The Too Good to Waste and paper_work.com exhibits feature interactive installations and recycled materials.
As most students enjoyed a well-deserved summer break, the Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery (FOFA) did not rest. Since July 22, this gallery located in the Engineering and Visual Arts (EV) building has been hosting two exhibitions centred around labour, collaboration, and sustainability themes titled Too Good to Waste and paper_work.com.
paper_work.com occupies the gallery’s main space. María Escalona de Abreu, the exhibition’s curator, described it as a “weird experiment.” According to her, the installation aims to answer the question: What sustains an exhibition? This answer is, first and foremost, “collaboration,” said de Abreu.
The middle of the main exhibition room was transformed into a papermaking studio. Paper quilts made by artist Eli Bjedov-Santović are hung on the walls. Recycled plastic items and samples, as well as donated books on sustainable art and furniture made of recycled plastics are gathered around the room. Jason Sikoak’s art samples exploring Inuk imagery occupy the Black Box, a small, darker adjacent room.
Collaboration can be found in all aspects of the exhibition. First through the artists’ teamwork. Second, via the artists and the curator who aligned their perspectives and created this mash-up of concepts and ideas, which somehow all fit together. And third, between the artists and the public through the office_hours.ptt, a part of the programming that included workshops and discussions that allowed visitors to witness papermaking in real time and converse on the themes of labour and sustainability.
“We got to share the process you don’t see when you’re visiting an exhibition,” said de Abreu. “We got to share the behind-the-scenes.”
Visitors got to witness real-time experiments with paper throughout the summer. Artist Eli Bjedov-Santović hosted a paper quilt-making workshop in the gallery, where she made paper out of yarn scraps. Artist maya rae oppenheimer hosted The Gossip Monger, which was described as a “social practice artwork”.
Her artwork invited the public to write gossip on a piece of paper and seal it with wax. At the finissage on Sept. 5, the envelopes will be up for grabs, and the winners will have the choice between leaving it on a shelf forever or opening someone else’s gossip in order to explore how gossip can “save, insinuate, harm, and educate.”
paper_work.doc is de Abreu’s master concept as she concludes her two-year residency at FOFA Gallery.
Too Good to Waste is a complementary exhibition curated by Nicole Burisch in collaboration with four other visual artists. It also explores themes of labour, reuse, and sustainability. The artwork, which is exhibited in the York vitrines adjacent to the gallery, is all made of materials that people discarded or deemed suitable for the trash. Adam Basanta, for instance, created the piece Grand Arch (Solid Waste) solely with material found at local recycling centres.
Both exhibitions are ongoing until Sept. 6, and a finissage with the curators and artists is planned on Sept. 5.
