Calendar

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 exhibition 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 72 Perth Avenue. Toronto Biennial of Art, 2022. Photography: Kesang Nanglu.

In this panel discussion, 2024 Biennial artists Pamila Matharu and Winsom Winsom are joined by artist, activist, and academic d’bi.young anitafrika to discuss the histories and legacies of the visual arts section of Fresh Arts, an artist-led mentorship program which was pivotal to Toronto’s community arts ecology, with its impact felt during its implementation in 1992 and carrying through to the present day. Designed by Winsom, the Visual Art Program brought together an array of notable students, including Pamila (Winsom’s mentee) and d’bi.

Together, they will reflect on how the Fresh Arts program impacted their respective practices and how the legacies of mentorship continue to the present day.

Note:

• While there is a capacity limit for this program, tickets are not required. Please arrive early to reserve your seat.
• This program will take place in Winsom Winsom’s installation space.

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This Program is part of andbothwith_lively adjacencies + proximal intimacies a series of Public Programs taking place in and around Pamila Matharu’s installation tere naal | with you:

In the spirit of community-engaged place-making and liberatory practices that centre relational healing, artists and thinkers are invited to invoke, inspire and conjure solidarity-building through conversations, activations, and workshops. Pamila offers this series as an śaradhān̄jalī (homage) to her mentor, artist Winsom Winsom, honouring their on-going relationship with each other as artists and teachers.

Image credit: Six Chairs in a Circle, Toronto Biennial of Art, 2019. Photography: Yuula Benivolski.

With sky, sunlight, clouds, wind. With ground, grass, trees, songbirds. (We are held) is a series of site-specific open rehearsals by Tanya Lukin Linklater taking place over four afternoons in High Park leading up to and during the opening of the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art. Building upon her 2023 project presented with TBA, The sky held me and her sculptural work Held in the air I never fell, featured in the 2022 Biennial, the program extends recent research and conversations between Tanya and Anishnaabe and Cayuga knowledge holders around High Park’s Black Oak Savannah and thunderstorms’ physiologic and metaphoric meanings. With invited dance artists, Tanya leads a choreographic process in relation to plant life, weather, and other structures in our lived environment that sustain us. Through sensory investigations grounded in place (the prairie ecosystem of the Black Oak Savannah nestled within the Great Lakes watershed), the rehearsals generate structured improvisational dances, deepening our understanding of and connection to our environment and the weather.

Note: This program is drop-in between 1:00 and 4:00pm. Registration is not required. Visitors are welcome to attend these performance-based open rehearsals to observe the processes that Tanya and dancers work through while in High Park.

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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 generously supported by ĀNANDAM Dance Theatre.

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Interested in more programming in High Park?

On September 21 and 22, Tanya and the dancers will be joined by 2022 TBA Storyteller Melly Davidson, who will be leading visitors through embodied listening and learning activities based on Tanya’s new Mobile Arts Curriculum learning resource We are with. With sky, sunlight, clouds, wind. With ground, grass, trees, songbird, which explores High Park’s Black Oak Savannah and community stewardship practices.

For information about this Storytelling Session please visit the What’s On page or “Related Programming” below.

Image credit: Tanya Lukin Linklater, The sky held me (rainfall on hands hair lips), June 6 – 10, 2023. Program Held at High Park Nature Centre. Photography: Drew Berry.

Join artist, educator, and TBA 2022 Storyteller Melly Davidson for listening and learning activities in High Park.

Occurring simultaneously with Tanya Lukin Linklater’s open rehearsal program entitled With sky, sunlight, clouds, wind. With ground, grass, trees, songbirds. (We are held), this program introduces Tanya’s new TBA-commissioned Mobile Arts Curriculum (MAC) learning resource, which explores High Park’s Black Oak Savannah. Participants will be led through prompts and activities drawn from Tanya’s MAC tool, which focuses on close looking, sensory and embodied learning, and attunement with nature to learn about Indigenous knowledge systems and stewardship of the land.

Note:

• This program is drop-in between 1:00 and 4:00pm. Registration is not required.
• MAC Tools will be available on site.

—

Interested in more programming in High Park?

From Thursday, September 19 to Sunday, September 22 (1:00 to 4:00pm, daily), Tanya Lukin Linklater and dancers will be conducting a series of drop-in performance-based open rehearsals in and around the Coach House at Colborne Lodge in High Park. We welcome visitors to sit and watch these rehearsals, and observe the processes that Tanya and dancers work through while in High Park. For information about this multi-day Program, please visit the What’s On page or “Related Programming” below.

