Annie MacDonell and Maïder Fortuné in conversation with Daniella Shreir

This event is free but, registration is required.

The RMG invites you to join us for an online conversation with Annie MacDonell, Maïder Fortuné, and Daniella Shreir, founder and co-editor of Another Gaze.

Sharing an interest in experimental film, narrative structures and feminist perspectives, our three guests will engage with some of the central themes of MacDonell’s exhibition The Beyond Within, including autobiography, archival research, art of the late 1960’s, radical pedagogy, psychedelic experience, and friendship. They’ll explore in more depth two films that MacDonell and Fortuné made together, Communicating Vessels (2020) and OUTHERE (for Lee Lozano) (2021).

This program is offered alongside The Beyond Within, a touring exhibition curated by Crystal Mowry and Leila Timmins. It was organized and produced in partnership with the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery where it was on view from October 8, 2021 to February 6, 2022. It is currently installed at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery until February 13, 2023.

About Annie MacDonell

Annie MacDonell is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her early training was in photography, and the image continues to play a central role in her projects. Her work also includes installation, sculpture, writing, and performance. In recent years, film has become a focus. Her films (sometimes produced with collaborator Maïder Fortuné) are shaped by feminists’ principles of politics as a daily practice.

She received a BFA from Toronto Metropolitan University in 2000, followed by graduate studies at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, in France. Her films “Book of Hours” (2019) and “Communicating Vessels” and OUTHERE (2021) both with Maïder Fortuné, have screened extensively internationally. Recent solo shows have been held at Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery, the Audain SFU and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. She has participated in group shows at The Art Museum of the University of Toronto, CAG Vancouver and Mackenzie Art Gallery. In 2012 she was short-listed for the AGO AIMIA prize for photography, and she was long listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2012, 2015 and 2016. In 2020, she and Maïder Fortuné won the Tiger Award for Best Short Film at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, for their film “Communicating Vessels. And in 2021 she was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Photography Prize.

About Maïder Fortuné

Maïder Fortuné, studied literature and theatre at L’École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris before entering Le Fresnoy National Studio for Contemporary Arts, where she developed a performance-related practice of the technological image. With great formal rigor, Fortuné’s work commands all the viewer’s attention for a genuine experience of the image and its processes. Recently, her practice turned to more narrative preoccupations. Lecture performances and films deeply rooted in writing are the mediums she proposes to open up new narrative strategies. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Europe, Brazil, Canada, China, and Japan. In 2010 she won the Villa Medicis fellowship in Roma, Italy. Recent shows and performances have been held at Gallery 44 (Toronto), Centre Pompidou (Paris), and the Toronto International Film Festival.

About Daniella Shreir

Daniella Shreir is the founder and co-editor of the film journal Another Gaze anda translator of literature, non-fiction, art writing and subtitles, from French. Her translation of Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs (Silver Press) won a PEN prize in 2019. Elsewhere, she has translated for publications and institutions including The Paris Review, Granta, the Palais de Tokyo. She is currently working on translations of two books. Together with Missouri Williams, she has just launched Another Gaze Editions, a new imprint dedicated to writing by women about film. She also associate produced ‘Maria Schneider, 1983’, which premiered in the Quinzaine des réalisateurs (2022). Since 2022, she has been on the selection committee of Director’s Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes) and is the creator and sole programmer of Another Screen.

What I’ve Learned Selling My Artwork

A panel discussion with Shahrzad Amin and Raoul Olou

Let’s chat about selling artwork! For this workshop, we’ve invited two practicing artists to share some of their experiences selling works on various platforms, including Instagram, art fairs (in-person and online), and their own virtual shops. The moderated conversation will cover a range of practical topics, including:

Maintaining an online presence
Dealing with customers
Assessing shipping strategies
Paying yourself and reinvesting in your practice
Managing work-life boundaries

This workshop will be hosted as a 70-minute Zoom meeting. The panel will run for 45 minutes with 15-25 minutes reserved at the end for questions and conversation with the audience.

