Interview with Co-Op student Swetha Srikanth

Swetha Srikanth is a grade 11 student at O’Neill C.V. I. and this summer she completes her placement with the RMG. She sat down with the RMG to discuss her experience at the gallery this spring.

The RMG: How did you get involved with volunteering at the RMG?

Swetha: I got involved with the RMG through the co-operative education program, which is an amazing opportunity that I got through school. I was interviewed last year and started my placement this February. I was familiar with the gallery before then, but working here for the past five months has really allowed me to fully appreciate and learn about the many areas of this gallery.

The RMG: Why were you interested in volunteering in an art gallery?

Swetha: I was interested in this placement specifically because it relates to the work that I would love to do in the future. I have always been passionate about visual arts, and am hoping to become an interior designer and manage my own design firm. This environment has allowed me to start to understand how businesses work.

The RMG: What have you been doing during your placement at the gallery?

Swetha: I started working with Norah O’Donnell in February and Carla Sinclair in the past few weeks. I have done so many creative and administrative tasks to help improve the system that is in place for the volunteers, as well as provide services for the public through event preparation and RMG Shop management.

The RMG: What is one thing you want to share about the RMG?

Swetha: The sense of community within the workplace. The employees are extremely welcoming, positive, and show appreciation to the other workers and volunteers. There were many collaborative tasks that I was involved in, which made me feel like a part of the community. They also allowed me to feel comfortable and be seen as a co-worker, rather than a high school student.

The RMG: What is your favourite museum?

Swetha: I’m not sure that I have a favourite place, but one of my favourite memories is when the Specialized Visual Arts Program at O’Neill took a trip to Buffalo, NY and visited the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. It was the first time I was with some of my best friends and had the opportunity to experience incredible artwork and discuss it with them in depth. It was nice to be around likeminded people while visiting a new gallery, and I’m really glad that I have experienced that feeling multiple times since then.

The RMG: What is your first memory of art?

Swetha: My first memory of art is something that I remember creating when I was about four or five years old. I had painted an elephant, and I remember it being framed on the wall for people to see and feeling really proud of what I had done.

Running on Empty

Running on Empty:

Kim Adams, John Massey, Kate Puxley, Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver, Monica Tap, Elinor Whidden, and Jean-Luc Godard

January 10 – April 26, 2015
Opening: RMG Fridays, 9 January, 7-10pm
Catalogue Launch: Sunday 1 February, 1-3:30pm
Exhibition Tour: Sunday 29 March, 1-3pm

Throughout most of Canada’s history, the navigation of the landscape by foot, wagon, or canoe, whether for the sake of discovery, trade, or pleasure, proceeded at much slower speeds than it does now. Paved roads have replaced the trails of those earlier days, although they cross the same hills, marshes, and forests, and their routes follow the same rivers and valleys. Today, our encounters with vistas and wildlife often occur from within the metal and glass armour of an automobile while travelling at 100 kilometres per hour.

In his Futurist Manifesto of 1909, the Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti declared that man’s triumphs over nature would lead the way to a better future, and called for the overthrow of all that was old! Just a year earlier, Henry Ford’s Model T had hit the streets of America, signalling the dawn of the motor age when industrial proliferation would radically transform lives by providing access to new kinds of convenience and independence.

Our mass love affair with the car had hit full stride by the middle of the last century, and despite a few bumps and hurdles, it has remained intact to this day. Auto bodies and road trips have been evoked in countless images, narratives, and songs, from Hollywood movies to devoted sections of newspapers. However, over time this near-utopian relationship has come under intense scrutiny from a wide range of cultural and environmental perspectives.

Running on Empty presents the work of artists who consider the seductions, and also disillusionments, in our longstanding infatuation with the car and highway. They situate the car as a mediating force in our relationship with mobility and the land, and explore the interconnection of industry and the natural world. In these delightful and challenging works of art expeditions have unexpected consequences, bucolic scenes become a blur, idyllic scenarios are mere fabrications, and history repeats itself.

– Heather Nicol, exhibition curator

Running on Empty is curated by artist Heather Nicol. A full color, 48 page catalogue with an essay by Heather Nicol will accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition is open to the public from 10 January – 26 April, 2015. Please join us for the opening at RMG Fridays on 9 January 2015 from 7-10pm.

The RMG thanks the City of Oshawa, The Ontario Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support of this exhibition and programming.

