ASMA, "Instar" (detail), 2019, Foami, resin, volcanic sand, cement (water, aquatic moss as part of installation), 11" x 13" x 6 1/2". Courtesy of the artist.

ASMA, "Instar" (detail), 2019, Foami, resin, volcanic sand, cement (water, aquatic moss as part of installation), 11" x 13" x 6 1/2". Courtesy of the artist.

Laurie Kang, “Barre”, 2015, Aluminum, pigmented silicone, steel, 120" x 36" x 48". 
Courtesy of the artist and Franz Kaka, Toronto.

Laurie Kang, “Barre”, 2015, Aluminum, pigmented silicone, steel, 120" x 36" x 48". Courtesy of the artist and Franz Kaka, Toronto.

Tanya Lukin Linklater
“Hands”, 2011
Video still, 0:52 min video on loop, HD video
Projection surface: 1’4” x 2’4”, height: 3’6”
Courtesy of the artist and Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver.

Tanya Lukin Linklater “Hands”, 2011 Video still, 0:52 min video on loop, HD video Projection surface: 1’4” x 2’4”, height: 3’6” Courtesy of the artist and Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver.

Room 1

Chris Andrews (Curator)

+ Laurie Kang /

Tanya Lukin Linklater /

Lila de Magalhaes /

ASMA /

Nona Inescu

You Sit in a Garden

EXHIBITION /
April 1st to May 1st, 2021

+

OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION
BY RESERVATION /
THURSDAY, APRIL 1ST, 6 to 9 PM
- 20 people max/hour - 
(reservation link below) 

+

ONLINE CURATOR TALK /
TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 5 to 7 PM
(ZOOM LINK BELOW)

Dear visitor,

Welcome to our shrouded backyard, this garden filled with holes. It was aerated earlier: the earth turned inside out. Now it sits in small amulets across the lawn, left permeable.

Do you remember where they hosted that birthday dinner in the terrace garden? This is that garden, and that, this. But more disabled, ill, and hopefully, more optimistic.

Besides rearranging the objects in our studio, most free time gets divided between having the computer read to us, researching molds and their favourite meals, and organizing a prospective garden. Our garden. Where would you sit? Where would I sit? What would we plant? Would we still grow in the shade? What would it sound like to sit there in April?

You sit by yourself amidst the foliage that would grow to surround you, palming each leaf.  
"I hope we can find a spot for the clothesline that you have spoken of so fondly, from which our heirlooms hang."

As I fact-checked all of last month's sweet letters, I wished for the gift of slowness as I lay sun-kissed and let all my hair fall out. Thin, to become unrecognizable from part of the branch, and let the leaves grow over.

You have to know that when this garden was conceived, I had been walking barefoot on a reflexology footpath in the early morning; a circular path with stones protruding from its concrete floor.

After stripping off my shoes and socks, I carefully put one foot down after the other onto the stones. They pushed back like they were trying to tell me something – offered themselves as a gift to each bone that inhabits the foot. Are there 72 of them?

Some stones were sharp, some smooth, some slippery like otters. They embodied, circulated.  There was a summer morning dew, and I was looking for some healing. This was a couple of years ago, and I’m doing a little better now, but I wanted that experience for us in the gallery, still.

I propose this space as a sensory garden; little pieces of the footpath evaporated and distilled. When ASMA shared the installation notes for their work, they noted that I may have to shop for some algae to place in their sculpture’s bowl. I could not think of anything more fitting, nor more pleasant for an afternoon errand. “Of course I will tend to the garden!” and aerate it once again.

-------

Each artwork here proposes a way to live, with its own ontology, and I take notes from every one: Lila de Magalhaes’ porous painting invites us to remain open and vulnerable; Laurie Kang’s “Barre” is simultaneously structured and malleable, reminiscent of a fleshy spine; Nona Inescu and Tanya Lukin Linklater suggest the multiplicity of meaning hands hold and their seemingly infinite gestures. These works present the body’s overwhelming capacity for potential, both for things that propose to harm (illness, infection, disability), and those that support (health care systems, healing touches, assistive technologies).

The bodies here seek to slip past definability, collapse the culturally and socially produced definitions of what constitutes a proper body. How do we expand the biopolitical fold? How do we dismantle it? Does our ever-increasing participation as digital citizens free us from the struggles of the biological body? A compromised immune system, a disability, cast-off with a new identity based on our browsing habits? Am I still disabled online? I ache to slip through the screen. The tactile skin of the image grabs me through the screen, calls me into its sensuous world where this garden does, in fact, live.