Image credit: Melly Davidson leading a Storytelling Session. Photo courtesy of TBA.

Presented as a part of Jumblies Theatre’s larger multi-year project “blue skies, red earth & tall pines,” the choral performance songs from the edges features a suite of new music from award winning singer & composer Suba Sankaran plus other selected works performed by the Gather Round Singers and guests (including Autorickshaw and the Community Arts Guild). songs from the edges explores stories about the various borders people cross throughout their lives: literal, metaphorical, linguistic, religious, racial, emotional, psychological, and cultural.

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.

Note: While there is a capacity limit for this program, tickets are not required. Please arrive early to reserve your seat.

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This program is presented in partnership with Jumblies Theatre + Arts and is co-conducted by Suba Sankaran, Natalie Fasheh, and Shifra Cooper.

Image credit: Gather Round Singers at Border Crossing Odyssey. Photography: María Vega.

Storyteller and multi-instrumentalist Olivia Shortt and transmedia artist and UofT professor of black studies and the archive SA Smythe are invited to collaborate with 2024 TBA exhibition artist Maria Hupfield in relation to her commission The Supernatural Powers of Fabulous Panther (Biimskojiwan). Working alongside one another, each performer breathes life into Maria’s work, expanding the breadth of her ongoing research into silver jingle bells and tin jingles. Through experimental sound and contemporary movement, a demonstration of storytelling will unfold.

Note:

• This program will take place in Maria Hupfield’s exhibition room, located in 32 Lisgar St.
• While there is a capacity limit for this program, tickets are not required. Please arrive early to reserve your spot.

—

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 made possible by the Women Leading Initiative.

Image credit: Progress of The Supernatural Powers of Fabulous Panther (Biimskojiwan). Courtesy of Maria Hupfield.

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.

Touching the Whisper has the Sweetest Color is a performative activation of Cristina Flores Pescorán’s textile installation Acariciar el corazón del hueso [Caressing the Heart of the Bone], commissioned and produced for the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art.

During the activation, the artist will rhythmically move threads of her installation in response to stories, poems, and feelings, and while doing so, consider questions such as: what magical portals are open when we whisper to the needles? and how does dancing with our grandmothers reveal to us new recipes of resistance? In this process, the loom comes to life and curative possibilities are offered through conversations conveyed by the twists, knots, tensions, and extensions that Cristina will enact upon her work in what she calls a “body-fabric-writing action.” The vibrating threads bring answers that heal the soul.

Note: While there is a capacity limit for this program, tickets are not required. Please arrive early to reserve your spot.

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.

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This program is made possible by the generous support of the Consulado General del Perú en Toronto and the Women’s Leading Initiative.

Image credit: Cristina Flores Pescorán at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Netherlands, 2023. Photography: Ruben Grande.

With sky, sunlight, clouds, wind. With ground, grass, trees, songbirds. (We are held) is a series of site-specific open rehearsals by Tanya Lukin Linklater taking place over four afternoons in High Park leading up to and during the opening of the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art. Building upon her 2023 project presented with TBA, The sky held me and her sculptural work Held in the air I never fell, featured in the 2022 Biennial, the program extends recent research and conversations between Tanya and Anishnaabe and Cayuga knowledge holders around High Park’s Black Oak Savannah and thunderstorms’ physiologic and metaphoric meanings. With invited dance artists, Tanya leads a choreographic process in relation to plant life, weather, and other structures in our lived environment that sustain us. Through sensory investigations grounded in place (the prairie ecosystem of the Black Oak Savannah nestled within the Great Lakes watershed), the rehearsals generate structured improvisational dances, deepening our understanding of and connection to our environment and the weather.

Note: This program is drop-in between 1:00 and 4:00pm. Registration is not required. Visitors are welcome to attend these performance-based open rehearsals to observe the processes that Tanya and dancers work through while in High Park.

–

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 generously supported by ĀNANDAM Dance Theatre.

–

Interested in more programming in High Park?

