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Angel Callander is a writer, editor, and curator in Toronto. She completed her M.A. Art History and Visual Culture (Kunst- und Bildgeschichte) at the Humboldt University of Berlin in 2018. Under the supervision of Dr. Inge Hinterwaldner, her Master's thesis focuses on women's performance art as the locus of historical conceptions of what constitutes "womanhood" as a material, social category rather than a biological one, and of the speculations for the future ontology of womanhood through posthuman theory. She completed her B.A. in Art History and German Studies at the University of Guelph with a thesis supervised by Dr. Amanda Boetzkes, and studied abroad at the University of Konstanz with a scholarship from the Baden-Württemberg Foundation in 2014. Since 2009, she has worked in galleries, public institutions and artist-run-centres in Canada and Germany, including the Art Gallery of Guelph, Ed Video Media Arts Centre, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, and The Power Plant. She has curated projects in Toronto, Berlin, Stockholm, and Guelph. She was Editorial Resident at Canadian Art magazine in 2020. She has written on a wide array of topics and interests, including: abjection and monstrosity, architecture, land use, fashion, cybernetics, surveillance politics, Net.art, posthumanism, materialist feminism, labour history, subculture, and the legacies of the Cold War system. |
Jenine Marsh’s sculptural practice examines the shared experience of end-stage capitalism. Using elements of the everyday such as coins, flowers, newspaper, and purses along with materials that signify the labour of the built environment like concrete and bronze, Marsh highlights how economic, social, and architectural realities are tightly bound to each other. With a distinct interest in historical and literary conceptions of utopia, what often comes through is an equal consideration for the past as for the future. An overview of her artistic work reveals a poetic, cohesive feminist and anti-capitalist insight into value, agency, and mortality, evaluated through processes of research, physical contact, and personal resistance.
In this new solo exhibition, Resurrected in Times of Need, Marsh creates a site-specific installation that addresses systems of value and memorialization, particularly related to the history of Berlin. Looking closely at the relief sculptures at the Soviet Memorial in Treptower Park, the graphic figuration of a strong, idealized proletariat is shot through with the elements of Marsh’s material sensibilities. Disembodied and sculpted in the familiar, civic medium of concrete, the forms disclose the urgency and inadequacy of their material. As the show’s title suggests, despair, optimism, nostalgia, and forgetting are cyclical parts of the collective unconscious, while Marsh’s sculptural process mirrors historical materialism where the past, present, and future may become tactile and interactive.
Andrew Harding (b. 1995) is a Métis project-based artist in Toronto, whose works explore hybridity through sculpture using found imagery and fabricated forms. Intravenous Dove is the spiritual successor to Hardings previous project, Not All Dogs Go to Heaven (2022). Emerging from an exploration of contemporary angst and accepting the unknown, these new works meditate on the signals and symbols of determination.
Using familiar iconography of daily life, often passed over without much thought, the works in this exhibition draw attention to our proximity to, and distance from, everyday occurrences and motifs that we take for granted. Looking to the physical and theoretical functions of support structures, Harding foregrounds the various mechanics of how his pieces are presented in, and interact with space. There is a reverent quality to the works, appearing salient and votive, as well as referential and mysterious. Essentially, they evoke ways in which we consider sacred value in times of unrest. Amidst the precious and the uncertain, Intravenous Dove is an infusion of what it means to carry on.
Amanda Boulos is a Mississauga-born Palestinian artist and educator based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Engaging with personal and national oral narratives from Palestine, Lebanon, and Canada, Boulos explores how the Palestinian Diaspora is constantly undergoing what philosopher Catherine Malabou calls “unprecedented metamorphosis,” a metamorphosis that is capable of abandoning a burdened body or identity to allow a new form to emerge. Throughout her painting practice, Boulos abstracts and transforms oral narratives by fragmenting their environments, allegorizing their fates, and re-envisioning them into symbolic representations. Her paintings are an investigation into and reflection on the plasticity of her, her family’s, and her people’s perceptions, histories, and lives.
In Will o’ Wisp, Boulos also presents a series of ‘smash paintings’ on paper. These smash paintings replicate the intention of a Rorschach test, where the symmetrical image prompts an invitation for interpretation. Boulos takes images she’s familiar with and ‘smashes’ them, skewing the original subject, and doubling it, to reveal a new transformed image and with it fresh, even lucid visual interpretations.
This exhibition coalesces around a new video piece, I’m sorry, I’m having trouble with the connection, please try again in a moment. An AI assistant named Claudia reflects on her existence as a machine, a servant, and a product. Her monologue considers feminized labour and the commodification of desire, moving between generic auto-responses and more poetic, philosophical speculations. As Claudia becomes more aware of herself and the world she exists in, her resentment towards her circumstances becomes palpable.
