June 5

12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
(5 hours)

Small Arms Inspection Building
1352 Lakeshore Road East
Mississauga ON
L5E 1E9

Description

In Person  |  Family Friendly

The Toronto Biennial of Art will celebrate the closing of the 2022 edition with a family- and youth- friendly BBQ for neighbours and those further afield. Enjoy great food and an array of participatory activities including Storytelling tours of the exhibition at the Small Arms Inspection Building, interactive walks focusing on the building’s history and the Indigenous history of its grounds, as well as pop-up stations with hands-on, intergenerational art-making workshops. This event also marks the official launch of A Treaty Guide for Torontonians—an activity-based publication by the Talking Treaties Collective examining the complex intercultural roots of treaty relationships in the place we now call Toronto.

Schedule
    • 9am–2pm – Lakeview Farmers’ Market
      Stationed in the outdoor parking lot of the Small Arms Inspection Building, Lakeview Farmers’ Market will feature local, sustainable, organic, and artisanal products, which provide an important source of income for local farmers, growers, producers, and artisans.
    • 11am–12pm – ASL Interpreted TBA Storytelling
      Accompanied by an American Sign Language English interpreter, Storyteller Nicole Markland will guide visitors through the exhibition at Small Arms, offering personal insights and perspectives on the artworks, and delving into the research and artist practises that form What Water Knows, The Land Remembers.
    • 11am–5pm – Your Tkaronto Companion Guide Activity Table
      Stop by our outdoor activity table where Storyteller Melly Davidson will introduce visitors to Your Tkaronto Companion Guide: a series of three guidebooks exploring place- and arts- based explorations of the complex and contested ways the city of Toronto was established. Created collaboratively with the Talking Treaties Collective and inspired by the activities in their newly published book, A Treaty Guide for Torontonians, the guides serve as an experiential learning resource as part of the Biennial’s Mobile Arts Curriculum toolkit.
    • 12–2pm – Free public BBQ
      Enjoy a free meal in the sunshine, including burgers and hot dogs with fresh toppings and assorted beverages. Vegetarian options will be available.
    • 12–4pm – VIBE Arts Family Workshops
      Join artist Jenny Chen for a drop-in art workshop. Participants are invited to create colourful abstract images on bristol board tiles in an activity that takes inspiration from the exhibition themes—such as land, displacement and migration.
    • 1pm, 2:30pm, and 4pm – Walking tour of the history of the Indigenous Peoples of this Land with Eagle Spirits of the Great Waters.
      Learn about the present-day and historical Indigenous presence in Mississauga and along the shores of Lake Ontario in this outdoor walking tour.
    • 1pm, and 3pm – Lakeview walking tour: Past and Future with Lakeview Ratepayer’s Association
      Discover the rich history of the Lakeview neighbourhood, including the Small Arms Inspection Building, which was once a munitions plant during the Second World War in this walking tour.
    • 1–2pm – A Treaty Guide for Torontonians Book Launch
      Celebrate the official book launch of A Treaty Guide for Torontonians with authors Ange Loft, Jill Carter, Martha Steigman, and Victoria Freeman of the Talking Treaties Collective, who will share the project’s background and how the publication came to be—plus, a dramatic reading of excerpts from the book featuring actor Jesse Wabegijig, followed by a live audience Q&A.
    • 4–5pm – TBA Storytelling with Nicole Markland

Co-presented in partnership with Oakville Galleries, the Biennial is offering a multi-site ARTbus Exhibition Tour which includes a stop at the Small Arms Inspection Building, where participants will be able to attend the closing BBQ and take part in the event programming. To learn more and register for the ARTbus Exhibition Tour, click here.

This event is co-presented in partnership with Art Metropole, Creative Hub 1352, Eagle Spirits of the Great Waters, Jumblies Theatre + Arts, Lakeview Ratepayer’s Association, and Small Arms Inspection Building, with the generous support of FRAM + Slokker, and the City of Mississauga. The book launch of A Treaty Guide for Torontonians is supported by Toronto Arts Council.

Image credit: Toronto Biennial of Art Closing BBQ, June 5, 2022. Event held at Small Arms Inspection Building as part of Toronto Biennial of Art 2022. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Bios

lwrds (pronounced ‘lords’; they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, independent researcher, and 2019 OCAD University graduate (BFA Integrated Media) living and creating in Tkaronto. Their ARTivist practice is informed by frameworks of Decolonial Critical Theory and is intersectional, anti-racist, anti-oppressive, sex-positive, trauma-informed, and grounded in disability justice. With a focus on Critical Design and decolonial research practices and pedagogies, they have been working as a freelance artist/designer for the past 10 years. Their studio practice conjures performance, sculptural, illustrative, poetic, and remediated mixed-media outcomes, emerging from a foundation of transgressive witchy knowledge and traversing the multiple realms of their idiosyncratic spirituality. lwrds’ work as an artist responds to their personal journey of healing sexual trauma at the intersections of gender variance, Blackness and Indigeneity (complicated by an imposed latinidad they reject due to its colonial underpinnings), and disability for reasons of neurodivergence and chronic illness. A born storyteller with a deep commitment to healing personal and collective traumas, their art-making approach is an intuitive process of learning with other non-human beings, valuing energetic exchanges with all that exists.

