PAST EXHIBITION
SPACE: Joi T. Arcand
17 November 2018 - 23 March 2019
Opening Reception 1 January 1970 12am
It would be good if they were able to speak, were the words spoken in Plains Cree by Augustine Arcand, Joi T. Arcand’s grandmother. The concern is emotionally present within the connotation of her words. Augustine Arcand sees the need for the young to know their language, to inhabit their words, to feel the community […]
PAST EXHIBITION
Bahar Noorizadeh: governance machines and the future of futures
17 November 2018 - 19 January 2019
Opening Reception 16 November 2018 7pm
Mercer Union is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Bahar Noorizadeh whose engaging, multi-layered film and video works use speculation and phantasmic computer-generated imagery to collide and reframe disparate histories. Her first solo exhibition in Canada premieres her newest works Ultima Ratio Δ Mountain of the Sun (2017) and After Scarcity (2018). In Ultima Ratio […]
PAST EXHIBITION
SPACE: Joi T. Arcand
14 September 2018 - 3 November 2018
Opening Reception 14 September 2018 7pm
kiya itako (be you) presents two mirrored Nēhiyawēwin (Plains Cree) phrases written in syllabics. One phrase, set atop a prairie sky, is installed outside of MOCA Toronto; the other, on a childhood photograph of Arcand, is installed outside Mercer Union. The two sentences come from words spoken by Joi T. Arcand’s mentors, offering contradictory descriptions […]
PAST EXHIBITION
The Fine Thread of Deviation
Anne Low & Evan Calder Williams
15 September 2018 - 3 November 2018
Opening Reception 14 September 2018 7pm
The silkworm has long been reared commercially for the production of silk fibre; their cocoons are naturally spun white and later dyed into a variety of colours. In 2011, researchers in Singapore developed a technique of adding a chemical dye known as Rhodamine B into the diet of silkworms, producing cocoons of brightly coloured silk […]
PAST EXHIBITION
Michèle Pearson Clarke: What We Owe To Each Other
26 June 2018 - 7 August 2018
Opening Reception 1 January 1970 12am
In a November 2017 interview, Mia Mingus, cofounder of the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, ends by saying, “people talk about [transformative justice] as though it’s ‘soft’ [but] it’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do.” What We Owe To Each Other is a public research project in which Michèle Pearson Clarke is trying […]
PAST EXHIBITION
RAGGA NYC
Michèle Pearson Clarke, Martine Gutierrez, Oreka James, Aaron Jones, Tau Lewis, Sondra Perry, Diamond Stingily, Camille Turner, Christopher Udemezue, Syrus Marcus Ware
22 June 2018 - 11 August 2018
Opening Reception 21 June 2018 7pm
RAGGA NYC is a growing collective of Queer Caribbean artists and allies. Founded by Christopher Udemezue (Neon Christina), the group was created to make space for and nurture ties amongst a group of artists who feel a deep commitment to their ancestral and diasporic histories. Working across various disciplines, ranging from visual art and poetry […]
PAST EXHIBITION
Sophia Al Maria: Black Friday
Sophia Al Maria
13 April 2018 - 2 June 2018
Opening Reception 12 April 2018 7pm
Sophia Al Maria’s exhibition Black Friday foregrounds the artist’s ongoing investigation into the accelerated development of the Gulf Nations and the sobering signs of a hyper-capitalist future to come. The large scale single-channel video installation Black Friday (2016) features hypnotic renderings of Qatari shopping malls that are often distorted and refracted, creating a dizzying disorientation […]
PAST EXHIBITION
Common Cause: before and beyond the global
Fayçal Baghriche, Sandra Brewster, David Hartt, Jeneen Frei Njootli
Curated by Denise Ryner
16 February 2018 - 24 March 2018
Opening Reception 16 February 2018 7pm
Common Cause: before and beyond the global What’s left is politics but even the politics of the commons, of the resistance to enclosure, can only be a politics of ends, a rectitude aimed at the regulatory end of the common. And even when the election that was won turns out to have been lost, and […]