Jim Verburg is a citizen of Canada and the Netherlands, he currently lives and works in Toronto. His artistic practice is mainly concerned with the complexities of relationships. Working with photography, video, text, installation, and print to explore his love of modernist aesthetics, emotional matters, and the interpersonal. His second film For a Relationship won the 2008 Jury Prize for the Best Canadian Short Film at the Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto. The work was also nominated for the Iris Prize in the UK. He’s held residencies at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in Montreal, Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta. In the spring of 2009 he had a solo exhibition/ installation at Widmer and Theodoridis Contemporary in Zurich, and was featured by the gallery at the HOT ART Fair 2009 in Basel Switzerland. Recent exhibitions include Portrait Study at the New Stage of National Theatre in Prague, Domestic Queens at the FOFA Gallery in Montreal, So Many Letdowns Before We Get Up at Platform Gallery Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts in Winnipeg, and the C magazine group exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) in Toronto. Verburg’s solo show One and Two opened last fall at Le Mois de la Photo in Montreal, the show was also awarded the 2011 Dazibao prize. This spring he’ll be showing an installation at Convenience Gallery (Toronto), and in a feature exhibition for the upcoming Contact Festival.

Dax Morrison completed his MFA at the University of Windsor in 2004 and did his undergraduate training at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He has had solo exhibitions at Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, CSA Space, Vancouver, and the Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor and has participated in group exhibitions at Gallery 44, Toronto, Forest City Gallery, London and Access Artist Run Centre, Vancouver. Morrison has received an Ontario Arts Council’s Emerging Artist grant, as well as scholarships from Open Studio and the University of Windsor.

Warren is site-specific installation composed of hundreds of small wire and paper structures. Jammed together, they occupy the space of the storefront in an anarchic array. Like a cityscape spun out of control, the installation reflects a congested streetscape on the edge of chaos. As neighbourhoods are colonized by urban renewal projects, empty storefront vitrines often are the sites where architectural models of soon to be constructed developments are displayed. Running against the grain of the polished and seamless architectural model, Warren, with its off centre towers and dense clusters of cells, speaks to the anxiety implicit in urban life as the pace of urban transformation accelerates.

Ilze Bebris is a North Vancouver artist, curator and educator working in sculpture and installation. A graduate of Emily Carr University she completed her Masters of Fine Art at the University of University of Victoria in 2007. She has participated in a number of national and international exhibitions. She is interested in the fractured narratives that shape the culture of contemporary everyday life. Working mainly through a process of bricolage, she creates sculptural works and installations that explore the tensions around concepts of the natural and the artificial.

Dried potatoes, vegetable oil, corn flour, wheat starch, maltodextrin, mono- and diglycerides, water, salt, rice flour, citric acid, may contain dextrose.

Ken Nicol studied at several institutions before giving up on any kind of diploma. He currently works in his Toronto studio surrounded by old typewriters, clocks and broken things.

He is represented by MKG127, Toronto.

Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured ^[1] is a poster project built from an ongoing series documenting alarm panels in various parts of the world. The images are based on photographs of security panels found in stores, restaurants, galleries, and museums, as well as private homes.

There is something odd about alarm panels and keypads in the way that industrial designers have attempted to harmonize their features with (what they perceive to be) contemporary home-furnishing aesthetics. Slightly futuristic in intent, the panels appear out of place and intrusive, yet the interface is meant to provide a sense of security. Ultimately I see the way we interact with these security systems as analogous to the individual’s interaction with the larger systems that govern their daily lives. Obviously, within the field of electronic security devices, that engagement is set out in specific terms and when you see one of these keypads on the wall it automatically tells you that this space that you’ve entered, if it was otherwise unclear to you, is someone’s private space. If you are viewing the keypad passively then chances are you have been invited into this space in an act of good faith or negotiated trust. If you are viewing it actively, you have ownership of this space or you’ve been entrusted with arming and disarming it so that it can be used for the purpose it was intended – or conversely, you are breaking into the space and by doing so violating the very boundary that the alarm is meant enforce.

By turning these objects into artworks I draw attention to the passive-aggressive relationships within the aesthetic components of urban spaces we negotiate everyday. These posters exist in a public forum intended for communication, yet they are mute. They occupy space and in doing so they displace the voices of others. Whether you see that as an opportunity to contemplate your own voice depends on whether you feel this public space belongs to you or not. Are you the owner or intruder?

I would like to extend a special thanks to the Toronto Arts Council for providing the support and funding necessary for this project. I would also like to thank ‘Kojo’ Boamah at FedEx Office Canada for his generous assistance as well as Monique LeBlanc, John Dube and Suzanne Carte for their help in bringing this project to life.

[1] Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not (2006)

We have relocated to serve you better is a site-specific installation consisting of two elements. The first is a sign that hangs in the window of the gallery: We have relocated to serve you better. This sign could be read as a kind of ruse (perhaps the gallery has moved?) or as a statement specifically addressing the identity of the “we” and “you” in the ongoing gentrification of Parkdale. The second element is a chain-link rental hoarding that encloses the front of the building, simultaneously framing the gallery and withholding it fully from view.

