VISUAL ARTS
Homage to the Heart and Scouring City, Brushing Sky
Saturday April 24 - Thursday April 29, Free
Opening Reception: Saturday April 24, 2 pm
Q&A: Saturday April 24, 3 pm
Beaver Hall Artists Gallery, 29 McCaul Street
Brenda Joy Lem’s grandfather opened the first hand laundry in Oshawa around 100 years ago. This physically grueling, relentless work during the time of the depression and the years of the Chinese Exclusion Act made family life at the Ontario Laundry far from ideal. Meditating on themes of memory, class, family history and the enduring heart, Homage to the Heart was developed from oral histories, told to her by her father and her aunt. Four prints, focusing on the lives of the women in the family, were selected for this exhibition.
Scouring City, Brushing Sky is a community arts project of Red Tree and c3 collective with community partner Working Women Community Centre and union partner Service Employees International Union. The project expresses the important social contribution, hopes and dreams of women who work as cleaners in Toronto, part of the invisible workforce. Project participants including Liliana Chavez, Jamesha Durrant, Alba Mondragon, Patricia Quiroga, Maria Teves, Beatriz Salazar, Noemi Valle, along with former participants Griseldina Camilo, Luz Vazquez and Sandra Gonzales came as immigrants and refugees in search of safety and a new life for themselves and their families. Many women who work in cleaning are non-unionized, racialised and low-income, and often cannot negotiate good working conditions or living wages.
Red Tree and c3 collective would like to thank the Canada Council Inter-Arts Office and Ontario Arts Council’s Community Arts Office Artists in the Community/Workplace Program for their support of Scouring City, Brushing Sky project. Co-presented with Beaver Hall Artists Gallery.
Many Years Later and WARCHESTRA
Saturday April 24 - Saturday May 22, Free
Opening Reception: Saturday April 24, 4 pm
Artist Talks: Saturday April 24, 5 pm
Toronto Free Gallery, 1277 Bloor Street West
Many Years Later is a visual project composed of two intertwined events captured by photographer Marcos Arriaga. The first project is a series of black and white photographs taken between 1986 and 1987 in Lima, Peru where Arriaga worked as a photojournalist for the weekly magazine Amauta. These documentary-style photographs present a social and political record of protests by union workers and popular organizations. The second part of the exhibit is a video installation chronicling the Days of Action by union and community members in Ontario against the conservative government of Mike Harris from 1995 to 1996. While recently reviewing this video footage, Arriaga observed a compelling thematic continuation to the images that he captured in Lima more than two decades ago.
WARCHESTRA is a multimedia series about war and culture, of visual and sonic components. Initiated as a painting series aimed to combat the stereotypical image of Arabs in the western media, the project has evolved into an act of empowerment through culture, highlighting the cultural heritage of the Arab peoples. Sundus Abdul Hadi’s position as a cultural producer of Iraqi origin has informed the work’s desire to highlight culture amongst the backdrop of war. Pianist Stefan Christoff (Montreal), trumpeter Jason “Blackbird” Selman of Kalmunity Vibe Collective (Montreal), lyricist The Narcicyst (Montreal), poet Suheir Hammad (Palestine-USA) and spoken word artist Ahmed Habib (Toronto) are amongst a hand full of artists that provide a soundscape to Abdul Hadi’s collaged paintings.
Sundus Abdul Hadi would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres, Québec for its support of the WARCHESTRA series. Marcos Arriaga would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council for its support of Many Years Later. Co-presented with Toronto Free Gallery.
Voices From the Crisis
Saturday April 24 – Sunday May 16
Opening Reception: Sunday April 25, 2-4 pm
The Raging Spoon, 761 Queen Street West
The work of artists is one of the ways we as workers share our history, our struggles and our victories. Since the beginning of time art and culture have sustained our sense of dignity, equity and respect. They have given us another way to dream something better and they fostered a spirit of understanding and resistance. Ultimately the arts help define a working class culture to showcase our lives and our concerns as workers, community members and union members. Voices From the Crisis showcases the work of a diverse set of workers form the Canadian Auto Workers, as they struggle with the crisis in manufacturing and the economy.
Co-organized and co-presented by the Canadian Auto Workers.
Bookends: We Move the City
Saturday April 24 - Saturday May 8, Free
Bookends is an annual Mayworks exhibit that displays visual art in the storefront windows of two independent bookstores, Another Story Bookshop and Toronto Women’s Bookstore. The curatorial theme, We Move the City, summons work that responds to the Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) recent 25¢ fare increase. Effectively requiring TTC riders to pay $3 per ticket is challenging for many TTC riders to bear the expense of using public transportation, particularly poor and working people. The works exhibited for Bookends speak to the importance of public transit for communities, workers, families and the city’s countless residents who rely on it to meet their everyday needs and its role in helping combat the isolation and alienation common to a big city such as Toronto.
The Flying Streetcar: A Symbol of the Campaign for Employer-Subsidized Metropasses
Ann Clifford with UNITE/HERE Local 75 and Amalgamated Transit Union Local
113 Another Story Bookshop Window, 315 Roncesvalles Avenue
As commutes to and from work grow longer and more expensive, Ann Clifford along with members of UNITE/HERE Local 75 and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 believe that employees and their families should not have to pay the price. In a joint effort to fight for employer subsidized VIP (Volume Incentive Plan) Metropasses, these Locals have already convinced 14 Toronto-area hotels to make safe and green transportation more affordable for their workers. The symbol of their campaign, The Flying Streetcar, aims to encourage employers throughout the city to continue to support the struggle for affordable, accessible and green public transit.
Co-presented with Another Story Bookshop.
Picture Dis: A Look Through the Eyes of the Young Women of Lawrence Heights
Alicia Alexander, Farhia Hirad, Ladan Omar and Hanan Osman
Toronto Women’s Bookstore Window, 73 Harbord Street
Lawrence Heights, like many of Toronto’s low-income neighborhoods, is notoriously difficult to navigate. Therefore the issue of movement was an obvious topic of reflection for Alicia Alexander, Farhia Hirad, Ladan Omar and Hanan Osman who live, work, and play in the neighborhood. Facilitated by Debra Friedman and Ashley McFarlane, the four young women of Caribbean and African descent showcase a collection of photographs under the title Picture Dis. The display ultimately provides a welcome alternative to popular media’s image of a “priority neighborhood” as viewers get a visual glimpse into the personal and everyday experiences of residents who have a strong sense of community brimming with vibrant youth.
Co-presented with Toronto Women’s Bookstore.