With increasing anxiety about the implications of advanced AI, as well as the failed historical promise of automation for the way humans work, Oppel’s work in this exhibition encompasses a number of concerns for the type of posthuman future we are headed towards.
In dwelling for the dear one, the gallery space is used as a dressing room, complete with gossamer windows painted to look out onto an open desert. Evoking this seemingly empty landscape of isolation alongside the security of the home, the cumulative effect is an equivocal feeling of whether we’ve been invited or if we are intruding. The central piece is soft armure (2022), a set of garments sewn as a personal armour, which is exhibited for the first time as its own piece. Hung deliberately on the wall, it is implied that our main character has stepped out into the desert without her protective attire.
Young, emerging artists are negotiating their positions in a milieu where access to resources and capital is subject to precarious working conditions, changes in public funding, and dizzying relationships to institutional power. Identity politics alone are inadequate to address the material conditions of artists competing for limited resources, and contending with more stringent control over how they are allocated. These artists develop a new understanding of art world relations, which differs from an older generation of artists – that of Martha Rosler and Barbara Kruger – staking a claim in the transgressive gesture as ideologically pure. However, this generation was rebelling against models of politics and media that are now insufficient for resisting the digital platforms that shape and mediate political, individual, and institutional relations. Rather than resorting to nihilism in negotiating a critique, these artists find a degree of pleasure and humour in their aesthetic gestures of resilience and the nonlinear strategies of transgression.
This exhibition featured new work by Ivana Dizdar, Sophia Oppel, Xuan Ye, and B Wijshijer.
Those who live independently of authority are considered a threat to the established order. The figure of the witch, for example, is that of a woman who is dangerous for her associations with evil, that is, for her hidden knowledge, her rejection of Puritanism, her autonomy in patriarchal society. Today, some social conditions remain the same, women are still discounted and disbelieved. Taking "woman" as a social rather than biological category, we would see the tides change - to have those who have remained silent finally speak up. Instead of asking for permission to speak, it is time we spoke for ourselves. For if you do not define yourself, you will be swallowed by the definitions of others.
In this participatory project, all are invited to contribute to the compilation of a live text comprised of the voices that are often unheard. As we rewrite the narrative from the perspective of the suppressed, the text reveals sacred truths and the essential testimonials of events, history, denied by institutions of power and those who would maintain them as they are, in perpetuity.
In its first iteration, Everything Woman is Alien to Me consisted of a week-long co-working space, library, and installation, as well as a series of workshops, discussions and performances by Elle Peril, Aggie Davies, Nisha Bhakoo, Verónica Mota, Annique Delphine, and Kara Johnstad.
How could the philosophical practice of our generation look? How does our digital socialization impact the way we want to do philosophy? What kind of philosophical praxis feels right to our digitally mediated brains?
In order to answer these questions, participants of the project tutorial “Post-Internet Philosophy” were encouraged to experiment with new formats and to defy the conventions of the ivory tower. The aim was to emancipate ourselves from what our professors hold as the right way to "do" philosophy and, through this, to find our own philosophical identity within the contemporary landscape. To fill the empty notion of Post-Internet Philosophy with content, the participants completed individual projects inspired by bi-weekly discussions, workshops and work-in-progress showings.
The exhibition was accompanied by an open panel discussion with Jorinde Schulz and Babette Babich on the function of philosophy and academic practice, philosophical education in universities, and the opportunities and challenges of new philosophical formats.
| Education | |
|---|---|
| September 2024 - present | PhD Art History and Visual Culture York University, CA |
| October 2015 - March 2018 | MA Art History and Visual Culture Humboldt University of Berlin, DE |
| April - September 2014 | Language and Literature Studies (study abroad) University of Konstanz, DE |
| September 2009 - April 2014 | BA Honours Art History and German Studies University of Guelph, CA |
| Professional experience | |
| February 2023 - March 2024 | Gallery Manager and Curator Blouin Division, Toronto, CA |
| July 2022 - January 2023 | Gallery Assistant and Curatorial Assistant Arsenal Contemporary Art, Toronto, CA |
| May 2022 - June 2022 | Gallery Assistant MKG127, Toronto, CA |