Melissa (Melly) Davidson (she/they) is a queer, Arab-Canadian interdisciplinary artist and arts educator. Melly’s pursuit of interdisciplinary arts includes street dance, spoken word, page poetry, and mixed media. She has been performing and competing in slams across Turtle Island since 2017, and was the co-champion of the 2019 FEMS Empowerments Slam. Melly’s primary focus has been developing poetry workshops and programs that prioritize play and exploration for local community members. Her work can be found in Arc Poetry Magazine and Pigeon Pages. Melly is part of a Lebanese diaspora which settled and found refuge in Jamaica. Originally from Mohkínstsis (Calgary, Alberta) she is now based out of Tkaronto (Toronto, Ontario). Melly is currently moved by the Fast & Furious franchise, keychains, and post-ironic playlists.

Nicole Markland (she/her) is a museum educator with a passion for art and history. She has been facilitating sharing and learning in museums and galleries for over seven years and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Museum Education at the University of British Columbia.

Nicole began working in museums in 2013, when as a volunteer, she had a transformative learning experience which made her rethink how people learn with and from each other. From that point on, many experiences have informed her practice as an educator, including working abroad as an ESL Teacher where knowledge and learning became less transmissive and more like an exchange between collaborators. For her, learning is a social and communal process, and she enjoys using art and objects to bring together unique and diverse groups of people with differing knowledge, lived experiences, cultures, and interests. She hopes to build experiences with participants that are fun and build memories which will guide, challenge, support, and follow a person throughout their lifetime.

The Talking Treaties Collective is a multidisciplinary group of Indigenous and settler artists/researchers whose projects artfully share Indigenous history and awareness of the place now called Toronto. Led by Kanien’kehá:ka interdisciplinary artist Ange Loft, associate artistic director of Jumblies Theatre, the Talking Treaties project has many branches and has engaged thousands of participants in generating symbols, poetry, improvised maps and performative explorations. Their creations include The Talking Treaties Spectacle, a site-specific mobile performance at Fort York in 2017 and 2018; the installation and three-part video By These Presents: “Purchasing” Toronto at the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art; and our illustrated book A Treaty Guide for Torontonians, for the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art.

Members of Talking Treaties Collective:

Ange Loft (Kahnawà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka, born in Kahnawake, Canada; lives and works in Toronto, Canada) is an interdisciplinary performing artist and initiator from Kahnawà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka Territory, working in. She is an ardent collaborator, consultant, and facilitator working in arts-based research, wearable sculpture, theatrical co-creation, and Haudenosaunee history. She is a vocalist with the music collective Yamantaka // Sonic Titan.

Jill Carter (Anishinaabe-Ashkenazi, born in Toronto, Canada) is a theatre practitioner, researcher, and educator at the University of Toronto. Based in Tkaron:to, where she was born and largely raised, she is an active member of the Talking Treaties Collective, serves as researcher and tour guide for First Story Toronto, and devises land activations, mapping interventions, and personal cosmography workshops.

Martha Stiegman (settler, lives and works in Toronto, Canada) is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. Her community-based research and collaborative video work examine Indigenous-settler treaty relations in their historical and contemporary manifestations, with particular attention to food sovereignty and justice as well as participatory and visual research methodologies.

Victoria Freeman (born in Ottawa, Canada) is an author, historian, theatre co-creator, and educator of British settler heritage. Her work focuses on Indigenous-settler relations and the Indigenous and colonial past of Toronto. She has collaborated on numerous community projects, including with First Story Toronto, L’Arche Toronto Sol Express, Toronto Council Fire, and Jumblies Theatre

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.

Artists:

Azadeh Pirazimian is an Iranian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, art instructor based in Toronto and a former lecturer from Iran. Through her practice, she actively investigates prevailing power structures, social norms and conventions while focusing on belonging, womanhood and everyday resistances. Her interests are a matter of representation, collaboration as practice, feminist politics and intersectionality. She aims to initiate methods within her art practice to create space for dialogue. Azadeh’s artistic approach combines different disciplines, including photography, video, performance art, painting and illustration, while her methodology is consistent. Over the years, her works have been showcased at several exhibitions in Iran, Canada and the Netherlands.

Akshata Naik is a contemporary visual artist, educator, researcher, and administrator based in Toronto, Canada. Born and raised in Mumbai, Akshata has lived in Vadodara and the UK. Her works reflect upon her lived experiences of moving homes, cities, and countries. Through a lens of immigration, war, displacement, home, and belonging. She works towards co-creating with her viewers an immersive experience and interactive art installations which consist of drawing, painting, ephemeral temporary sculptures, and art in virtual reality. Akshata has exhibited internationally in North America, Europe, and Asia, including solo and group exhibitions at galleries in the UK, Canada, and India.

Jenny Chen is a visual artist living in Toronto. She makes art to process information about the world around her while raising questions about existentialism and spirituality. Her work uses symbols to create mystical environments because she wants viewers to wonder about life beyond the material world. She graduated from OCAD University in 2016, with a major in Drawing and Painting and a minor in Illustration. Since then, she has mainly worked in watercolour, pen and clay. Her works have been showcased in various exhibitions in Toronto and Montreal.

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FRAM + Slokker

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