A poster, displaced from an art context, can operate as simply as a message board. An everyday space for communicating with limited image and text, the poster is also a versatile, portable, distributable vehicle for art and ideas. Posters were chosen as the means for this project because they respond to theoretical questions about value, storytelling, happenstance, word of mouth, hype, nostalgia, and legacy.
This conceptual framework provides space for artists of two cities to exchange ideas towards the creation of new work, and engineers a distribution mechanism for art between organizational partners and cities. By choosing the form of three double-sided posters, we distribute six new works to two major cities in a format challenging to artists and affordable to all.
The opportunities presented by Between Us – A Toronto/Vancouver Exchange over the long term are what we find most exciting of all. We imagine this project to be a point of departure for an increasingly dynamic relationship between the two cities, and catalyze future exchanges between Toronto- and Vancouver-based artists.
Born in Manila, the Philippines, where he studied Engineering, PAUL DE GUZMAN immigrated to Canada in 1986 and currently lives and works in Vancouver. He is a self-taught artist. Some recent exhibitions in Canada include shows at the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, the Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan, The Art Gallery of Windsor, The Vancouver Art Gallery and The Art Gallery of Ontario; and in New York at Kinz Tillou + Feigen, Hofstra University Museum, New General Catalog, and apexart; and internationally at Galerie Markus Richter in Berlin, Galerie Dominique Fiat in Paris and Transit – aktuele kunst in Antwerp
Artist Bios
Alissa Firth-Eagland
Alissa Firth-Eagland is an interdisciplinary artist curator who works in and between video, publication, web-based research, sound, performance, public intervention, installation and gallery exhibition. She has coordinated projects for organizations such as the TRANZ TECH 2003 Toronto International Media Art Biennial, Fado Performance Inc. in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Cultural Human Resources Canada, the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, the first annual Toronto Alternative Arts Fair International 2004, and the Images Festival of Independent Film and Video. She is the Director/Curator of Western Front Media Arts in Vancouver, Canada.
Luis Jacob
Luis Jacob is an artist, curator, educator, writer, organizer and activist whose practice challenges categorization. His art production alone manifests itself as photography, sculpture, performance, artist multiples, public intervention, video and installation. Jacob’s pursuits are varied, but all are unified by his thoughtful concern for the philosophical and cultural possibilities of social interaction.
Will Kwan
Will Kwan was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Toronto. He received an MFA from the School of Arts at Columbia University in 2004 and was, between 2005 and 2007, a researcher in visual art at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. His projects have been presented internationally in venues including P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (New York), the Venice Biennale in 2003, Art in General (New York), Exit Art (New York), Artist House (Leeds), Contemporary Art Center (Vilnius, LT), and Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella, IT). His single-channel media works have been exhibited and screened in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, New York, and Berlin.
Kristina Lee Podesva
Kristina Lee Podesva is an artist based in Vancouver, Canada. She is the founder of Colourschool, a free school within a school dedicated to the speculative study of five colours: white, black, red, yellow, and brown. The initial project, which opened in her studio at the University of British Columbia in November 2006, attempts to develop a critical colour consciousness through a variety of collaborative activities including roundtable discussions, film screenings, artists’ talks, listening labs, lectures, residencies, performances, slideshows, and social events. She is also an editor at The Fillip Review and co-founder of Cornershop Projects, an alternative art site that aims to explore the critical nuances of traditional and nontraditional economic models.
Johan Lundh
Johan Lundh is an artist, curator and writer, splitting his time between Stockholm, Sweden, and Vancouver, Canada. Deeply rooted in analytical and dialogue-based approaches, his practice poses questions about creative methodologies, and often sits between multi- and interdisciplinary actions. Working within performative collaborative processes, his unexpected gestures defy categorization. Lundh has recently curated and co-curated exhibitions and projects for Botkyrka Konsthall (Stockholm), Index Foundation (Stockholm) and Kulturhuset (Stockholm).
Sara Mameni
Sara Mameni is a Vancouver-based artist who is currently completing her MA in Art History at UBC. She does not think bios say much about a person and wonders if her increasing debts are more indicative of her social position than the particularities of her art practice.
Fedora Romita
Fedora Romita’s versatile practice encompasses performance, video, and drawing. By using text and recording information, her process-based works both respond to and envelop the creation of these productions themselves over a period of time. Her methodic and even mathematic projects range from interactive drawing assignments she provides to willing participants to durational measuring performances wherein she painstakingly charts out the dimensions of shared spaces such as street level storefronts.