Yorkville Village Arts Festival – A collaboration between FCR and OCAD University
In the best spirit of artistic collaboration, the Yorkville Village Arts Festival is a joint initiative between First Capital Realty and Faculty of Art at OCAD University. Held annually at Yorkville Village, this cultural event showcases over 60 original contemporary art pieces created by 28 OCAD University students and recent graduates. The artists selected to exhibit at the festival were chosen through a rigorous jury process. All artworks on display will be for sale during the festival. Featured pieces include a collaborative work created by award-winning artist Hudson Christie and Jesse Ketchum Public School students. Hudson and approximately 300 students from grades three to eight were engaged to create this collaborative piece called Children’s Games (After Brueghel). Children’s Games will be available for purchase during the festival and all proceeds from this piece will go directly to Jesse Ketchum Public School.
Festival programming will include a virtual reality experience titled, Never Forget: An Architecture of Memory, a digital requiem of an archeologist’s memories in the period prior to and including World War II. A painting will also be created live onsite by Chief Lady Bird, focusing on Indigenous identity. Chief Lady Bird is an Anishinaabe artist based in Toronto and is known for her community mural projects, street art and other mixed media work responding to colonialism and violence against Indigenous bodies and the land. Additionally, artists featured in the exhibition will be in attendance on Saturday, November 4th to meet with the public to discuss their works, inspiration and creative processes.
The exhibition will be presented at the Pop Up Gallery on the upper level of Yorkville Village and programming will be open to the public during regular centre hours.
Friday, November 3: ART EXHIBITION OPENING DAY
Join curators Jennie Suddick and Vladimir Spicanovic
as they present our gallery of talented local artists.
Saturday, November 4 from 12 p.m. – 2 p.m.: VIRTUAL REALITY EXHIBIT NEVER FORGET: AN ARCHITECTURE OF MEMORY (2015-Present)
Never Forget: An Architecture of Memory is a virtual reality (VR) experience that serves as a digital form of a requiem or “sonic memorial” that “reskins” the player as an archaeologist of memories that belong to ninety-three-year-old Anna van Vliet (maiden name Schotanus). Her memories and lived experiences in the period prior to and including World War II (WWII) in the Netherlands are exhumed via the navigation and exploration of the created three-dimensional “lieux de mémoire” (memory spaces), or architecture of memory, which are contained within various rooms, spaces, environments, and objects of that particular time period.
Saturday, November 4 from 12 p.m. – 2 p.m.: MEET THE ARTISTS
Saturday, November 4 from 12 p.m. – 2 p.m.: LIVE PAINTING EVENT by Chief Lady Bird
Wednesday, November 8 Closing Day: LAST CHANCE TO EXPLORE THE ART EXHIBITION (During Yorkville Village business hours)
Featured Artists: Jana Ghalayini, Kenny Lam, Louis-Philippe Tremblay-Chapdelaine, Jasmine Cardenas, Wei Qi, John Holland, Michael Seleski, Pablo Oh, Fiona Evans, Pasi Paltanen, Quentin VerCetty (Quintin Leslie), Tia Cavanagh, Alex Wood, Kaiatanoron Bush, Simon Falk, Nicole Del Medico, Brian Harvey, David Constantino Salazar, Mike Goldby, Virginia Gail Smith, Michelle Cieloszczyk, Alex Yardley, Hudson Christie, Lindsay Kerrigan Holton, Nicholas Crombach, Rajni Perera, Vanessa Maltese, and Chief Lady Bird.The Festival welcomes all media, including painting, photography, printmaking, projections, medial installations and community intervention.
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