Back by popular demand, this free event encourages seniors (age 55+) to spend the afternoon curating their own program. We will offer refreshments, tours and drop in art making sessions.
Guided tours of the RMG current exhibitions at 1pm and 2pm.
Drop in art making workshops.
Details to come.
Tea and Coffee in our onsite Arthurs Restaurant 1-3pm.
This event is supported by Sienna for Seniors Foundation.
Join us in celebrating the opening of Georgia Fullerton: Being In and Moving Through! The artist and curator will be in attendance.
Refreshments provided.
Read more about the exhibition here. This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Sonya at [email protected].
Join us for a free expressive arts therapy-based workshop that invites deep reflection and creative exploration in response to the work of artist Georgia Fullerton. Through guided movement, intuitive artmaking, and reflective writing, participants will journey through themes of emotional memory, ancestral connection, and personal transformation. No art experience is necessary—just a willingness to trust the process. Come as you are and leave with a renewed sense of self-awareness and creative insight.
FREE
Registration required
Join Curator of Collections, Sonya Jones, to learn about the life and art of artist Hortense Gordon. Hortense Gordon was an important artist linked to the beginnings of abstract painting in Canada and a founding member of Painters Eleven, Ontario’s first abstract painting group (1953-1960). Jones will discuss Gordon’s compulsive drive towards what was new in art and her journey towards abstraction. This lecture compliments the exhibition at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Hortense Gordon: Towards the New, on view September 6, 2025 – March 1, 2026.
Free and Open to the Public. Refreshments served.
Please note: Due to poor air quality, we’re moving this evening’s event indoors.
Join us in for a pride-themed bingo night! Hosted by Kali Kontour, guests will enjoy six bingo games throughout the evening, with the chance to win prizes. Our beautiful gallery space will set the stage for exciting drag performances, while guests sip on fruity beverages and participate in an art activity. The night is sure to be filled with laughter, music, art, and long-lasting memories.
Kali Kontour
Educator by day and drag powerhouse by night, Kali Kontour is a dazzling blend of glamour, grit, and grace. A proud MAC Creator and community advocate, she fuses her love of teaching with fierce artistry and unapologetic self-expression. Whether she’s lighting up the stage or leading in the classroom, Kali is here to uplift, inspire, and slay this Pride season.
Orlandra Bloom
Durham’s finest and one of the reigning Queens of Dim Sum, Orlandra Bloom is beauty, talent, and charisma all rolled into one. With a background in dance and a dynamic drag persona, she’s serving stunts, tricks, and a whole lot of Pride realness!
Deena Dazeem
Originally from Toronto, Deena Dazeem brings you the best of Broadway and the powerhouse vocals of your favourite 90s divas. With a love for theatricality and high notes, she’s ready to belt her heart out and make this Pride celebration one to remember!
Enjoy refreshing beverages, fruity coolers, and non-alcoholic options will be available for purchase.
In the studio, enjoy our rock painting station. Take your creation home, or leave it to decorate our garden.
Join us for a tour of RESISTANCE.
Saturday, June 7, 2025
2-5PM, followed by a reception, 5-7PM
Top Top Projects (165 Geary Ave, Toronto, ON M6H 2B8)
Roundtable A: Press
2PM
Co-presented with Art Metropole
Featuring: Vincent Bonin, Robert Fones, Peggy Gale, and Luis Jacob
Roundtable B: Space
3:30 PM
Co-presented with the plumb
Featuring: Anthony Cooper, Suzy Lake, Nell Tenhaaf, and Adam Welch
Tom Dean: GOOD-BYE is an exhibition that brings together a rarely seen body of conceptual and sculptural work produced between 1969-1974, when Dean was living in Montreal. Documenting the artist’s extensive and active engagement with the local alternative art scene and broader cultural milieu, GOOD-BYE invites viewers to reevaluate and reflect on the enduring significance of Dean’s work, and this cultural history, in today’s context.