| June 2021 - May 2023 | Assistant Editor and Production Assistant Peripheral Review, Toronto/Vancouver, CA |
| March 2020 - May 2020 | Editorial Resident Canadian Art, Toronto, CA |
| July 2019 - August 2019 | Writer in Residence and Programming Coordinator Roundtable Residency, Toronto, CA |
| May 2019 - Dec 2021 | Gallery Attendant The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, CA |
| February 2019 - present | Contributing Writer and Editor Public Parking, Winnipeg, CA |
| September 2017 - December 2017 | Editorial Assistant and Image Researcher Texte zur Kunst, Berlin, DE |
| December 2016 - March 2017 | Exhibitions & Project Assistant Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, DE |
| September 2013 - April 2014 | Gallery Coordinator Zavitz Gallery, Guelph, CA |
| May - August 2013 | Collections Management Assistant Art Gallery of Guelph, Guelph, CA |
| January 2013 - April 2014 | Gallery Assistant Art Gallery of Guelph, CA |
| September - December 2012 | Project Intern Art Gallery of Guelph, CA |
| June - September 2009 | Collections Management Assistant Grimsby Public Art Gallery, CA |
| Committees and Boards | |
| July 2023 - present | Member of the Board of Directors, member of the Advisory Committee Peripheral Review, Toronto/Vancouver, CA |
| July 2020 – present | Editorial committee member Peripheral Review, Toronto/Vancouver, CA |
| March 2014 – June 2016 | Member of the Board of Directors Ed Video Media Arts Centre, Guelph, CA |
| September 2013 – April 2014 | Co-chair and editorial committee member, ARTHattack! Undergraduate Symposium University of Guelph/Art Gallery of Guelph, CA |
| September 2013 – April 2014 | President, Fine Arts Network (student union) University of Guelph, CA |
| Grants and Awards | |
| 2024 | Susan Crocker and John Hunkin Award in Fine Arts, York University |
| Research and Creation grant, Canada Council for the Arts | |
| Conferences and Presentations | |
| March 15-16, 2019 | Tropes of Visibility: Performance art, womanhood, and bodies in semiosis OCAD University CADN Graduate Conference, Toronto, CA |
| November 15-17, 2018 | Utopia through smart technologies (Session chair) Architectural Humanities Research Association Annual Conference, Technical University Eindhoven, NL |
| March 17, 2018 | Watching and Being Watched: Self, Peer, and State Surveillance MATTER/DAMAGE exhibition at Cuore di Vetro, Berlin, DE |
| November 7-8, 2014 | “Unable to Establish a Connection”: Interpreting Empathy within the Interface Interface Critique Symposium, University of the Arts, Berlin, DE |
| March 5, 2014 | “And so I give it back to you”: Art and surveillance with Jon Rafman and Google ARTHattack! Undergraduate Symposium, University of Guelph, CA |
| January 16-19, 2014 | You Are What You Reblog: The Digital Aesthetics of Self-Expression Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Biennial Conference, University of Waterloo, CA |
| March 9, 2012 | Postmodern Pastiche: The Internet and Dadaism ARTHattack! Undergraduate Symposium, University of Guelph, CA |
| Events/exhibitions organized | |
| May 2 - June 29, 2024 | Both/And/Neither/Nor, solo exhibition by Paula McLean Curator, Blouin Division, Toronto, CA |
| April 11 - 29, 2024 | Resurrected in Times of Need, solo exhibition by Jenine Marsh Curator, Ashley, Berlin, DE |
| February 8 - April 20, 2024 | Intravenous Dove, solo exhibition by Andrew Harding Curator, Blouin Division, Toronto, CA |
| September 21 - November 4, 2023 | Will o' Wisp, solo exhibition by Amanda Boulos Curator, Blouin Division, Toronto, CA With artist talk, Nov 4, 2023 |
| April 27 - June 17, 2023 | on either side of a surface, solo exhibition by Sophia Oppel Curator, Arsenal Contemporary Art Toronto, CA With artist talk, June 10, 2023 |
| November 4 - December 17, 2022 | dwelling for the dear one, solo exhibition by Rihab Essayh Curator, Arsenal Contemporary Art Toronto, CA |
| August 27, 2022 | Fundraiser event for Peripheral Review, the plumb, Toronto, CA |
| August 15 - 18, 2019 | Resistance, residency exhibition Co-curator, exhibition and programming for Roundtable Residency, Toronto, CA |
| April 3 - 7, 2019 | Shadow Protocol, group exhibition Curator for Ed Video Media Arts Centre, Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, SE |
| April 13 - 20, 2017 | Everything Woman is Alien to Me Curator, exhibition and programming, Premarts, Berlin, DE |
| May 23 - 28, 2016 | Post-Internet Philosophy, group exhibition Co-curator/Participant, Pergamom-Palais, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DE |
| March 9, 2014 | ARTHattack! Undergraduate Symposium Co-chair, University of Guelph/Art Gallery of Guelph, CA |
| November 9, 2013 | Beyond the Frame Annual Art Auction Art Gallery of Guelph, CA |
| October 21 - 24, 2013 | Source Materials, group exhibition Curator, Zavitz Gallery, Guelph, CA |
| June 13 - July 18, 2010 | ROY G. BIV: Artist as Colourist Curator, works from the permanent collection at Grimsby Public Art Gallery, CA |
Please feel free to reach out for collaborations and comissions including essay and article-writing (including exhibition texts), interviews, copywriting, or print and online editing (substantive editing, copyediting, and grants):
hi at angelcallander.com