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Activities

Cultivating Legibilities of Disagreement with The Department of Unusual Certainties, Pamila Matharu and Public Studio

Sunday, October 14, 2018
 | 2:00 pm
 – 4:00 pm 
 | Free

2 pm-4 pm
All ages welcome
Free courtesy of TD Bank Group (no registration required)
Floor 4
Please arrive 15 minutes early

The Department of Unusual Certainties, Pamila Matharu, Public Studio explore disagreement in different disciplines including urban geographies, pedagogy, and architecture.

Rehearsing Disagreement

Hiba Abdallah and Justin Langlois Rehearsing Disagreement is the first project in MOCA’s Art in Use series on MOCA’s Floor 4. The project comprises of four participatory works that explore disagreement and conflict through the lens of art and within the structure of museum. Inviting visitors to share their lived experiences, the artists present the argument that co-existing in difference is a generative part of our civic responsibility.

As an extension to their project a weekend program, Cultivating Legibilities of Disagreement, features participatory activities, talks, and workshops that frame the question: how does disagreement play a useful role in our everyday? By identifying the positive effects of differences, participants can develop the skill of agreeing to disagree.

 

Biographies

The Department of Unusual Certainties is a multi-disciplinary studio who designs a collaborative process for engagement, communication and education. In 2010, DOUC started as a result of a shared need to ask questions about our everyday existence. This curiosity continues to grow and has manifested over the years through projects that traverse urban design, public art, education, cartography and social engagement.

Pamila Matharu (Birmingham, UK, 1973- ) is an immigrant-settler with an interdisciplinary practice as an artist, educator, and cultural producer. She engages close readings of gaps, omissions and fissures of the unexamined intersectional life and the everyday. A graduate of Visual Arts and Fine Arts Education from York University (2002), she’s been grant recipient from the Toronto, Ontario and Canada Art Councils and continues to contribute to Toronto artist-run culture community for over the past 24 years; that has primarily focused on artist-run cultural production, advocacy, and art-worlding. Her upcoming solo show One of These Things are Not Like the Other, debuts at A Space Gallery, March 15 – April 20, 2019.

Public Studio is the collective art practice of filmmaker Elle Flanders and architect Tamira Sawatzky. Public Studio creates large-scale public artworks, lens-based works, films, and immersive installations, which focus on conflict and landscape in the everyday.

Hiba Abdallah is a text-based artist who often works with others to develop public installations, projects, and exhibitions about the narratives of place. Abdallah’s work cultivates a playful yet reverent sense of community that seeks to foster collective public imagination.

Justin Langlois is an artist, organizer, and currently an Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Integrated Learning in the Faculty of Culture + Community at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. His practice explores collaborative structures, critical pedagogy, and custodial frameworks as tools for gathering, learning, and making.

 

Accessibility:

MOCA Toronto is a barrier-free and accessible museum for all. We are located on the first five floors of the Tower Automotive Building, with elevators serving each floor. The museum has wheelchair and stroller parking as well as two walkers and wheelchairs available onsite for use. If you have other needs we should know about, contact us at info@moca.ca ahead of time to make any arrangements.

 

Image Credit: Hiba Abdallah and Justin Langlois, Failing is a Matter of Perspective – Rehearsing Disagreement Commission, 2018. Courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.

Venue Information

MOCA Toronto

158 Sterling Rd
Toronto, ON  M6R 2B7
Canada