This event is free and open to everyone, but registration is required. Register here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Raoul Olou is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. He creates work that references personal experiences, which reveal concepts of nationality, citizenship and race, through the depiction of everyday environments. Formally trained as filmmaker and currently practicing as a self-taught painter for over 10 years, Raoul has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Mark Christopher Gallery, and the Run Gallery. He has received several grants and awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, Toronto Art Council, Ontario Arts Council, and received the Mayor’s Award and the Honorable Painting Award at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair (2019 and 2022). He has been commissioned on several large scale mural projects all over the Greater Toronto Area, working with Mural Routes, KJBit Collective, and through his own independently led projects including a recent City of Toronto commissioned mural. Raoul has also been commissioned on significant private works for the Drake Hotel, the Gladstone, and the Sheraton Hotel. His work has been collected publicly and privately—by the City of Toronto, the Royal Bank of Canada, and the Wedge Collection and has been invited for artist residencies at the Museum of Contemporary Art x Akin Collective, Drake Devonshire, and Annandale Artist Residency.

Shahrzad Amin is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist who exhibits her works nationally and internationally. She creates socially engaging art pieces that invoke thoughts and encourage conversations about socio-cultural issues that surround us. Shahrzad makes original pieces that truly move people to feel intense emotions. Her interest in fundamental social issues such as democracy, equality, and migration has informed an art practice examining diasporic and socio-cultural subjectivities through the lenses of art practice, sensory ethnographic filmmaking, architectural design, gender, and language. Her works also highlight a social openness and necessity for global international connectivity by applying the historical eastern architectural figures such as arch bridges and combining cultural motifs as a metaphor for overcoming cultural distances. She received a BFA in Sculpture and Installation from Tehran University of Art (2010) and an MFA in the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design from OCAD University (2020). Notable awards include Research-Creation Grant (Canada Council for the Arts), Exhibition Assistance Grant (Ontario Arts Council), Artscape Foundation Launchpad Bursary, and more.

Closed captioning and live transcription will be available through the built-in Zoom CC and Transcription features. ASL Interpretation can be arranged upon request. Please contact Hannah Keating at [email protected] to submit an interpretation request by October 26, 2022. All efforts will be made to fill a request, but if an Interpreter cannot be secured, we will let you know before the event takes place.

Is there anything else we can do to support your participation? Please reach out to Hannah at [email protected].

The RMG would like to acknowledge the RBC Foundation for their generous support of the Artist Professional Development Workshop Series.

Fall Exhibitions Opening

Coming from Toronto? We have organized a bus to bring you to and from the opening! Pick up will be in front of OCADU at 100 McCaul St at 12:30PM. The bus will leave the RMG to return to OCADU at 3:45PM. Please fill out this form toreserve a spot on the bus.

On October 1, we are celebrating two new exhibitions at the RMG:

The Beyond Within

Annie MacDonell

September 24, 2022 – February 12, 2023

Curated by: Crystal Mowry and Leila Timmins
Organized and produced in partnership with the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

At 2:15, Annie MacDonell will deliver a tour of her exhibition with Leila Timmins.

The Beyond Within is an exhibition of recent work by Toronto-based artist Annie MacDonell, exploring feminist conceptions of the everyday as a basis for political engagement with the world. In two videos made in collaboration with Paris-based artist Maïder Fortuné, pedagogical roles are underwritten by radical forms of intimacy. OUTHERE (For Lee Lozano) and Communicating Vessels consider the potential for dissolving an isolated sense of self through friendship and art making. MacDonell’s new film installation, Set and Setting, continues this exploration by juxtaposing animated drawings sourced from early psychedelic research trials with architectural sets that recall institutional examination rooms. The piece suggests that the boundary between subject and viewer is not only thin, but porous and continuously shifting. Through these collaborative video projects and new installations, MacDonell asks whether it is possible, within static institutions and other familiar containers, to follow radical detours that create possibilities to build our worlds anew.