Image – Monica Tap, One-second Hudson no. 4, 2007

RMG Fridays September 2014: Space Invaders

Join us on Friday, September 5th to celebrate the closing reception of the exhibition “Re: purpose”, at our September event that features performances by Oshawa’s RedVIOLET & Toronto’s Pins & Needles, a group who met at Girls Rock Camp! We’ll also help kick off the return of the Oshawa Space Invaders.
Free to attend | 7-10pm | Cash Bar | All ages welcome.

Space Invaders: http://www.oshawaspaceinvaders.com/

RedVIOLET: http://redviolet.bandcamp.com/ andfacebook.com/redvioletband

Pins & Needles: http://pinsandneedlesband.tumblr.com/

Re: purpose: https://rmg.on.ca/exhibitions-repurpose.php

Looking for something to do AFTER RMG Fridays?
Check out the Professors of Funk’s First Friday Residency at The Moustache Club!

Special thanks to our summer beer sponsors Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co.

Follow the twitter feed at #RMGFridays!

The RMG is grateful to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support of this programming.

Share Your Love for Art

Our Education Department is seeking new volunteers. Get involved! Here are some details on upcoming meetings.

Become a Volunteer Art Educator

The Education Department is looking for enthusiastic volunteers to join our dedicated team. Our volunteers share an interest in learning and introducing children to Canadian art, culture and history.

Weekly discussions are based on the Permanent Collection, new featured exhibitions, and various art styles/movements. Teaching and touring techniques are also addressed.

New Sessions Begin: Monday, September 17, 2012 1pm to 2:30pm

Become a Volunteer Studio Art Instructor

The Education Department is expanding our volunteer Educators group! We are seeking volunteers to join our all new group of Studio Educators who will assist the Education Studio Specialist. Volunteers must have an interest in the art making process; a basic knowledge of art studio practices is an asset.

Anyone who is interested is invited to an orientation meeting on Monday, September 17, 2012 at 10am.

Commitment is flexible and applicants are welcomed throughout the year.

For more information, please contact the Norah O’Donnell, Volunteer Coordinator at 905 576 3000 ext. 106 or by email at nodonnell@rmg.on.ca

The Curator’s View: Meet me at the MoMA

From the desk of Linda Jansma, our curator.

I photocopied an ArtsNews article that appeared in the magazine this past winter. It described a unique program offered at the MoMA in New York City that brought patients with dementia and their caregivers into the gallery for tours and discussions on a monthly basis.

(all images via MoMA.org)

I contacted the woman who has spear-headed Meet Me at the MoMA, a program that started in 2006, and arranged to watch a tour during a recent visit to New York. I was one of 115 people who met at 2 p.m. on a warm Tuesday afternoon (the day the gallery is closed to the public, making it easier for the groups to move through the gallery spaces). We were divided into coloured groups: blue, purple, green, red, orange and yellow and given name tags and stools and then each group was led into the gallery spaces by an instructor and volunteer. Our group had a second observer – Ali, who works at the Alzheimer society in New York, helping patients paint – he sensitively equated the disease with art, calling it an abstraction of the mind.

Our leader, Meryl, stopped in front of two paintings by surrealist artist Yves Tanguy. We spent twenty minutes contemplating the colour and shapes in each painting, and listening to the comments of both patient and caregiver. No one was in a hurry and there were no wrong answers: what looked like a desert to one, reminded another of the board walk of Atlantic City, while many could see the “body” after it was described. Meryl worked her magic by coaxing patients to draw on past memories to bring meaning to the work. She did the same in front of Willem de Kooning’s Woman I (William kept coming back to just how large that woman’s arms were!), and the minimalist sculpture of Lynda Benglis (definitely looked like duck-billed platypuses). What everyone seemed to agree on was that none of them would actually want to live with any of the work they saw that afternoon.

The disease had progressed differently in many of the patients: I spoke with Karen on the way to the gallery, assuming that she was a caregiver, and was told that she has had Alzheimer’s for “a long, long, long time,” while other participants could only whisper simple answers to the questions asked. The caregivers were equal participants in the program, an acknowledgement to the difficulty inherent in their jobs and that this was an outlet for them, as well.

The gallery deserves the accolades and awards it has received for Meet Me at the MoMA, a program delivered with sensitivity, awarding each of its participants with dignity by drawing on memories that tell of lives that continue to be meaningful.

Read more on the MoMA’s website: http://www.moma.org/meetme/