In partnership with Art Metropole and the plumb, we are pleased to convene roundtable discussions around two essential nodes of Dean’s early practice: artist’s press and publications and artist-run spaces. Bringing together an illustrious panel of speakers, the discussions will shed light on the historical context of these movements and activities and reflect on the threads of resonance that are visible, at work, and needed in this present moment.
The event will take place at Top Top Projects (165 Geary Ave, Toronto, ON M6H 2B8) and will be followed by a reception with refreshments.
Panelists
Vincent Bonin
Vincent Bonin is an author and independent researcher. His essays and books have been published by 1700 La Poste (Montreal), the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canadian Art (Toronto), Centre André Chastel (Paris), Darling Foundry (Montreal), Fillip (Vancouver), the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Montréal), the MIT Press (Cambridge), the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, les Presses du réel (Dijon), Sterberg Press (Berlin) and the Vancouver Art Gallery. As a curator, he organized, amongst other exhibitions, Documentary Protocols (1965-1975) (2007-2008), D’un discours qui ne serait pas du semblant/Actor, networks, theories (2015), both at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery in Montreal, Réponse (around the philosopher Catherine Malabou) (2016), at the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides in Saint-Jérôme, in 2016, and was co-curator, with Catherine Morris, of Materializing Six Years, Lucy R. Lippard and the emergence of Conceptual Art, at the Brooklyn Museum in 2012, and, with a collective of curators, of Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada (various venues, on tour from 2010 to 2013).
Anthony Cooper
Anthony Douglas Cooper is a Toronto-based artist working across sculpture and performance. He is known for his collaborations through VSVSVS and as a founding member of the plumb. Recent exhibitions include Tools ‘n’ Shit (2019) at goodwater gallery, Rabbithole Foxhole (2019) at The J Spot, Vision321 (2024) curated by Hearth Garage, at the plumb, Manual Assembly: Fragments of a Whole (2024) at The Goldfarb Gallery, and a colourful dotted line (2025) at Blouin Division. Cooper’s most recent curatorial projects at the plumb include the exhibition goodtime, which continued and expanded John Goodwin’s recent curatorial work, and Andrew James Paterson: Never Enough Night, co-curated with Laura Carusi and Kate Whiteway, and Luxurious Labour with Charlie Murray.
Robert Fones
Robert Fones was born in London, Ontario on 10 March 1949. He was part of an active art scene in London associated with 20/20 Gallery, where he had his first solo exhibition in 1969. In 1973 he was a founding member of Forest City Gallery. He also designed the original tree-ring logo.
Robert Fones has lived in Toronto since 1976. He first exhibited with Carmen Lamanna Gallery, then Sandra Simpson Gallery before joining Olga Korper Gallery in 2000. In his work Fones often combines elements from popular culture and design, such as packaging, pictograms and letterforms, with his investigations into geological, cultural, and industrial history. Fones works in a variety of media and has consistently explored a number of recurring themes: the ideologies embedded in the artifacts of cultural life, the invisible span of natural and cultural change, and the visual contradictions inherent in the two-dimensional illusions of painting and photography.
Fones has exhibited in Canada, the United States and Germany. In 1999 he received the Toronto Arts Award for Visual Art. He has taught at the Ontario College of Art and Design, the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto and in the Art & Art History program at Sheridan College.
Artist books have featured prominently in his artistic production. He has published several books with Coach House Books and with Art Metropole including Anthropomorphiks (1971) Field Identification (1985), Head Paintings (1997) and Bevelled Paintings (2025). Fones has also written extensively about art and design for publications such as C Magazine, Parachute, Vanguard, Ciel Variable, Canadian Art, and Azure Magazine.
Peggy Gale
A Toronto-based independent curator and writer/critic specializing in media-related and time-based works by contemporary artists, Peggy Gale studied art history at the University of Toronto and Università degli Studi in Florence. Her numerous exhibitions range from Videoscape (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1974-1975), to L’avenir (looking forward) for La Biennale de Montréal, 2014. She received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2006.