The Twitter bot wrote it better than I could ever say it to you: “You sit in an amorphous garden broadly on an enclosure. (...) You think about giving it a name.”
- garden experiencebot (@gardenexperienc)          

- Chris Andrews

 


BIOS 

CURATOR

Chris Andrews
(b. 1994) is a curator and artist living and working in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). His practice examines biopolitics, materials, debility, and their intersection with animacy. He holds a BFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University.

 

ARTISTS

Laurie Kang
(b. 1985, Toronto) holds an MFA from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College. She works in photography, sculpture, installation, and video. She has exhibited at SculptureCenter, Interstate Projects, Cue Art Foundation (New York); Oakville Galleries (Oakville); The Power Plant, Franz Kaka, Cooper Cole, Gallery TPW, and Carl Louie (Toronto); Remai Modern (Saskatoon); Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran and L’inconnue (Montréal); Raster Gallery (Warsaw); and Camera Austria (Graz). Artist residencies include Rupert (Vilnius); Tag Team (Bergen); The Banff Centre (Alberta); Triangle Studios and Interstate Projects (Brooklyn). Kang lives and works in Toronto and is represented by Franz Kaka. She is currently studying Chinese Medicine towards certifications as an acupuncturist. 

Tanya Lukin Linklater's performances in museums, videos, and installations have been shown in Canada and abroad including at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019; EFA Project Space + Performa, New York; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; and elsewhere. Tanya studied at the University of Alberta (M.Ed.) and Stanford University (A.B. Honours). She is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, Kingston. In 2018, Tanya was chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Wanda Koop Research Fund. Her collection of poetry, Slow Scrape, was released by The Centre for Expanded Poetics and Anteism in fall 2020. Tanya originates from the Native Villages of Afognak and Port Lions in southwestern Alaska, and lives and works in Nbisiing Anishinabek territory northern Ontario.

Lila de Magalhaes (b. 1986, Rio de Janeiro) lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles; and a BA from The Glasgow School of Art, UK. Her recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Palace of Errors at Deli Gallery, Motorfruit at Blood Gallery, (New York); Cupid of Chaos at Ghebaly Gallery, A Soft Flea at Mutt. R, Remote Control at Abode (Los Angeles); Exhibition (10) at SPF15 (San Diego). She has also appeared in numerous group exhibitions, including at Porch Gallery (Ojai); Company Gallery (New York); Freedman Fitzpatrick, ltd los Angeles, François Ghebaly, Steve Turner, 356 Mission (Los Angeles); PANE Project (Milan) and Julius Caesar (Chicago). She is represented by Deli Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

ASMA (Matias Armendaris and Hanya Belia) is an artist duo based in Mexico City. They hold an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, as well as a BFA in Visual Arts from the Facultad de Artes y Diseño – UNAM, Mexico City. The duo has exhibited internationally, including at The Chicago Artist Coalition; Gallery A.M.180, Prague; Embajada, San Juan; Galería Sankovsky, São Paulo; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito; XIV Bienal de Cuenca; DiabloRosso Gallery, Panama City; Galería CURRO, Guadalajara; PEANA, Monterrey; and Make Room, Los Angeles. They received the Premio Brasil Award to do a residency at Pivô Arte e Pesquisa in São Paulo.

Nona Inescu (b. 1991, Bucharest) studied at Chelsea College of Arts & Design in London (2009–2010), the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (2010–2011), and at the National University of Arts in Bucharest (Photography and Video Department), where she graduated in 2016. Her art practice is interdisciplinary and encompasses photography, objects, installations, and video works. Inescu has exhibited internationally at Tallinn Art Hall (Tallinn, Estonia); Hua International and Savvy Contemporary (Berlin, Germany); SpazioA (Pistoia, Italy); Künstlerhaus Bremen (Bremen, Germany); Kunst im Tunnel (KIT) (Dusseldorf, Germany); Swimming Pool Projects (Sofia, Bulgaria); FRAC des Pays de la Loire, (Carquefou, France); Art Encounters Biennal (Timișoara, Romania); Survival Kit 9 (Riga, Latvia); Kunstverein (Nuremberg, Germany). Inescu lives and works in Bucharest, Romania.

 

The curator would like to thank Centre CLARK, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, all of the participating artists and The Jenna Morrison Reflexology Footpath. 


Centre CLARK’s 2021 cultural mediation program, which includes this exhibition’s artist talk, is supported by Ubisoft, Business/Arts, and Canadian Heritage.