A cultural platform for exploring critical ideas of our time through art and dialogue.

EVENT POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE. In light of the provincial re-opening announcement from the Ontario government, we have decided to postpone this event, originally scheduled for May 26.

We hope to be able to confirm a new date later this summer, closer to the opening of Sameer Farooq's exhibition, A Heap of Random Sweepings.

A double-bill screening featuring a video tour of Sameer Farooq’s exhibition A Heap of Random Sweepings, followed by A Movement Response to A Heap of Random Sweepings, directed by Julia Hendrickson, choreographed and performed by Camille Rojas.

Sameer Farooq, Julia Hendrickson and Camille Rojas will introduce their work, then engage in discussion and audience Q&A after the screening.

A Heap of Random Sweepings | 7 minutes
Exhibition: Sameer Farooq
Video Production: Thomas Bollmann & Ingrid Jones / Seed9
Sound Composition: Gabie Strong
Installation Poetry: Jared Stanley

This video tour leads audiences through A Heap of Random Sweepings, an immersive installation of new and recent sculptural, photo and print works articulating a deeply poetic reflection on the fraught and violent histories of encyclopaedic museum collections, their colonial origins, structures and impulses. Mining the possibilities offered by sustained engagement, Farooq invites us to envision what the museum might become through the mechanics of restitution, what it may shift to collect and document, and what kind of experiences it could nurture.

A Movement Response to A Heap of Random Sweepings | 7 minutes
Directed by: Julia Hendrickson
Choreographed and performed by: Camille Rojas

Historically, museological institutions have acted as the authority in creating and disseminating narratives around the objects and artifacts housed within their walls, often disregarding the empirical and omitting information regarding the true and violent ways in which they were acquired. Sameer Farooq’s installation envisions how museums might be transformed through the process of restitution, leaving room for sustained contemplation and alternate stories to be told. If the contents of museum collections were repatriated, what traces might be left behind? What new experiences could inhabit these emptied spaces? A Movement Response to a Heap of Random Sweepings provides video documentation of one dancer's physical response to spending time in the presence of the artworks as well as the absences they evoke.

Camille: The ask from my body was to slow down, contemplate and try to imagine what it would feel like if the works imprinted itself on my skin. Seeking cues from the crevices, holes and spaces between myself and the works, I began a slow study in collaboration with Julia to get to know the works better, with respect to the auras they emitted. The contemplation continues in my body even after leaving the space, the memory of investigating the small crevices and details of each work still very much alive.

Julia: Sometimes Camille’s movements rhymed with lines, or echoed gaps and holes in the pieces. I found myself asking questions in my head that I didn’t necessarily want an answer for, or to be acted out. “Can she make a circle with her body?” kept going through my mind. There was a real excitement to shooting through the work, reflecting off it, and even touching or moving it...which felt like we were doing something forbidden. With most of the pieces in the exhibition being on wheels, the suggestion of movement is really present.

Presented in conjunction with Sameer Farooq: A Heap of Random Sweepings, Koffler Gallery, Opening Spring 2021.

Sameer Farooq is a Canadian artist of Pakistani and Ugandan Indian descent. His interdisciplinary practice investigates tactics of representation and enlists the tools of sculpture, installation, photography, documentary filmmaking, writing and the methods of anthropology to explore various forms of collecting, interpreting, and display. The result is often a collaborative work which counterbalances how dominant institutions speak about our lives: a counter-archive, new additions to a museum collection, or a buried history made visible. With exhibitions at institutions around the world including the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto), the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), The British Library (London), the Institute of Islamic Culture (Paris), Vicki Myhren Gallery (Denver), the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Maquis Projects, (Izmir), Trankat (Tétouan, Morocco), Sol Koffler Gallery (Providence), Artellewa (Cairo), and Sanat Limani (Istanbul), Farooq received several awards from The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and the Europe Media Fund, as well the President’s Scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design. Reviews and essays dedicated to his work have been included in C Magazine, The Washington Post, BBC Culture, Hyperallergic, Artnet, The Huffington Post, Canadian Art, and others. He also appeared on the 2018 Sobey Art Award long list, Canada’s preeminent art award.

Camille Rojas (b. 1993 Toronto; lives and works in Toronto) is a multidisciplinary artist working with film, photography and dance. Her work uses movement as the primary vehicle to dissect ideas and emotions. Recent interests include art economics, stock market drama and computer vision science. She holds a BFA in Photography from Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts (2017).

Julia Hendrickson is a lens based artist who sometimes makes film installations, sometimes makes documentaries, sometimes makes photographs, sometimes makes music videos and sometimes does cinematography.

Mutual Arrangements (postponed)

Photos