Still from Ming Wong's Making Chinatown courtesy of the artist and REDCAT, Los Angeles.
The Toronto International Film Festival today announced the details of its art-related programs, Wavelengths and Future Projections. Among the highlights are works by Peaches, Francesca Woodman, Kelly Richardson and Thomas Demand.
The installations-based Future Projections program features the North American premiere of UK-based Canadian artist Kelly Richardson’s Mariner 9, which aims to transform part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s lobby into an immersive environment that transports the viewer into the centre of a Martian dust storm several centuries in the future. Richardson’s sci-fi flavoured digital animations have been featured at the Hirschhorn Museum and the Centre Pompidou, among other venues.
Future Projections will also offer a new site-specific installation of Ming Wong’s Making Chinatown at the Gladstone Hotel. For the work, the renowned Berlin- and Singapore-based artist takes the role of every character in Roman Polanski’s famed film noir. Canadian performer Peaches will also present a new projection-based work at the Drake Hotel during the run of the festival, and Whitney Biennial breakout Luther Price will show collages at Contact Gallery.
The screenings-based Wavelengths program has widened its activities to screen 47 films of various lengths, including features formerly placed in TIFF’s Visions program. Among the highlights are German artist Thomas Demand’s 100-second animation Pacific Sun. Based on the eponymous viral video and comprised of 2,400 stop-motion frames 15 months in the making, the work takes Demand’s mostly photo-based work into the moving-image sphere.
Late American artist Francesca Woodman is also featured with a rare screening of videos. Best known for her black-and-white self-portraits, these videos, shared by her family, promise a different view of the artist.
Canadians also feature well on the Wavelengths program, with visionary Quebec filmmaker Denis Côté offering a contemplation of the caged denizens of a zoo in Bestaire and Toronto artist Jean-Paul Kelly presenting a Super 8 work, A Minimal Difference.
The Toronto International Film Festival takes place from September 6 to 16.
