multidisciplinary artists have been commissioned as Storytellers to develop participatory sessions informed by their personal insights and experiences of the city and will lead visitors through the exhibition artists’ installations, research, and perspectives. They will offer both booked and drop-in walks and conversations to intergenerational audiences regularly throughout the duration of the Biennial.

Contact us at learning@torontobiennial.org to book a free group Storytelling tour for your school, organization, or community space.

Image Caption: Storytelling at 32 Lisgar St and Park as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Note: Please be advised that this program takes place at The Bentway Studio, located at 55 Fort York Blvd, Toronto, beside Canoe Landing Park.

As disabled people, our bodies hold infinite knowledge about our experiences. However, all too often, disabled people are encouraged to disconnect from and/or ignore the knowledge that our bodies share with us through our experiences with pain, fatigue and limitations.

In this workshop facilitated by artist Shay Erlich, participants are invited to reach through the ableist forces that seek to separate disabled people from their embodied experiences and to rediscover their bodies and internal experiences as sites of wisdom and information to be honoured and respected.

Participants are offered the time and space to reflect on the ways that they have experienced this pressure to disconnect from their bodies. Then, drawing from active mindfulness practices, participants will be guided as a group to experience the wisdom of our bodies and will have the opportunity to reflect on and develop strategies for how they can make more space to be present and embody experiences in their day-to-day lives.

Accessibility accommodations are available for this program. If you have questions about attending a program, would like assistance securing tickets, or have accessibility requests, please email programs@torontobiennial.org.

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This program is part of Keeping Time, a workshop series that centres embodied learning by inviting intergenerational audiences of all abilities to pay special attention to time, space and movement through somatic learning and unlearning.

This program is presented in partnership with The Bentway.

At our third Biennial, local multidisciplinary artists have been commissioned as Storytellers to develop participatory sessions informed by their personal insights and experiences of the city and will lead visitors through the exhibition artists’ installations, research, and perspectives. They will offer both booked and drop-in walks and conversations to intergenerational audiences regularly throughout the duration of the Biennial.

Contact us at learning@torontobiennial.org to book a free group Storytelling tour for your school, organization, or community space.

Image Caption: Nicole Markland leading a Storytelling Session at Small Arms Inspection Building for the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

At our third Biennial, local multidisciplinary artists have been commissioned as Storytellers to develop participatory sessions informed by their personal insights and experiences of the city and will lead visitors through the exhibition artists’ installations, research, and perspectives. They will offer both booked and drop-in walks and conversations to intergenerational audiences regularly throughout the duration of the Biennial.

Contact us at learning@torontobiennial.org to book a free group Storytelling tour for your school, organization, or community space.

Image Caption: Nicole Markland leading a Storytelling Session at Small Arms Inspection Building for the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

VIBE Arts returns for the 2024 Biennial season for fun, creative and interactive programming for intergenerational learners, families and caregivers in response to the exhibitions artists and artworks at TBA’s 32 Lisgar Street location. VIBE artists will deliver free, drop-in, public art-making programs to visitors throughout our VIBE Family Days. All programs will be led by an Arts Educator to facilitate a platform to engage in creativity and express shared lived experiences.

VIBE will be present at our opening day festivities on September 21 at Lisgar Park (32 Lisgar Street), and every other Sunday at the same location (weather permitting) ongoing to November 3rd. In inclement weather, Family Days will occur indoors at 32 Lisgar Street. To view these additional Programs, please visit the What’s On page or “Related Programming” below.

This program is drop-in between 11:00am and 4:00pm.

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This program is presented in partnership with VIBE Arts.

VIBE Arts is a charity providing arts education and professional artistic mentorship to the next generation of creatives. Established in 1995, VIBE seeks to increase access and equity to the arts to encourage wellness, resilience and a sense of belonging.

Image credit: VIBE Arts Family Days at 32 Lisgar St and Park as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Join Storytellers Jingshu and Siki every Sunday at 32 Lisgar St for a drop-in writing circle that will spark your creativity!