Gale has published widely since the mid-1970s; recent essays include “Up All Night,” in Holding Ground: Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures fromPublic Books, Toronto, 2021, an essay for Tom Sherman’s Exclusive Memory: A Perceptual History of the Future, edited by David Diviney (2023) and a foreword for The Prophets: Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, edited by Ana Barajas, 2024.
A selection of her texts is currently in preparation for publication as ANTECEDENTS: Art After Video.
Luis Jacob
Luis Jacob was born in Lima, Peru, and now lives in Toronto, Canada. Working as artist, curator, and writer, his diverse practice addresses power and the subjectivity of aesthetic experience. Working as artist, curator, and writer, his diverse practice addresses power and the subjectivity of aesthetic experience. Jacob’s work invites a collision of meaning systems that destabilize our conventions of viewing and open up possibilities for participation and the creation of knowledge.
Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf, and Birch Libralato, Toronto (2012); Kunsthalle Lingen (2012); Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2011); Fonderie Darling, Montréal (2010); Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2009); and Kunstverein Hamburg, (2008).
Group exhibitions include Taipei Biennial 2012, Taipei Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Witte de With Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2012);Generali Foundation, Vienna (2011); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto (2008); and Documenta 12, Kassel (2007).
Suzy Lake
Suzy Lake emigrated to Montreal from Detroit, Michigan in 1968. She is known for her large-scale photography dealing the body as both subject and device. Although classically trained, her practice adopted performance, video, and photography as an exploration into politics of the body, identity, and power relations. Lake’s later work questions these issues of resistance to include the politic and poetics of the ageing body. Suzy’s work is represented by Bradley Ertaskiran in Montreal and MFC_Michele Didier in Paris, France. If in Montreal, she will have a major solo show in September at the Bradley Ertaskiran gallery.
Lake was one of 13 co-founders of Vehicule Art Inc. artist -run centre in 1971 (Tom Dean was another co-founder). The Art Gallery of Ontario presented Introducing Suzy Lake, a full career retrospective in 2014. Lake was the recipient of both a Governor General’s Award for Visual Arts and Media, and the Scotiabank Photography Award in 2016. She was awarded the Distinguished Artist Award got Lifetime Achievement in Chicago last year.
Her work is in the collection of major museums in Canada, plus significant international institutions such as the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York, USA; Brandhorst Museum, Munich, Germany; Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, France; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, Michigan, USA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY. USA; Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY, USA; Museum Lodz, Wroclaw, Poland; and the Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, Austria.
Nell Tenhaaf
Nell Tenhaaf is an electronic media artist and writer. Born in Oshawa, she lived in Montreal from 1969 to 1994, in Pittsburgh 1994-97, and since then in Toronto and Trent Hills, Ontario.
Tenhaaf has been working with computer-based media since the early 1980s. She first made pioneering artworks using the Telidon videotex protocol for interactive graphics and text. She then became known for lightbox displays that presented a critique and appropriation of scientific material about genetic engineering and biotechnology. Since the mid-1990s her work has been implicated in artificial life (A-life, an early relative of AI) and has taken the form of sculptures that bring human and electronic components into close contact.
Tenhaaf has exhibited her work in Canada and internationally. She is Professor Emerita at York University in Toronto, and is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto.
Adam Welch
Prior to joining the AGO in 2023 as Curator, Modern Art, Adam held various curatorial roles at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His exhibitions for the NGC include the retrospective General Idea (2022), Joseph Beuys (2015–17), The Advent of Abstraction (2016–17), and the Indigenous and Canadian Galleries (2017). He holds an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD in the history of art from the University of Toronto, where he is an Assistant Professor, Status Only.
Learn more about the exhibition here.
Join us at 2:30pm for the opening reception of Adventure: Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition. Prizes will be awarded in three categories: Novice, Hobby, and Open.
This event is free and open to everyone. If there are ways we can support your participation, please contact Hannah at [email protected].
The Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition is co-hosted by The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa Senior Community Centres, and the Oshawa Public Libraries.
Seniors programming has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Sienna for Seniors Foundation.