The Sire of Sires

Jordan Elliot Prosser

October 1 – November 13, 2022

Curated by: Hannah Keating

Informed by the legacy of landmarks like General Motors, Jordan Elliot Prosser’s recent projects have documented Oshawa’s uncertain identity as a post-industrial suburban community. In The Sire of Sires, he turns to another performance-driven industry that took root in Oshawa: E.P. Taylor’s enterprise at Windfields Farm. As the leading producer of thoroughbreds in Canada, Windfields produced Northern Dancer, who was first Canadian-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby and the most influential stallion in North America. Upon retirement, Northern Dancer became a sought-after studding horse with many of his descendants achieving success as both racehorses and sires. One of those sons, Nijinsky, was named after a famous 20^th-century Russian ballet dancer who prophesized he would be reborn as a horse. This unusual and unlikely tie between Oshawa and Vaslav Nijinsky inspired Prosser’s new video The Sire of Sires, which he shot at Windfields Farm and features a character from Nijinsky’s ballet L’Après-midi d’un faune (1912). The ballet itself was created in response to two other works of art by the same name: a symphony (1894) by Claude Debussy and a poem (1876) by Stéphane Mallarmé. Accordingly, The Sire of Sires reflects on the theme of reproduction, as it relates to artistic inheritance and Prosser’s sprawling record of this place called Oshawa.

Also on view:

True Currency

Artists: Christina Battle, Helen Cho, Alvin Luong, Sofia Mesa, Dana Prieto, Cassie Thornton

June 18 – November 5, 2022

Complete Freedom

Abstract artworks from our permanent collection

December 11th, 2021 – October 9th, 2022

Come Together

Photographs from the Thomas Bouckley Collection

June 18, 2022 – January 8, 2023

Artist Talk with Malik McKoy

Join Malik in Gallery A for an artist-led tour of his solo exhibition Code Switch.

As RBC Emerging Artist in Residence, Malik McKoy has created a new body of work that considers how technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence reproduce human biases, and more specifically, how racialized bodies are subject to the harms caused by escapism and the commodification of identity online. In McKoy’s ongoing effort to bridge digital and paint-based practices, the work in this exhibition grapples with the increasingly blurred line between online and offline selves and how carefully constructed avatars actually relate to the people they represent.

The RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation and the RBC Emerging Artist Project.

Water Gestures: Walk + Learn with Patricia Wilson and Milton Hill

This event is free and open to everyone. Registration is required.

Spend the morning at the RMG with environmental conservation coordinator and advocate Patricia Wilson and outdoor educator Milton Hill! Inspired by themes of connectedness and imagination in Tim Whiten’s exhibition Elemental: Oceanic, this interactive outdoor workshop will explore the vital role water plays in environmental cycles and local ecosystems, including its importance to human life. Through hands-on learning by the Oshawa Creek, Patricia and Milton will share their knowledge and invite others to do the same in a reflective, educational experience centered on the immediate surroundings of the RMG.

Participants are asked to bring a notebook and writing or drawing materials of their choice to do some journaling throughout the session.

The gathering will begin in the backyard at the RMG, and will extend into nearby trails and parks. You should come prepared for the weather and some walking.

Check out Elemental: Oceanic, on view at the RMG until August 28, 2022.

Patricia Wilson is the Founder of Diverse Nature Collective (DNC) and works as a Community Conservation Coordinator for Kawartha Land Trust. She holds a BSc in Biology with a Specialization in Conservation Biology from Trent University and a diploma in Ecosystem Management from Fleming College.

In her daily work, Patricia engages the community and volunteers in ecological restoration and land stewardship opportunities through events out on the land. She also creates partnerships with local organizations and businesses – helping to educate and connect people with nature and conservation work.

Patricia is also a strong advocate for racialized voices in the outdoors and is passionate about increasing diversity within the environmental movement and land trust sector. Combining both her passions for conservation work and diversifying the outdoors, Patricia started the DNC as a way to empower and mobilize racialized voices within her community and create a space that inspires, uplifts and connects people of all backgrounds.

In her spare time she enjoys spending as much time as she can in nature and loves to explore the outdoors through hiking and backcountry paddle trips!