Schedule:

• 12:30pm: Meet inside Pamila Matharu’s installation, tere naal _ with you (2024), where Jingshu and Siki will start their tour of the exhibition, highlighting a selection of artworks and artists to inspire the following writing session.
• 1:30-2:30pm: Following the tour, Jingshu and Siki will facilitate a drop-in writing session. After some quiet time for writing, participants will be encouraged to share in a casual discussion, depending on their comfort level.

Everyone is welcome and no prior creative writing experience is required. This program does not require registration and those interested are free to drop in at any time. Writing materials will be provided.

Image credit: Storytelling in Pamila Matharu’s installation tere naal _ with you (2024) at 32 Lisgar St, 2024. Photography: Jingshu Yao.

To sign up for the October 17 performance of MOSSBELLY, presented as part of the Music Gallery’s 2024 Series X Avant XIX: TeXture, please reserve through Showclix. For the October 20 and 22 performances, please visit Eventbrite or see the “REGISTER HERE” button.

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An intergenerational performance and choreographic meditation on our human connection to land, plant life, nature and time, MOSSBELLY combines the movement of the body with methods of encountering plant-life. Emerging from her long-term and deep engagements with moss, artist Angela Vitovec asks, “What does moss look like when it dances?

Through the lens and in the spirit of the moss plant, dancers move, connect and support each other just as moss supports the ecosystems of a forest. This is a choreography of horizontal harmony with no centre, just rhythms that embrace us and develop a new and entirely sensual poetry of bodies and their presence. MOSSBELLY is a slow, studied, and soothing performance that, like moss, inhabits time and space like a forest and quietly integrates itself into the cracks of daily urban concrete spaces.

Note: This program has limited capacity. Check back here for a registration link.

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This program is a part of Your Timing is Perfect: Moments and Movements of Inquiry, a performance series in which artists investigate the body as a living archive, exploring its extraordinary strength and resilience, as well as its tenderness, vulnerability, and limitations.

This program is co-presented with The Music Gallery and Dancemakers. The program is made possible with generous support from the Lindy Green Family Foundation.

Image credit: MOSSBELLY by Angela Vitovec. Photography: Dorothea Tuch.

To sign up for the October 17 performance of MOSSBELLY, presented as part of the Music Gallery’s 2024 Series X Avant XIX: TeXture, please reserve through Showclix. For the October 20 and 22 performances, please visit Eventbrite or see the “REGISTER HERE” button.

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An intergenerational performance and choreographic meditation on our human connection to land, plant life, nature and time, MOSSBELLY combines the movement of the body with methods of encountering plant-life. Emerging from her long-term and deep engagements with moss, artist Angela Vitovec asks, “What does moss look like when it dances?

Through the lens and in the spirit of the moss plant, dancers move, connect and support each other just as moss supports the ecosystems of a forest. This is a choreography of horizontal harmony with no centre, just rhythms that embrace us and develop a new and entirely sensual poetry of bodies and their presence. MOSSBELLY is a slow, studied, and soothing performance that, like moss, inhabits time and space like a forest and quietly integrates itself into the cracks of daily urban concrete spaces.

Note: This program has limited capacity. Check back here for a registration link.

–

This program is a part of Your Timing is Perfect: Moments and Movements of Inquiry, a performance series in which artists investigate the body as a living archive, exploring its extraordinary strength and resilience, as well as its tenderness, vulnerability, and limitations.

This program is co-presented with The Music Gallery and Dancemakers. The program is made possible with generous support from the Lindy Green Family Foundation.

Image credit: MOSSBELLY by Angela Vitovec. Photography: Dorothea Tuch.

This program takes place in the Hart House Debates Room, located on the main floor of the building, near the building’s west entrance (located on Tower Road).

Accompanying artist Maria Hupfield’s installation for TBA 2024, The Supernatural Powers of Fabulous Panther (Biimskojiwan), this panel discussion creates space to gather and reflect on her work and practice with special guests curator and educator Professor Mikinaak Migwans (Anishinaabe; Wiikwemikoong Unceded Territory), second wave jingle dress dancer and writer Professor Karen Pheasant Neganigwane (Anishinaabekwe; Wiikwemikoong Unceded Territory), and director and curator of moving image at Walker Arts Center Pablo de Ocampo.

