Akin Gallery Crawl: Toronto Art Book Week - Saturday June 17 - FREE!

Saturday June 17 /  Meet at The Public at 12:30pm - 58 Lansdowne Ave. / FREE & family friendly

Akin Projects and The Toronto Art Book Fair invite you to attend a special edition of the Akin Gallery Crawl. Join us as we visit galleries and spaces that are showcasing and celebrating artists' books and printed matter featuring highlights from Toronto Art Book Week. Everyone welcome!

1. Meet at The Public at 12:30pm. (58 Lansdowne Ave)

2. Visit Xpace Cultural Centre (303 Lansdowne Ave, Unit 2)

3. Visit Souvenir Studios (1232 College Street)

4. Visit Akin Lansdowne for a studio tour followed by a visit to Towards Gallery (87 Wade Ave)

5. Visit Akin Dupont(1485 Dupont St) and view the Akin Vitrine Gallery with artist talk by Laura Kay Keeling

6. Anyone with energy left is encouraged to visit Zalucky Contemporary (3044 Dundas St West) for the book launch for "Some Theories" by Kathryn Mockler and David Poolman. Please note this is not an official stop on the Akin Gallery Crawl but is about a 20 minute walk from our final stop at Akin Dupont.

(Those without the energy for Zalucky Contemporary can join the rest of us on a nearby patio for a drink!)

Map of our route: http://tinyurl.com/mrj9o6k
Map of our route with optional final stop: http://tinyurl.com/k8uujg4

About Toronto Art Book Week
Art book week is a series of city wide events that parallel the Toronto Art Book Fair. Art book week features project launches, performances, talks, pop-up exhibitions, and screenings throughout toronto. The goal of art book week is to bring attention to new and exciting artist’s book projects as well as increase the visibility of toronto’s art publishing community. For more information visit: www.torontoartbookfair.com/art-book-week

RSVP on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/128383227716708

'High-Rise' by Jessica Thalmann in the Akin Vitrine Gallery

The Akin Vitrine Gallery launched on October 1, 2016 at our Dupont studios. This miniature gallery features the diverse talent of our members with a new installation each month.

Our current exhibition running for the month of May, features new work by Akin Lansdowne member, Jessica Thalmann.

“These people were content with their environment, and felt no particular objection to an impersonal steel and concrete landscape, no qualms about the invasion of their privacy by government agencies and organizations, and if anything welcoming these intrusions, using them for their own purposes. These people were the first to master a new kind of 20th century life. They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never disappointed.”
– JG Ballard

High-Rise is a site-specific installation of hand-folded archival pigment prints investigating the exploding steel and glass landscape of downtown Toronto as a veritable condoland converges onto the apex of the city. The strange lives of condo-dwellers seem at once compact, luxurious and quietly desperate as reflected sunlight bounces between glass curtain walls, almost folding one unit onto one another, never knowing where one begins or ends.

Photographs of glass condos are folded using a special Miura pattern named for its inventor Japanese astrophysicist Koryo Miura. A Miura fold can be packed into a compact shape, and unfurled in a single motion. This pattern has even been used in solar panel arrays for space satellites in the Japanese space program have been Miura folded before launch and then spread out in space.

Jessica Thalmann is an artist, curator and writer currently based in Toronto and New York City. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard College and a BFA in Visual Arts from York University. She has worked at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, Toronto International Film Festival, C Magazine, the Art Gallery of York University and Yossi Milo Gallery. She has shown at various venues in Toronto, Vancouver and New York City including the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Flash Forward 2010, Whippersnapper Gallery, Nuit Blanche, the Artist Project, VIVO Media Arts Center, Aperture Foundation, the International Centre of Photography, Photoville, the Camera Club of New York and Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair.

High-Rise, 2017
Folded Archival Pigment Prints
dimensions variable

The gallery is located at the Clock Factory Building at 1485 Dupont Street (entrance on Campbell Avenue). Find Akin Studio 215 on the second floor and follow the sign into the hallway around the corner. The building is open from 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, or to arrange a viewing outside of those hours please contact the artist: jessica.thalmann@gmail.com

www.jessicathalmann.com
Instagram: @jessthalmann1
#AkinVitrine

Akin Vitrine Gallery March installation - 'Light Bath' by Adria Mirabelli of Akin Dupont

New work from Akin Dupont member, Adria Mirabelli launches on March 1 in the Akin Vitrine Gallery. Her installation seeks to be a space of visual escape and an affirmation of the importance of self-care.

'Light Bath'
Hand cut vinyl, hardware, LED lights
dimensions variable

This exhibition runs March 1-31 at the Akin Vitrine Gallery.

On view 24/7, time is an entity of interest inside a vitrine space. The vitrine offers a brief escape into another world- one whose welcome extends as long as the viewer chooses to stand in front of it. Winter can feel long and relentless and it is during these months that we often consider time with a heightened awareness. The days are shorter, and we desperately try to hold onto the light that leaves us. Cut from white vinyl, sprawling floral drawings fill the vitrine space with motifs of St. Johns wort, lavender flowers, wild roses, peonies and hemp leaves which are often regarded for their healing properties in combatting anxiety, depression and restlessness. The drawings are projected with soft beams of coloured light, which are controlled on site through Adria’s iPhone, changing in colour throughout the month.

About the Artist:
Adria Mirabelli graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2015 with a major in Drawing and Painting and minor in Fibre. Having also studied at Parsons Paris, her work is influenced by craft and design processes. Her practice is driven by an experimental approach to mark-making whereby she integrates textile manipulation processes with drawing to create large scale works on silk, felt, vinyl and paper. Adria has created site specific installations at Gallery 1313, Xpace Cultural Centre, Artscape Youngplace, the Artist Project 2017 and was a resident at The Roundtable Residency in 2015. She lives and works in Toronto.

The Akin Vitrine Gallery is located at the Clock Factory Building at 1485 Dupont Street (entrance on Campbell Avenue). Find Akin Studio 215 on the second floor and follow the sign into the hallway around the corner.

The building is open from 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, or to arrange a viewing outside of those hours please contact the artist: adria.mirabelli@gmail.com

www.adriamirabelli.com
Instagram: @adriamirabelli
#AkinVitrine