Come Up To My Room - Emmie Tsumura

There are only a couple of days left to check out Come Up To My Room at the Gladstone Hotel, featuring Akin MOCA member Emmie Tsumura!

The historic spaces of the Gladstone Hotel come alive with site-specific art and design installations! Walk into a universe of art and design at Come Up To My Room (CUTMR) 2020, the Gladstone Hotel’s annual 4-day alternative design exhibition running from January 16-19. Find out what happens when art and design intersect through site-specific installations, within the walls of a historic hotel. Visitors can explore, discover and engage in conversation with the artists on site throughout the festival. Different from our 37 permanent artist-designed hotel rooms (some of which will also be on display!), CUTMR presents temporary projects that occupy and alter spaces in dramatic, conceptual and experimental ways.

CUTMR is curated by artist, not project, giving artists the opportunity to take risks and explore their wildest dreams! Nobody (including the curators) will know what the exhibition will look like until it’s installed the day before!

Emmie Tsumura, an Akin MOCA member, is a multidisciplinary artist and graphic designer. She explores the boundaries of communication, and the intersections of diasporic memory, consumption & the human condition. 

Light is Magnetic - Tonya Hart

Light is Magnetic

Jan 17 – Jan 26 2020

“Light is energy. It encompasses a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation much of which exists beyond our visible experience. This is the light that can not be seen manifest in radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma rays. My art is inspired by the physics of light as I seek to find ways to portray energy. ‘Light is Magnetic’ is an exhibition that brings together my recent experiments in light sculpture. It will include sculptures that integrate light or reflective elements with other conceptual pieces that explore the connection between light and energy.” - Tonya Hart, Akin MOCA artist

Traverse waves of electric and magnetic fields are the dynamic forces that make up light. In this sculpture they are called loops or static light. The light that is incorporated into these works serves to illuminate energy and the dynamic pathways of electric and magnetic fields. Magnetic fields are, by their nature, invisible yet abound in our natural and artificial environment through the earth’s constant geomagnetic presence and barrage of technology, cell phones and personal devices that all emit magnetic fields. Recent advances in science have deepened our understanding of magnetism to embrace radical geometries and dynamism as the language of nature and technology.

Image source: DesignTO

‘Light is Magnetic’ exhibition will showcase works that animate magnetic fields and explore alternate geometries in a solid, static state. Sculptures in the exhibition will include variations of ‘Static Light’ that debut in the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2018.

This project is part of the King East Design District (KEDD). Several receptions, talks, and events will be happening for KEDD Night on Monday, January 20, 6-9pm.

Tonya Hart studied at York University in Toronto and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts, Visual Arts degree in 1998. Her artwork draws inspiration from nature, science and light with a focus on portraying magnetism. Nature and magnetism have manifest in a vast array of articulations in her artwork and continues to facilitate the conceptual nature of her work.

An Index: Exhibition of Artists from the Akin Studio Program at MOCA

An Index
July 25 - September 8, 2019
Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada - Floor 4

An Index Opening Reception
Wednesday, July 24, 6-9pm
Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada - Floor 4

The exhibition, An Index, exposes work by the first cohort of residency artists who entered Akin’s Studio Program in September 2018. While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within Akin’s open-plan studio structure for the last nine months.

To find common points of departure for an exhibition, MOCA has invited curators Marsya Maharani and Marjan Verstappen, associated with the Younger than Beyoncé Gallery, to work with the 24 participating artists. The curators’ proposal, An Index, speaks to process and production, to the varied artistic approaches found within one context and the relationships built through this programme.

Left: Photo of artist Samar Hejazi. Photo by Shannon McClatchey. Right: Adria Mirabelli’s studio. Courtesy of the artist.

Taking their inspiration from Akin’s residency at MOCA, in the former Tower Automotive building, Maharani and Verstappen drew on the site’s history as a car parts factory and also a venue for raves and artist studios. “Throughout the past year, the fourth floor of MOCA served to extend this legacy by opening space for studios, residencies, as well as programmes exploring art’s utilitarian role in contemporary society,” they explained.

“In the context of the site’s histories, this exhibition features works by artists who have produced within this space as part of the inaugural Akin Studio Program. An Index makes visible the labours of artistic creation through an open and honest charting of the processes, challenges, delights, and failures of making art in the city.”