Together, they will move through conversation about their shared and respective practices and proximities to culture, art, and the jingle with a public audience. They will also explore pertinent relationalities to Maria’s work around sounding the body, and the collective voice and resonance of spirals when gathering and arranged in various configurations.

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This program is presented in partnership with Hart House and the Indigenous Creation Studio, UTM.

Image credit: The Supernatural Powers of Fabulous Panther (Biimskojiwan), Maria Hupfield, 2024. Toronto Biennial of Art 2024. Photography: Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy of the artist and the Toronto Biennial of Art.

At our third Biennial, local multidisciplinary artists have been commissioned as Storytellers to develop participatory sessions informed by their personal insights and experiences of the city and will lead visitors through the exhibition artists’ installations, research, and perspectives. They will offer both booked and drop-in walks and conversations to intergenerational audiences regularly throughout the duration of the Biennial.

Contact us at learning@torontobiennial.org to book a free group Storytelling tour for your school, organization, or community space.

Image Caption: Storytelling at 32 Lisgar St and Park as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

The Curatorial Encounters program series invites all members of the arts community and the general public to meet and converse with our 2024 exhibition curators, Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López.

For the first three Curatorial Encounters, Dominique and Miguel – in dialogue with artists, collaborators, and other TBA staff – hosted iterative conversations focused on the curatorial process and building of the 2024 Biennial.

For this final edition of Curatorial Encounters, we celebrate the opening of the Biennial with the second of two public tours by TBA curators highlighting the impact that the Biennial artists have on Toronto, spanning from The Auto BLDG at 158 Sterling Ave in the West to the Toronto Sculpture Garden in the East.

West End Tour Schedule:

• 5pm: Tour at Gallery TPW, featuring the works of Abraham O. Oghobase, Manuel Mathieu, Nicholas Galanin
• 6-6:30pm: Walking to The Auto BLDG at 158 Sterling Ave
• 6:30-7:30pm: Tour of The Auto BLDG at 158 Sterling Ave, featuring the works of Angelica Serech, Cristina Flores Pescorán, Elina Waage Mikalsen, Gaëlle Choisne, Hangama Amiri, Rudy Loewe, Sameer Farooq, Santiago Yahuarcani, Sandra Brewster, Stina Baudin

Note: Registration is not required to attend, but is strongly recommended and will allow registrants to receive important updates about the Program. Register via Eventbrite.

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For information about Precarious Joys: The East End Tour, taking place on Saturday, October 4, please visit the What’s On page or “Related Programming” below.

This program is co-presented with Gallery TPW.

Image credit: A Walk Across Space and Time, Toronto Biennial of Art, 2019. Photography: Yuula Benivolski.

At our third Biennial, local multidisciplinary artists have been commissioned as Storytellers to develop participatory sessions informed by their personal insights and experiences of the city and will lead visitors through the exhibition artists’ installations, research, and perspectives. They will offer both booked and drop-in walks and conversations to intergenerational audiences regularly throughout the duration of the Biennial.

Contact us at learning@torontobiennial.org to book a free group Storytelling tour for your school, organization, or community space.

Image Caption: Nicole Markland leading a Storytelling Session at Small Arms Inspection Building for the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

In this two-day program, 2024 Biennial artist Karen Tam and Toronto-based photographer May Truong invite members of Chinese-Canadian communities in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area to participate in a family photoshoot within Karen’s immersive installation Scent of Thunderbolts. Evoking the historic San Francisco photo studio, May’s Studio, that photographed Cantonese opera performers throughout the early-mid 1900s, this project invites participants to contribute to a community-built archive and define what family and home means to them through the act of having their photograph taken.

We invite participants to consider the meaning of “family” broadly, transcending beyond only immediate, blood relatives to also include intergenerational extended families, chosen kin, and those you share home and time with.

Each participant will be sent a digital copy of their portrait and, with their permission, a copy will be deposited within an archive specializing in Chinese Canadian history (details forthcoming).

