TBA Programs are a key component of the Biennial’s activities, offering accessible public and learning programs that engage artists, partners, collaborators, and intergenerational visitors year-round, with a particularly generative period during each Biennial. Artist-led, participatory programs inform and are informed by each Biennial edition’s curatorial direction.
For TBA’s 2024 edition, titled Precarious Joys, we are adopting the methodologies put forward by the exhibition curators, Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López, to centre dialogues and active listening in the development of our programs. Inspired by conversations with artists over the past year, Programs Curator Jenn Goodwin has worked with artists to create performances and workshops that centre the body as a container of time and attention. In parallel, Mary Kim, TBA’s Senior Manager of Learning & Mediation, collaborates with artists and educators to create meaningful learning tools and activations of the exhibition, continuing TBA’s commitment to decolonial practices and land-based, embodied learning grounded in the Toronto region’s complex contexts.
From a Cantonese operatic experience to love song karaoke, from flatbread-tasting to poetic Storytelling sessions, this year’s public and learning programs take many forms – community gatherings, performances, talks and conversations, walks, workshops, and more. We invite you to further explore our public programming and learning streams:
Public Programs is a platform for artist-led programming with a two-pronged approach, responding to the artists and the 2024 curatorial vision, while also creating a platform to address the diverse needs and local contexts that emerge from the communities with which the Biennial collaborates.
The Mobile Arts Curriculum (MAC) is a collection of learning resources developed by artists and centring decolonial practices through the arts. Each learning tool supports and expands learning curricula, building upon the curatorial ideas explored in each Biennial edition.
TBA’s Storytelling Program offers visitors of all ages new ways of engaging with the artworks presented in the Biennial by offering artist-led participatory sessions in the exhibition spaces. Local multidisciplinary artists have been commissioned as Storytellers and will offer both booked and drop-in tours to intergenerational audiences through the duration of the Biennial.
This year, School Programs will be led by R.I.S.E. (Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere) Edutainment Storytellers who will engage with students and educators through artist-led, narrative and embodied sessions and workshops. R.I.S.E Storytellers are practising artists in the areas of spoken word/poetry and movement, and they lead learners in response to the artworks presented in the Biennial.
The Programs Fellowship is a platform for reciprocal mentorship supported by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment. The Programs Fellow engages, teaches, and learns with artists, Biennial staff, and fellow culture workers, and connects with local, national and international audiences.
TBA’s Onsite Library at 32 Lisgar St offers a collection of textual and visual resources as an extension and expansion of the research behind the Biennial exhibition and programs. The Library offers deeper dialogue through an array of books by or about exhibition and programs artists, poetry, zines, non-fiction and critical texts, exhibition catalogues, and children’s books.
TBA grows its library of content and concepts with online and printed Publications connected to its exhibitions and programs.
The TBA Podcast series is a collection of curator-led conversations with 2019 and 2022 exhibition artists that approaches reflection, listening, and learning with an engaging and experiential lens.