The exhibition comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by:

Adria Mirabelli, Carrie Chisholm, David Constantino Salazar, Emily Woudenberg, Emma White, Eva Kolcze, Helen Liene Dreifelds, Humboldt Magnussen, Jennifer Dany Aubé, Jessica Thalmann, Jieun June Kim, Leone McComas, Liang Wang, Maren Boedeker, Nuff, Polymetis, Raoul Olou, Raquel Da Silva, Samar Hejazi, Sara Mozafari, Stephanie Avery, Su Bin Ee, Tanya Louise Workman, and Walter Segers.

Over the next couple of months, Akin will be sharing profiles on our blog of all of the artists from Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA. Click here to see the most recent posts in the Akin MOCA Series.

Photo of artist Leone McComas. Photo by Jessica Thalmann

Accessibility
MOCA Toronto aims to be a barrier-free and accessible museum for all. Each floor has elevator access. Two wheelchairs that are available to borrow. Service animals are welcome.

MOCA Artist Series: Stephanie Avery, Raquel Da Silva and Jieun June Kim

There are only three months left in Year 1 of the Akin Studio Program at MOCA , a unique studio residency program in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada.

Akin is honored to have a remarkable group of artists as a part of our inaugural cohort and are excited to profile them here on our blog over the next few months. Today we are happy to share profiles of three of the Year 1 artists, Stephanie Avery, Raquel Da Silva and Jieun June Kim. You can click here to see all the blog posts in the MOCA Artist Series.

Photo source: www.instagram.com/stephvonawesome

Stephanie Avery

Stephanie Avery is a Toronto-based artist. Focusing on themes of play, discovery, identity and memory, Stephanie uses humour and absurdity to intervene with familiar objects and imagery to give them new meanings and narratives. Her goal is to inspire new perspectives and initiate critical dialogue about elements of contemporary culture that are often taken for granted.

www.stephanieavery.com
www.instagram.com/stephvonawesome

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Photo source: www.instagram.com/raquelnaia

Raquel Da Silva

Raquel Da Silva is a Toronto based artist, working primarily with painting and installation. Raquel has been able to combine her interests of street art, animation and acrylic painting to develop her current visual language. Da Silva's current work is an exploration of how 2 and 3 dimensional forms and shapes work together to create an environment. She uses unconventional characters and shapes as the representational figures of our environments, and how they can coexist with one another in one space. The works involve alternative color palettes and shaped canvases to allow the surface, colors and composition to work with one another to deliver the message of unity in space through shape and form.

www.raqueldasilva.com
www.instagram.com/raquelnaia

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Photo source: www.instagram.com/junekima.rt

Jieun June Kim

Jieun June Kim (b. Seoul, Korea) is a painter and muralist who lives and works in Toronto. In her paintings and murals, she explores different ideas of “home” using colorful patterns and dynamic natural forms. Since she moved to Canada in 2016, her works has been shown at notable galleries and events in Toronto and she has been commissioned to paint numerous murals across GTA. Jieun is co-founder of KJ Bit Collective who create murals and street art events such as “Laneway Light Up” project (2018). She is also the recipient of the Newcomer and Refugee Artist Mentorship grant from the Toronto Arts Council (2018).

www.jieunjunekim.com
www.instagram.com/junekima.rt

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You can see work by Stephanie, Raquel, and Jieun from July 25–September 8, 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada (MOCA) as a part of An Index. The exhibition An Index comprises work in a variety of media from sculpture, to video, to new wall murals by the first cohort of Akin residency artists who entered the year-long studio programme in September 2018.

While the participating artists’ practices range widely in terms of conceptual approach, style and media; they have also been influenced to some degree by the experience of sharing and conversing within an open-plan studio structure for the last nine months. 

Join us on Wednesday July 24 for the opening reception of An Index from 6-9pm on Floor 4 of the Museum.

Akin Collective X Drake Hotel: Gallery Crawl

Join Akin Collective for an afternoon of contemporary gallery tours, talks and beers.

The group will meet at Akin Collective: 444 Dufferin Street, Unit E at 12:00PM for

FREE Kronenbourg tall cans

before heading for special tours at the following galleries:

MOCCA

Paul Petro Contemporary

 Art

Angell Gallery

Katharine Mulherin

The Hop will end with a VIP tour of the Drake Hotel's current exhibition and permanent collection with curator Mia Nielsen.

Join us afterwards in the Drake's North Lounge. $4 Mill Street pints! Bring you friends!

All are welcome.

Can't join the group until later? Call and see where we are at: 647-883-8295.