On September 21 and 22, Tanya and the dancers will be joined by 2022 TBA Storyteller Melly Davidson, who will be leading visitors through embodied listening and learning activities based on Tanya’s new Mobile Arts Curriculum learning resource We are with. With sky, sunlight, clouds, wind. With ground, grass, trees, songbird, which explores High Park’s Black Oak Savannah and community stewardship practices.

For information about this Storytelling Session please visit the What’s On page or “Related Programming” below.

Image credit: Tanya Lukin Linklater, The sky held me (rainfall on hands hair lips), June 6 – 10, 2023. Program Held at High Park Nature Centre. Photography: Drew Berry.

Join artist, educator, and TBA 2022 Storyteller Melly Davidson for listening and learning activities in High Park.

Occurring simultaneously with Tanya Lukin Linklater’s open rehearsal program entitled With sky, sunlight, clouds, wind. With ground, grass, trees, songbirds. (We are held), this program introduces Tanya’s new TBA-commissioned Mobile Arts Curriculum (MAC) learning resource, which explores High Park’s Black Oak Savannah. Participants will be led through prompts and activities drawn from Tanya’s MAC tool, which focuses on close looking, sensory and embodied learning, and attunement with nature to learn about Indigenous knowledge systems and stewardship of the land.

Note:

• This program is drop-in between 1:00 and 4:00pm. Registration is not required.
• MAC Tools will be available on site.

—

Interested in more programming in High Park?

From Thursday, September 19 to Sunday, September 22 (1:00 to 4:00pm, daily), Tanya Lukin Linklater and dancers will be conducting a series of drop-in performance-based open rehearsals in and around the Coach House at Colborne Lodge in High Park. We welcome visitors to sit and watch these rehearsals, and observe the processes that Tanya and dancers work through while in High Park. For information about this multi-day Program, please visit the What’s On page or “Related Programming” below.

Image credit: Melly Davidson leading a Storytelling Session. Photo courtesy of TBA.

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 us as we launch the 2024 Biennial catalogue, Precarious Joys, co-published by the Toronto Biennial of Art, Art Metropole, and Goose Lane Editions. Edited by the Biennial’s 2024 curators, Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López, this landmark publication includes conversations between artists, curators, and community members, as well as reproductions of work by featured artists. Together, the texts and images offer readers insights into how artistic practices can amplify political consciousness and reassert the power of aesthetics in shaping collective existence.

In conversation with artists and special guests, Dominique and Miguel will delve into the catalogue’s focus on dialogue and the impact of active listening on development of TBA’s third edition.

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

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This program is presented in partnership with Art Metropole and Goose Lane Editions.

Image credit: The Cover image for the Toronto Biennial of Art publication Precarious Joys, 2024. Designed by Otami Studios.

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 experimental choral workshop by artist Annie Wong, participants will be led through a series of contemplative and somatic exercises inspired by Audre Lorde’s essay, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power.

“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.” — Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power

The erotic, as defined by Audre Lorde, is a chaotic desire fundamental to life. While situated in the self, it is also the spontaneous joy and spiritual exchange within the binds of friends and communities. Using methods from her choral-based projects, Annie will pay homage to friendships fostered through feminist practices. This workshop honours the power of the erotic as imagined in Lorde’s essay through exercises that attempt to move from a sense of self towards the collective chaos and spiritual power of the erotic.

This workshop is open to participants who identify as BIPOC or allies upon invitation from BIPOC attendees. 

Note:

• Due to the level of instruction and content given in this workshop, participation is recommended for attendees ages 16 and over.
• Participants may be expected to sit on the floor or move between spaces according to their ability. Chairs will also be provided as needed.
• No previous experience with singing or being part of a choir is required.
• This program has a limited capacity. Register via Eventbrite.

—

This Program is part of andbothwith_lively adjacencies + proximal intimacies a series of Public Programs taking place in and around Pamila Matharu’s installation tere naal | with you:

In the spirit of community-engaged place-making and liberatory practices that centre relational healing, artists and thinkers are invited to invoke, inspire and conjure solidarity-building through conversations, activations, and workshops. Pamila offers this series as an śaradhān̄jalī (homage) to her mentor, artist Winsom Winsom, honouring their on-going relationship with each other as artists and teachers.

Image credit: A Choir of Demands and Desires of Repeat, Ada X with Suzanne Fernando, Rea Sweets, Ahreum Lee, Feliz Tupe, Yarijey Noomsson, Nadia Hammouda and Soukayna. Courtesy of Ada X (2019).

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.