Eyeblink: Hashtag Solidarity

Online ticket sales are now closed. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door starting at 8 pm.
$10 General / $8 Gardiner Friends, Pleasure Dome Members, Students

Co-presented by The Rude Collective, Xpace Cultural Centre, Gardiner Museum, and Pleasure Dome

Please note: Students can use the coupon code “studenteyeblink” to receive a 20% discount on tickets. Student IDs will be checked at the door.

In support of the Gardiner Museum’s exhibition YOKO ONO: THE RIVERBED, Eyeblink is a three-part monthly screening and performance series that draws inspiration from Ono’s 1960s and 1970s filmmaking.

8 pm: Doors open
9 pm: Event starts

Hashtag Solidarity, an art party co-presented with The Rude Collective, Xpace Cultural Centre, Gardiner Museum, and Pleasure Dome, will explore the limits and effects of bourgeois activism within the arts. How do sustainable solidarity and agreeable allyship manifest in arts and culture?

Yoko Ono’s shorts, no.4, more commonly known as Bottoms, stemmed from an interest in examining the seriousness of experimental cinema, as well as its potential for humour. Ono also looked to experiment with form and rhythm, hence the close-ups of male and female buttocks. Her script read, “a string of bottoms together in place of signatures for petition for peace.” Two versions with similar aesthetics (created in 1966) were made, one featuring her artistic circle in New York and the next featuring members of the London scene.

While watching the feature length version of Bottoms, questions arose for Eyeblink’s curators on the legacy and nostalgia for artworks produced during the anti-war climate of the 60s and 70s. In contrast with today’s art practices, who is perceived as a subversive artist? What is at stake when making political art? Whose political artwork is deemed more efficient and/or valuable and why? What is the point of solidarity and allyship when it remains within the confines of the exhibit- who benefits? What does sustainable solidarity look like?

Hashtag Solidarity features works by Kiera Boult, Sancta Maria, and Ninkuru Zinduru, projections by Erica Whyte and blackpowerbarbie, and a DJ set by Myst Milano.

Admission includes entry to YOKO ONO: THE RIVERBED.

Co-presenters

Rude is an acronym for Real Unapologetic Diverse Expression. The Rude Collective reclaims space, highlights racialized queer artists and artwork and aims to constantly de-center oppressive structures while creating immersive experiences. Through these processes and by prioritising marginalised queer people, we hope to create environments where there is room to explore our multiple identities, and share important narratives through artistic expression. Rude makes space for marginalised queers through mixing and juxtaposing art shows, dance parties, performances and unorthodox artistic expression to create necessary and unforgettable experiences.

Xpace Cultural Centre is a membership driven artist-run centre dedicated to providing emerging and student artists and designers with the opportunity to showcase their work in a professional setting. We program contemporary practices that respond to the interests and needs of our membership. As we program with shorter timelines this allows for us to respond to contemporary issues in theory and aesthetics, keeping an up to the minute response to what is going on directly in our community. Xpace is supported by the OCAD Student Union, and is committed to maintaining an anti-oppressive, queer positive environment, welcoming marginalized, racialized and indigenous folks.

Pleasure Dome is an artist-run exhibition collective dedicated to the presentation of artist’s movies. Since the fall of 1989, PD’s porous board structure has ensured a shape-shifting openness to new artists, forgotten histories, and fringe presentation models. We have published books, posters and zines, organized tours, made zillions of studio visits and partnered with orgs the size of small asteroids and others that require specialized science gear just to pick them out of the landscape. We believe in artists first, the voice of the artist, the payment of artists. Everything else follows from that.

Header image: Poster by blackpowerbarbie (2018).  Image created by the artist.