Shred Scarf

I am in the middle of crocheting a paper scarf (an odd project for spring...this past winter has scarred me, obviously...) made out of the same shredded documents as the Insecurity Blanket. Here are some details of it...more to come later.

TZL Spring Open House

Come on out for our first annual TZL Spring Open House! Learn more about our collective activities and our collection, take time to read some of our fantastic materials, and find out about becoming a member with borrowing privledges. At the Open House, TZL-ers will be present to give tours of the collection and the library's other special features as well as answer any questions about what we do. There will also be a surprise Musical Guest, we'll be screening episodes of Our Hero as well as a short film about the Anchor Archive zine library in Halifax, and there will be snacks and drinks galore! Come out and show your support!

With Love,
Suzanne, Patrick and Tara
TZL Collective

Toronto Zine Library
Spring Open House
Wednesday, April 30th, 6-9pm

TRANZAC Club
Second Floor Rehearsal Hall
292 Brunswick Avenue
South of Bloor Street

Insecurity Blanket

A few photos from the three hour-or-so performance that took place in the Insecurity Blanket installation, 12.04.08. The show is up until tomorrow morning, so if you haven't seen it yet, shake a leg and get over there today at some point...

Elemental Connections at FCP Gallery

The Elemental Connections reception is this Thursday evening. Not sure that I'll be able to make it (I'm graduating and my "thesis exhibition" of sorts is that same night!), but that doesn't mean you shouldn't...

Elemental Connections:
An Exhibition of Sustainable Craft

March 3rd-April 25th, 2008.
Reception: April 17th, 5-7pm, FCP Gallery.

ELEMENTAL CONNECTIONS is an exhibition which addresses sustainability through material, process, and honoring the earth and the environment. Coming from the hands of artists from across Canada, you will find water, seashore, mountains, forest, prairie, farm, town, home and person. FCP Gallery presents this exhibition in partnership with the Ontario Crafts Council to celebrate the contemporary importance of craft, March 3 to April 25.

FCP Gallery
First Canadian Place
East of Adelaide Street entrance
Between York and Bay
www.fcpfirst.com

Elemental Connections: An Exhibition of Sustainable Craft was originally mounted at the Ontario Crafts Council Gallery September 27 - November 12, 2007.

Image: Alger pa Finner by Elemental Connections artist Catharine Paleczny, porcelain, 2006

Shannon Gerard + Katie Kehoe

Two really great looking shows, as seen on Akimbo today:

KATIE KEHOE
Form Poetry

TYPE Books Gallery invites you to the debut of Form Poetry, an exhibition of drawings by Toronto based artist Katie Kehoe. Each piece exhibits one word hand written over and over in various layers of graphite producing a multidimensional geometric or oblique form.

The meticulous nature of this work engages viewers and sparks curiosities. Form Poetry reduces complex forms and phrases to the bare minimum. Kehoe selects words that people use repeatedly everyday such as 'and' or 'yes', making the artwork more accessible. The forms she draws to write within range from fundamental geometric forms to organic and oblique natural forms. Using words as a mode of expression and structural tool, Kehoe creates text based post-minimal contemporary art.

Katie Kehoe is an interdisciplinary Toronto based artist who values interactive art as the most provocative art form and creates performance, installation and visual art. She is a recent graduate of the Canadian Film Center Media Lab's Interactive Art and Entertainment Program (formerly Habitat) and an apprentice of Joan Jonas, New York based pioneer of Performance Art. Her work has been presented in various festivals and galleries across Canada and in Toronto. Notably in Drawing 2008: 9th Annual Juried Drawing Exhibition, John B. Aird Gallery; [TEXT] curated by Gary Michael Dault, Propeller Centre for the Arts; Free Fall Festival (2006), a national festival of experimental performance, The Theatre Centre; and Sound Travels: Sign Waves (2005), an annual installation series, New Adventures in Sound Art.

Form Poetry runs at TYPE Books Gallery, April 3 to 27, 2008. Located at 883 Queen St. West, Toronto.

Media Contact: Shelley Banks 416.886.1848 / formpoetry@gmail.com

PLAYING DOCTOR
SHANNON GERARD

The installation PLAYING DOCTOR brings together various components of Shannon Gerard’s multimedia project, BOOBS & DINKS: Early Detection Kits.

Many dozens of crocheted plush breasts and penises contain small lumps that can be found by following illustrated instructions in accompanying booklets.

A short PSA style film features models in life-sized crocheted strap-ons who demonstrate self-examination. The strap-ons hang beside the projection for those viewers who wish to dress up and follow along.

A series of screenprints highlights moments of play, tenderness and expectation as models both demonstrate and experience self-examination of their “bathing suit areas.”

An autobiographical comic book, HUNG no.3; Lonely Tylenol, chronicles a cancer scare Gerard had last year when her partner found a lima-bean sized lump in his testicle.

The softness and humour of PLAYING DOCTOR aims to eliminate some of the fear surrounding self-exam of one’s own precious privates. The nature of this project changes as viewers experience it. At first the kits seem like cute and hilarious toys (tee hee, boobs and dinks!) but then as people play with them, read the booklets and find the lumps, the experience shifts. Even though the plush multiples contain a sinister possibility—garden pebbles stand in for possibly malignant tumors—interacting with the project is a strangely calming practice. PLAYING DOCTOR tries to touch people's fears and human underbellies through the ultra feminized, "soft" form of crochet, through playful interactive video and performance, and through the revelation of the artist’s personal experience. Broadly, the project initiates conversations about our bodies and confronts the idea of human frailty.

Partial proceeds from the sale of the BOOBS & DINKS: Early Detection Kits are donated to the Ontario charity Cottage Dreams (www.cottagedreams.org) which connects recovering cancer patients with donated cottage spaces in Haliburton and the Muskokas.

Additional information and images can be found at www.shannongerard.org

PLAYING DOCTOR runs:
April 3 to 26, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 3, 7pm to 9pm

Open Studio
George Gilmour Members’ Gallery
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8

Tel/Fax: 416-504-8238
office@openstudio.on.ca
www.openstudio.on.ca

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm to 5pm

Media Contact:
Shannon Gerard
416 593 5306
shannon@shannongerard.org