Welcome back! We launch our 2025 RMG Friday series in partnership with Oshawa Music Week, this evening will feature live music performances, art activities and food from local vendors.
About RMG Fridays
An anchor of the cultural calendar in Durham Region, RMG Fridays are community events that bring together various art forms. Designed for all ages they feature a variety of live music, performances, exhibition tours, artist talks, and highlight community partners and local businesses.
About Oshawa Music Week (OMW)
Oshawa Music Week is organized by students of the Music Business Program at Durham College. This annual event takes place in April and includes live music showcases, entertainment for music lovers, and music-industry education for aspiring and established music-business practitioners.
About our studio activity
Join local guest artist Chelsea Frattura in the art studio to get your geek on! Dive into the nostalgic world of 8-bit artwork as you design and create your own custom magnet. Using the grid method, you’ll bring your favourite pop culture icons to life—or invent your own design! Perfect for beginners.
Chelsea Frattura is a local artist and arts facilitator specializing in oil painting. Her work focuses on surrealist landscapes, drawing inspiration from the connection between memory and environment. Passionate about inspiring creativity, Chelsea loves to merge her artistic practice with her role as a facilitator, teaching a wide range of art projects to all ages—from fun, simple crafts to more advanced painting techniques.
About our guest food vendor
Bistro ‘67 offers guests a memorable field-to-fork dining experience, where community, local agriculture and learning come together. Meals are prepared and served by our skilled staff and students who create flavourful dishes inspired by fresh ingredients from the award-winning W. Galen Weston Centre for Food’s own gardens and other local suppliers across Durham Region.
About the bands
Siobhan Bodrug
Siobhan Bodrug is a singer-songwriter/recording artist from Toronto ON. Her music being a seamless blend of Indie Pop, R&B that her soulful vocals defy her 20 years on the planet. Siobhan has wowed audiences in many venues including opening for indie mainstays Stars and Juno award-winners Dizzy at The Golden Hour Festival, the iconic Rockwood Music Hall in New York City, the legendary El Mocambo, County Pop, and Summerfolk. She was also selected as a Honey Jam artist for 2022. She recently toured across Ontario/Quebec for her debut “Strangers Tour 2024.” She just graduated from Seneca’s Independent Songwriting and Performance program. She has appeared on SiriusXM, MIX97 and performed a live-to-air Christmas special. Her single, “The End Lies Ahead” has over 130k streams on Spotify. The future is bright for Siobhan Bodrug because as “PeopleOfPEC” said in a recent review “Can we just talk for a minute? About how FABULOUS Siobhan Bodrug is? If you have never heard of this powerhouse singer, you soon will! She is FIRE …Her voice is strong and sure, and she has a very strong command of her craft. She is a brilliant young artist”. (source: https://soundcloud.com/siobhanbodrugmusic)
Erica Knox
From upbeat excitement to mellow nostalgia, Erica Knox is reinventing her sound with self-portrayed intimate lyrics about love, life, and identity, alongside catchy hooks, reminiscent of modern day hitmakers Taylor Swift and Julia Michaels.
The 2019 ‘Best Emerging Artist in Canada’ nominee is currently recording her first full-length record with Toronto based producer and musician, Tal Vaisman. Her newest singles ‘Paradise Forever’ and ‘Make Me Happy’ are the first of many to come.
priyana
priyana is a South-Asian queer singer-songwriter from Toronto, Canada. She knew from the age of eight that music was her passion. She has attracted a community online and is known for posting videos combining her ethereal voice with love for crochet! priyana’s indie/folk-pop music draws inspiration from Lizzy McAlpine, Billie Eilish, Noah Kahan, Phoebe Bridgers, and many more. priyana’s debut album little thoughts and latest singles pinky swear, they know it too, and days i’ve cried this year are available on all streaming platforms with more to come soon.
Stefan Palicki
Stef started taking RCM piano instruction at the age of 6. Over the years, he obtained his RCM theory and Grade 7 piano with first class honours. At the age of 12, Stef began taking guitar lessons and that set him on the path toward wanting to be a performing musician.
