Nuit Blanche Toronto has announced it will be expanding its programming to Scarborough in 2018. Photo: Nuit Blanche Toronto Facebook page.
Toronto’s Nuit Blanche announces that it will expand next year’s all-night art festival into Scarborough. With programming curated by Alyssa Fearon, who grew up the area, the Scarborough edition will centre around its Civic Centre, simultaneous to programming in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square. As much as a third of Nuit Blanche’s total resources will be allocated to Scarborough to ensure that it won’t be a “Nuit Lite,” the city’s director of arts and culture Patrick Tobin told the Toronto Star. “You Are Here,” the event’s 2018 theme, was chosen to reflect the demographic shift revealed by the recent census stating that “visible minorities now comprise more than half the city’s population,” according to Tobin. The other two curators for 2018 are UK Artangel trustee Karen Alexander and Munk Centre global journalism fellow Tairone Bastien. (Toronto Star)
The curatorial team for the Winnipeg Art Gallery Inuit Art Centre’s inaugural exhibitions is revealed. The shows will be curated by acclaimed Inuk scholar and curator Heather Igloliorte, research chair in Indigenous art history at Concordia University, joined by a team of emerging curators “from each region of Inuit Nunangat, working together,” says a post on Instagram. The team will consist of Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter, Krista Zawadski and Isabella Rose Weetaluktuk. The new $65-million gallery will house what the WAG says is the world’s largest collection of contemporary Inuit art. (Winnipeg Art Gallery Instagram)
In other Inuit Art Centre news from Winnipeg, the project is still awaiting a $15 million public funding confirmation. The commitment was made by a previous provincial government, and the current government has not yet confirmed that amount—though as NDP MLA Ted Marcelino pointed out in the legislature on Wednesday, an answer had been promised for August. “It’s now December,” he stated. A decision is expected soon. (CBC Manitoba)
Montreal artist Sophie Jodoin wins the Giverny Capital Prize. The prize awards $10,000 to a Quebec-based contemporary visual artist every two years. The artist primarily works in drawing and installation and has exhibited extensively across the country, with an upcoming travelling solo exhibition called “Room(s) to move : je, tu, elle.” She was selected by a jury consisting of Marie-Ève Beaupré, curator at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Louise Déry, director of Université du Québec a Montréal’s gallery, Geneviève Goyer-Ouimette, curator of Quebecois and contemporary Canadian art at Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, and Marie-Josée Jean, director at Vox. (press release)
Toronto International Film Festival unveils the top ten Canadian films of 2017. The selections include Alanis Obomsawin’s Our People Will Be Healed, Sadaf Foroughi‘s Ava and Wayne Wapeemukwa’s Luk’Luk’I, which won the City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at TIFF. Also in the running: Montreal photo duo Carlos and Jason Sanchez‘s biggest feature film yet: A Worthy Companion starring Evan Rachel Wood. (press release)
There’s a new home for Canada’s only public gallery devoted to contemporary Asian and Asian diasporic art. Vancouver’s Centre A is doubling the size of its facilities in a long-term move to a 3,300-square-foot space in the Sun Wah Centre in Chinatown. The expansion will allow for multiple simultaneous exhibitions and will dedicate a reading room for its library, which includes the Finlayson Collection of Rare Asian Art Books, one of Canada’s most extensive collections of contemporary Asian art texts. Known also as the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Centre A was founded in 1999. (press release)
The National Black Canadians Summit recognizes arts leaders. Angela Cassie, the vice president of public affairs and programs at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and Cameron Bailey, the artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival, are among 12 Black Canadian leaders honoured at the recent summit. To celebrate the International Decade for People of African Descent, this summit convened Black leaders, academics and policy experts at the Toronto Reference Library from December 4 to 6. The keynotes and planning sessions spanned topics of Black-Indigenous solidarity, mobilization and empowerment in social-change research, and what the future could look like. All sessions are available to stream on the library’s website. (press release)
Members of the Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone release details on its fourth iteration. The event will be themed “My Sister / Ma sœur,” and organized by co-curators Becca Taylor and Niki Little. It will take place in five Montreal-area venues from May 5 to June 23, 2018: Stewart Hall Art Gallery in Pointe Claire, gallery Art Mûr, la Guilde Canadienne des métiers d’art, the McCord Museum and the Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts. The Aboriginal Curatorial Collective will provide artistic coordination for the major event, which seeks to recognize and support contemporary Indigenous art and artists. The exhibition will then travel to the Art Gallery of Mississauga, a new partnering institution of the biennial. (press release)
Tangled Art + Disability announces the hiring of a new executive director. With the appointment of Cyn Rozeboom to serve as executive director, says Tangled artistic director Barak adé Soleil, “our staff now comprises all disability-identified folk at the core. This affirms a commitment to building Tangled Art Gallery into a sustainable platform by and for Mad, Deaf and disability communities within Toronto and throughout Canada.” Rozeboom has over 25 years experience in the non-profit arts sector as a fundraiser, communications specialist, artist, and administrator. (press release)