Sessions will be available in fifteen-minute intervals and will be booked on a first-come first-serve basis. Sign up below via Google Form.

• All sessions for October 26 and 27 are currently booked.

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Note: As a part of Karen’s larger artistic practice and research, this Program is reserved for Chinese-Canadians within the GTA. Learn more about Karen’s work Scent of Thunderbolts.

Image credit: Installation view of the chrysanthemum has opened twelve times by Karen Tam, Koffler Centre of the Arts, Toronto, 2020. Photography: Toni Hafkenschied.

Experience the vivid history and enduring contemporary presence of Cantonese Opera in this workshop led by Alice Chan, Director of Starlight Chinese Performing Arts Centre. With accompanying Starlight students, Alice will lead participants through a brief introduction to Cantonese opera, followed by a series of movement exercises using theatre props and costumes from Starlight’s extensive and culturally rich collections. Attendees will then witness a brief demo of a performance by Starlight students, showcasing the traditions and versatility of Cantonese opera as a mode of storytelling and an active art form practiced in Chinese communities across Canada.

Note: This Program has a limited capacity. Register via Eventbrite.

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This program is made possible through the generous support of the Power Corporation of Canada and Eleanor & Francis Shen.

Image credit: Starlight Chinese Opera performing. Photo courtesy of Starlight Chinese Opera Performing Arts Centre.

At our third Biennial, local multidisciplinary artists have been commissioned as Storytellers to develop participatory sessions informed by their personal insights and experiences of the city and will lead visitors through the exhibition artists’ installations, research, and perspectives. They will offer both booked and drop-in walks and conversations to intergenerational audiences regularly throughout the duration of the Biennial.

Contact us at learning@torontobiennial.org to book a free group Storytelling tour for your school, organization, or community space.

Image Caption: Nicole Markland leading a Storytelling Session at Small Arms Inspection Building for the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Join Storytellers Jingshu and Siki every Sunday at 32 Lisgar St for a drop-in writing circle that will spark your creativity!

Schedule:

• 12:30pm: Meet inside Pamila Matharu’s installation, tere naal _ with you (2024), where Jingshu and Siki will start their tour of the exhibition, highlighting a selection of artworks and artists to inspire the following writing session.
• 1:30-2:30pm: Following the tour, Jingshu and Siki will facilitate a drop-in writing session. After some quiet time for writing, participants will be encouraged to share in a casual discussion, depending on their comfort level.

Everyone is welcome and no prior creative writing experience is required. This program does not require registration and those interested are free to drop in at any time. Writing materials will be provided.

Image credit: Storytelling in Pamila Matharu’s installation tere naal _ with you (2024) at 32 Lisgar St, 2024. Photography: Jingshu Yao.

In this two-day program, 2024 Biennial artist Karen Tam and Toronto-based photographer May Truong invite members of Chinese-Canadian communities in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area to participate in a family photoshoot within Karen’s immersive installation Scent of Thunderbolts. Evoking the historic San Francisco photo studio, May’s Studio, that photographed Cantonese opera performers throughout the early-mid 1900s, this project invites participants to contribute to a community-built archive and define what family and home means to them through the act of having their photograph taken.

We invite participants to consider the meaning of “family” broadly, transcending beyond only immediate, blood relatives to also include intergenerational extended families, chosen kin, and those you share home and time with.

Each participant will be sent a digital copy of their portrait and, with their permission, a copy will be deposited within an archive specializing in Chinese Canadian history (details forthcoming).

Sessions will be available in fifteen-minute intervals and will be booked on a first-come first-serve basis. Sign up below via Google Form.

• All sessions for October 26 and 27 are currently booked.

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Note: As a part of Karen’s larger artistic practice and research, this Program is reserved for Chinese-Canadians within the GTA. Learn more about Karen’s work Scent of Thunderbolts.

Image credit: Installation view of the chrysanthemum has opened twelve times by Karen Tam, Koffler Centre of the Arts, Toronto, 2020. Photography: Toni Hafkenschied.