During grades 7 and 8, Stef played keyboard, trombone and bass guitar in the school’s Jazz Band. At the end of grade 8 he audition for and was accepted into the Performing Arts Program at O’Neill CVI, where Stef has enjoyed performing in multiple bands and ensembles on a variety of instruments including percussion.
In 2019, Stef began taking part in an Open Jam at The Edge, in Ajax. This cemented his joy for performance in a band dynamic, playing classic rock and blues, live.
Stefan continues to further his music education with private instruction for guitar with Matt O’Rourke at Mattomusic in Courtice Ontario and with online instruction with accomplished guitarist, Chris Bray.
Jack Walker
Jack Walker is a Canadian indie-folk singer/songwriter from Pickering, ON. On June 11, 2021, he released his debut full-length album.
Jack writes songs with a focus on catchy melodies and poetic lyrics. He has played shows across Canada as well as the US and the UK. Jack’s main focus over the years has been playing live and since COVID-19 has put that on pause, he has shifted to recording and releasing music. Jack has taken a DIY approach to his recent album, playing every instrument and handling production and mixing duties.
Join us in celebrating the works of the third-year graduating students of the Fine Arts Advanced program at Durham College. This evening will feature a curated experience designed by Tanika iNsight Circles, and an art activity with artist Bria Elizabeth.
Schedule
7pm – Doors Open
7pm – Art Studio Activity with Bria Elizabeth Starts
7:30pm – Welcome Remarks
8pm-9:15pm – Voices & Vibes: A Journey Through Story, Soul & Connection by Tanika iNsight Circles
Voices & Vibes: A Journey Through Story, Soul & Connection
“Voices & Vibes: A Journey Through Story, Soul & Connection” is a powerful one-hour (1:10 to be exact) curated experience designed by Tanika iNsight Circles to uplift, heal, and unite through the arts. This event blends spoken word poetry, personal storytelling, interactive community-building activities, and a soul-stirring performance by powerhouse R&B singer. Centering on themes of resilience, self-expression through arts, and collective healing through community, this gathering will create a vibrant space for inter-generational authentic connections.
Where: The Isabel McLaughlin Gallery (Main Floor)
Emerging Visions
EMERGING VISIONS is an exhibition that presents thesis projects by the third-year graduating students of the Fine Arts Advanced program at Durham College.
Where: Gallery A (Ground floor)
Art Activity
Join local guest artist Bria Elizabeth to explore simple science into the unknown void. Participants will select a shape that resonates with them and use metallic markers to create lines and dots of particle movements that highlight different states of matter. Simple techniques will create a high contrast in colour and finish between the metallic markers and Black paper.
Where: Art Studio (Ground floor)
About
Tanika iNsight Circles is an award winning Creative Intellect, Speaker, Trainer, Host, Artist, Event Curator, and HIP HOP EDU Creator at HIP HOP TIL INFINITY.
Bria Elizabeth is a local artist who has led community projects with non-for profit organizations in the Oshawa area. She has her degree as a specialist in Media/Studio from UTSC where she was first introduced into facilitating community arts projects. Her current practice involves exploring negative space and mark making using multimedia art supplies. She currently has been involved with local arts collective Ruckus for the past few years and is passionate about art accessibility for marginalized communities and people groups. She believes that art is for everyone or anyone whether the art is created and stays in your home, in community spaces or galleries.
RMG Fridays
An anchor of the cultural calendar in Durham Region, RMG Fridays are community events that bring together various art forms. Designed for all ages they feature a variety of live music, performances, exhibition tours, artist talks, and highlight community partners and local businesses.
Join Curator, Sonya Jones, for a tour of the exhibition “Resistance”. This permanent collection exhibition explores how artists throughout history have used art to resist and disrupt social and political structures– including within the art world.
Thursday Curatorial Tours are free and open to everyone. They provide deeper insight into the themes, context, and content of our exhibitions. Seating options are available. For more information about access and our facilities, please visit this page or contact Sonya Jones at [email protected] with any specific requests.
No advance registration required.