Hoarding structures are intended to enclose a construction site as a precautionary measure for the public. In preventing the public from entering or looking into the site, these structures are often similar to barricades used for crowd control. Unsurprisingly, the companies that supply hoarding structures are frequently those who provide barricades. The hoarding structure also is a reflection of areas under transition, whether under the guise of ‘urban renewal’ or ‘urban gentrification’.

Michelle McGeean is an artist who views the material properties of sculpture and printmaking in opposition to each other. As a result, her research has evolved into an interest in the relationship between the volatility of objects versus the persistence of the page. She is currently completing her MFA at The University of Western Ontario.

Crossing is a kinetic installation using two fields of lines cajoled into a moiré dance by an electric fan. Through the simplest of means (air, paper, geometry) the shop front is transformed into a dynamic beacon, invoking a sense of wonder and delight in passersby.

Andrew Jones designs furniture and lighting products, residential and commercial interiors, and commissioned designs. Jones received a Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Toronto in 1991, and a Master of Arts (Furniture) degree at the Royal College of Art, London, in 1997. He teaches at the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, and has previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Reconstruct the original context of these odd missives: a bus stop, an intersection, a sidewalk. The casual observer spots the small placard securely wired and nailed to a telephone pole. A closer look reveals the weathered image: it may be a photo of a power plant, an earthwork, a highway cloverleaf; it may be a drawing of the bones in the hand, a pair of prizefighters, the fragment of a coastline. These pictures, culled from the pages of mid-20th encyclopedias, hail the viewer — Something for you here! — and direct her to Take Notice. Of what? The notable remains of another age? Possibly. But one also imagines the observer’s eyes nervously glancing around: the lonely bus shelter, the grimy street, the boxy houses. Will these be the odds and ends documented in a future era’s archive of forgotten splendors?

If Roorda’s work seems cautionary (“take notice,” after all), one cannot claim that it is overtly political or environmentalist. There is yet beauty in these industrial fantasies… The world we have birthed is, at last, of our kind and we cannot disown it. This is why the project’s first site of installation was the cityscape, in the interstices of the built environment from which it draws its breath. So, too, the project cannot be set aside when the eye leaves the borders of the mounting paper, for the afterimage is concretely manifested in the surround-world itself. Thus, the viewer is not supplied with a clear message or a set of sensible action steps. The viewer has only been primed to observe the sky and the material world anew, with vision refreshed by its encounter with the art object. For, in the end, it is the awakened eye that is prized by this work. Only by comparing the represented world with his own original will the viewer reset the ocular circuit; only then will he truly take notice.

– Catalogue exerpt, Andrew McMurry, University of Waterloo, Department of English Language and Literature

Paul Roorda lives in Waterloo, Ontario and makes art using discarded books, vintage medical objects, and found materials. His work investigates changing belief systems, the construction of knowledge, and the practice of ritual in religion, science, medicine, and environmentalism. He has exhibited extensively including shows at the Toronto School of Theology, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and Wilfrid Laurier University. He was the Artist in Residence for the City of Kitchener in 2007 and has been the subject of an episode of “The Artist’s Life” which aired on Bravo! TV. He has been awarded grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and his work is found in numerous collections including the Donovan Collection at the University of Toronto. Paul Roorda is also on the board of directors of CAFKA, the Contemporary Art Forum of Kitchener and Area.

contact: abbasa77@gmail.com

Born in Tehran, Abbas Akhavan currently lives and works in Toronto. His practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video and performance. For the past five years, the domestic sphere has been an ongoing research in Akhavan’s work. Much of the work explores the relationship between the house and nation state and how the trauma and systemic violence enacted upon civilians can be inherited and re-enacted within the family lineage, where the home becomes a forked space between hospitality and hostility. More recent works have shifted focus onto spaces just outside the home: the garden, the backyard, and other domesticated landscapes.

Akhavan’s work has been exhibited in galleries such as Vancouver Art Gallery, Artspeak and Trinity Square Video (Canada); Kunsten Museum of Modern Art (Denmark); Le Printemps de septembre a Toulouse (France); Botkryka Konsthall (Sweden); and Third Line (Dubai, UAE). Recent residencies include Fundatcion Marcelino Botin with Mona Hatoum, (Spain); Axenéo7 and Video In (Canada); and the Delfina foundation residency (Dubai). Currently Akhavan is preparing for a group show at Belvedere Museum (Austria), with upcoming solo exhibitions at Artspeak, Modern Fuel, Peel art gallery and The Darling Foundry (Canada).

Abbas Akhavan is represented by The Third Line.

contact: info@kristenpeterson.ca

Waiting Room creates space using linear perspective and relationships of size and tone. The drawing is an abstraction: part diagram and part recollection. Walking along the street, you might look into the space, notice its shapes and colours, ponder its significance, perhaps shake your fist. Maybe you ignore it altogether. But some will imagine being behind the glass, lit by the 24-hour glow of a low-watt bulb, observed and unable to leave.

Kristen Peterson works primarily in installation, creating site-specific drawings on buildings that explore how we create and perceive space. Her first permanent installation, commissioned by the TTC, is at the Russell Hill Road transit shelter on the St. Clair West streetcar line. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from McGill University and a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto.