Friday, April 1 at 3:00 p.m.
Join video curators Rebecca Garrett and b.h. Yael for a conversation discussing the intricacies of Wendy Coburn’s video works.
Pre-registration required. Click here to register.*
*Please note that this is an in-person event.*
About the curators:
b.h. Yael is a filmmaker and installation artist. She is Professor of Integrated Media at OCAD University and past Chair of Senate. Yael’s work has exhibited nationally and internationally and has shown in various settings, from festivals to galleries to community and activist groups, as well as various educational venues. Her work has been purchased by many universities and she is a recipient of numerous arts grants including the Chalmers Fellowship award.
Yael's films and installations have dealt with the many intersections of identity and family (Fresh Blood) and have focused on activist initiatives in Palestine/Israel (Palestine Trilogy and other works), as well as apocalypse, geopolitical and environmental urgencies (Trading the Future). Yael has also worked collaboratively with Johanna Householder (Approximations) and in collectives such as Spontaneous Combustion, Hardpressed Collective and BlahBlahBlah’s Re(viewing) Quebec. Yael has programmed arts lectures and media screenings including Art Creates Change, and she occasionally writes, currently completing a family memoir.
Rebecca Garrett is a Toronto-based artist whose use of media is situation-specific. Since graduating from the Ontario College of Art in 1981, Garrett has been exhibiting film and video installations; photo-based wall pieces; mixed media and performative interventions; site-specific installations; and single channel videos, in numerous venues in Canada and abroad.
Garrett’s works explore experimental formal concerns and are committed to the evolution of an alternative and innovative image language. These concerns are located and challenged by the indexical nature of the sign and the documentary traditions and responsibilities of varied social and political contexts. Many of her works can be seen as investigations of the effects of structures of containment or control—such as architecture, colonialism or global media—on perception, psychic and cultural survival, and knowledge production.
Garrett has worked collaboratively and/or collectively with many groups and individuals in Canada, the USA, Zimbabwe, Kenya and the UK. Her work expresses a long commitment to naming economic, colonial and social injustices, and building relations of exchange and reciprocity.
Fable for Tomorrow: A Survey of Works by Wendy Coburn
Curated by Andrea Fatona and Caroline Seck Langill with video programming by b.h. Yael and Rebecca Garrett
Core exhibition of the CONTACT Photography Festival; originally planned for the annual Festival in May 2020, this exhibition has been rescheduled due to COVID-19.
Wendy Coburn had significant impact on the Canadian art community as an artist, educator and activist who has exhibited internationally. Fable for Tomorrow presents the first survey of Wendy Coburn’s artwork. The exhibition provides an opportunity to bring together four decades of sculpture, installation, photography and video that reveals her ability to sense the pulse of a deep present while asking us to pay attention to other futures. Coburn’s work explores representations of gender, sexualities, everyday objects, material culture, and human/animal relations. Click here for full exhibition information.
The Estate of Wendy Coburn is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto.
Wendy Coburn’s video works are represented by Vtape, please contact distribution@vtape.org for exhibitions, rentals and purchase.
Onsite Gallery is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD U and an experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media. Visit our website for upcoming public events. The gallery is located at 199 Richmond St. W, Toronto, ON, M5V 0H4. Telephone: 416-977-6000, ext. 265. Opening hours are: Wednesdays to Fridays from noon to 7 p.m.; Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Free admission. Proof of vaccination is required for entry.
Onsite Gallery acknowledges that the new gallery construction project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's Canada Cultural Spaces Fund at Canadian Heritage, the City of Toronto through a Section 37 agreement and Aspen Ridge Homes; with gallery furniture by Nienkämper. Onsite Gallery logo by Dean Martin Design.