Milton Hill is an Outdoor Educator who aims to integrate his knowledge of the natural world with spiritual traditions that foster a deeper understanding of nature and ourselves. He graduated from Fleming College’s Outdoor Adventure Education program in 2019 and has since worked for a variety of outdoor outfitters and organizations. He is inspired by his practice of the I Ching, Tibetan Buddhism, Compassionate Communication, and Ubuntu, which have all influenced his perspective of the natural environment. Developing self-awareness in himself and others, Milton has also started doing more work to help folks within BIPOC communities engage with both the challenges and potential for peacefulness in the great outdoors. Milton also enjoys learning through experiential education and crafting his own gear – including canvas and wool winter clothes, moccasins, and canoe paddles.

Notes on Access:

The backyard at the RMG is accessible through the gallery via stairs or elevator. If you need more information about the terrain or what to expect, please get in touch and we can answer any questions you have.

ASL Interpretation can be arranged upon request. Please contact Hannah Keating at [email protected] by May 20 to submit an interpretation request. All efforts will be made to fill a request, but if an Interpreter cannot be secured, we will let you know before the event takes place.

If there are other ways we can support your participation, please send an email to [email protected].

Durham College Thesis Artist Talks

Please join the students on May 19^th for an artist-led tour of the exhibition. This is your chance to learn more about specific projects and hear about the journey from conception to fabrication to presentation.

Tim Whiten in conversation with Erika DeFreitas

Registration required. A link to access the talk will be sent to you via email on the day of the event.

Join us for the premiere of an online programme featuring a conversation between Tim Whiten and Erika DeFreitas at Whiten’s Toronto studio. During this recorded talk, both discuss their creative process, reflect on influences, and share recent work related to their shared interests in metaphysics, art and ritual practices.

Co-presented by the McMaster Museum of Art (M(M)A) and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG), this special event is hosted in conjunction with the collaborative survey Elemental currently on view at their respective venues.

Elemental is a multi-venue collaborative retrospective bringing together four Ontario presenters, including the Art Gallery of Peterborough (AGP), Art Gallery of York University (AGYU), McMaster Museum of Art and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Celebrating Tim Whiten’s broad and prolific career as an image maker and educator, the exhibitions draw on over fifty years of Whiten’s creative production devoted to studying the nature of consciousness and the human condition through material transformations. Curated by Chiedza Pasipanodya (AGP), Liz Ikiriko (AGYU), Pamela Edmonds (M(M)A) and Leila Timmins (RMG), and showing between 2022 and 2023, this series of separately curated exhibitions are thematically united by the classical elements of air, water, earth, and fire – referencing Whiten’s interest in alchemical processes.

Elemental: Ethereal is on view at the McMaster Museum of Art until May 13, 2022 and Elemental: Oceanic is on view at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery until August 28, 2022. The exhibitions at AGP and AGYU are forthcoming.

About Tim Whiten

Tim Whiten was born in Inkster, Michigan in 1941. In 1964, he received a B.S. from Central Michigan University, College of Applied Arts and Science, and in 1966 completed his M.F.A. at the University of Oregon, School of Architecture and Allied Arts. After immigrating to Canada in 1968, he taught in the Department of Visual Arts at York University for 39 years. An award-winning educator, he was also Chair of the University’s Department of Visual Arts where he is currently Professor Emeritus. Since 1962, he has had work presented in exhibitions throughout North America and internationally and it is included in numerous private, public, and corporate collections, such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (both the de Young and the Legion of Honor/ Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts). Based in Toronto, Tim Whiten is represented by Olga Korper Gallery.

About Erika DeFreitas

Erika DeFreitas’s multidisciplinary practice includes performance, photography, video, installation, textiles, drawing and writing. Placing emphasis on gesture, process, the body, documentation and paranormal phenomena, DeFreitas mines concepts of loss, post-memory, legacy and objecthood. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including: Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg; Gallery TPW, Toronto; Project Row Houses and the Museum of African American Culture, Houston; Fort Worth Contemporary Arts; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita. She is a recipient of the 2016 Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Finalist Artist Prize, the 2016 John Hartman Award, and was longlisted for the 2017 Sobey Art Award. DeFreitas holds a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto.