Presenting Stories about Objects from Peripheral Histories with Sameer Farooq

Part of the Community Arts Space: Art is Change

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The August Fröhls collective (led by artists/curators Aman Sandhu and Swapnaa Tamhane) will invite artists and creative practitioners to engage with local forms of storytelling, teaching, object histories, and music, within a site-specific installation on the plaza inspired by the portable classroom.

For artists/curators August Fröhls (Aman Sandhu and Swapnaa Tamhane), a significant amount of their early education in the Greater Toronto Area (specifically Scarborough and Markham) was spent in portable classrooms. Sandhu and Tamhane explore their speculative hypothesis that the presence of portable classrooms at Canadian schools could be viewed in parallel to the influx of immigrants into the Canadian landscape.

Originally intended as temporary space solutions, portable classrooms eventually became permanent infrastructure, set in place to provide extra room for a population growth that the main buildings could not have anticipated. Propositioning the portable as a space for peripheral pedagogy and histories, August Fröhls will create a site-specific outdoor installation harkening to the recognizable materials of the portable structure, and present a series of events that elicit lesser-known histories. Furthermore, operating from a belief that improvisation is a strong catalyst for the unearthing of third-space, collaged histories, improvisation as related to forms of pedagogy, storytelling, and history of objects will be explored throughout the duration of Portable Stories.

About the Speaker

Sameer Farooq (1978, Canada) completed an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2014) and a BFA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (2005). His interdisciplinary practice investigates tactics of representation and enlists the tools of installation, photography, documentary filmmaking, writing and the methods of anthropology to explore various forms of collecting, interpreting, and display. Upcoming projects include an ambitious public installation at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, a residency with Open Studio, Toronto, and an exhibition inaugurating the University of Reno’s new arts centre. He has exhibited internationally and nationally at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), the Art Gallery of York University, Maquis Projects (Izmir), Blackwood Gallery (Mississauga), Trankat (Tétouan, Morocco), Sol Koffler Gallery (Providence), Artellewa (Cairo), and Sanat Limani (Istanbul). Reviews and essays dedicated to his work have been included in C Magazine, The Washington Post, BBC Culture, Hyperallergic, Artnet, The Huffington Post, Canadian Art, and others. Farooq has been awarded several grants from the Canada Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and the Europe Media Fund, as well the President’s Scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design. He was long listed for the 2017 Sobey Art Award. Sameer Farooq is currently working as an visual artist, designer, educator, and is a member of the documentary film collective Smoke Signal Projects as director. His artist book/print editions have been distributed through Art Metropole.

About the Community Arts Space: Art is Change

The Gardiner Museum’s unique history and identity is rooted in the city,  but its future is increasingly shaped by those beyond the core cultural corridor. As space increasingly becomes a premium downtown, the Gardiner has collaborated with six cultural and community partners to consider how institutional outreach can be re-shaped by local artists, curators, and architects. Looking to the rapid high-rise developments happening within the Museum’s own Yorkville neighbourhood, the projects in Art is Change consider how the city’s unique and varied local histories of art and social activism can be re-mapped for the future. Learn more