Balconies is the product of my course on Narrativity and Performance. Working with old photos and a website called imaginary landscapes, I created this video and performed the text pasted below as my classmates sat in a circle around me. It was a privilege to be a part of that day, and getting to watch, hear, and see everyone's narratives and performances unfold. I hope you enjoy this little thing I made. Dedicated to all the balconies I've called home, all the people who are

A few months ago, I sat down with a few of my friends in offices, on couches, and on speakerphone, to talk about home. It started with a [seemingly] simple question: "where's your home?" For some, that question is easier than for others. For some, there's "home" and then there's "home home." For some there's no home, there are homes. Being in a new city for the past seven months, I've definitely collected a variety of definitions for "home" in my vocabulary. There's the home

Having a teaching assistantship was one of the many things I was excited about when coming into my masters. As an aspiring CEGEP professor - in a long list of things I aspire to be - I was looking forward to the experience. While I've worked with primary and secondary school students in the past (and daycare groups - but I would much rather not remember that... never again...), either tutoring, as an art instructor, or as an in-class aid, I've never had my own classroom and n

What I love about maps is that they are products of multiple concerns: as objects, they are aesthetic, ornamental, decorative; as tools, they are aspirational, we see the places we have been, the places we might go, and the places we may never get the chance to explore; they’re also aspirational in the sense that they depict a world that does not - and cannot - exist; as metaphors, they are fearful of losing control, of not understanding, of realizing how their black ink boun

One Saturday morning, sometime in the late 90s, as I sat in front of the three-foot high stereo sound system in our living room, I began to record the Digimon theme song on a blank cassette. I sat there, excitedly watching the little ribbons winding slowly round and round, wondering if it was working; knowing that if it wasn’t, I would have to wait until the next day’s episode and try again. As the first verse ended, my sister sat beside me and asked what I was doing. Her lit

Click here [pdf] to read guest post by Alex Raponi. #guestpost #toronto #torontoarts #torontoevents #artexhibit #artblogger #artistorian

www.laurahudspith.com Click here to read the article [pdf]. #guestpost #torontoarts #torontoevents #toronto #artexhibit #artblogger #artreview #laurahudspith #artistorian

The intriguing work of artist Milutin Gubash, born in Serbia and working in Montreal, has been well received throughout North America and Europe for many years now. I was actually lucky enough to work with him back in 2011 for Montreal’s Nuit Blanche: I was one of the “cultural mediators,” a fancy title that means I got to answer questions audience members had about Gubash’s performance. Similarly to his work displayed at Galeries Trois Points today, Gubash explored themes of

For the last little while, Montréal en Histoires, an organisation that promotes the exploration and discovery of Montreal’s history, has been tirelessly developing Cité Mémoire. A project by artists Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon, in collaboration with Michel Marc Bouchard, Cité Mémoire will be coming to a street near you on May 17, 2016. Until then, the team has launched a free app where you can find “techno-historic circuits” that allow you to discover Montreal as it was i

I'm officially back to full-time work for the summer, and it's great! This week, I was inspired by the many "alternative walking tours" I experienced and heard about during my time in Europe. When I got back, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that we have plenty of these tours in Montreal too. As I'm working with the teens at the camp, we get to go on special outings every other week. So I decided to hold a walking tour of my own for my small group. The idea is to visit

Four years ago, I started a series of portraits inspired by a quote from Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters: "Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known." This series would feature portraits of friends and family members who have had a great impact on me, and have made me into their 'combined effort.' But, once my first-year painting class ended, and my other courses, art pieces and life in general started taking over, this project got p

My last 24 hours have been pretty saturated with Montreal and Quebec history. Not as boring as some of you may think as you remember everyone's favourite high school class, history of Quebec and Canada (which I actually really enjoyed... so...). Last night, I attended Archives Passe-Mémoire's first public reading in honour of International Archives Day (celebrated every year on June 9th). And, hopefully, it will be the first of many. In a tiny room at the Société d'histoire d

“History -- in particular popular memory -- is a stake in the constant struggle for hegemony.” In writing those words in 1982, Richard Johnson and Graham Dawson were pointing to the long-standing monopoly of the powerful on the stories which become part of accepted history. That’s what we acknowledge when we repeat the truism that ‘History is written by the victors’; the many memories, perspectives and points of view of all the players in an event are distilled into one maste

Delfim Sardo, curator of The SAAL Process: Housing in Portugal 1974-76, took me and a handful of other participants on a tour of the exhibition at the CCA, which includes photography, video, text, sketches and blueprints, as well as detailed models of the featured neighbourhoods. As we began the tour, Sardo explained, “There’s not one SAAL, but many SAAL processes.” The CCA is spotlighting ten of these unique housing projects, out of the 170 Sardo described tens of thousands

Armed with my trusty notebook and a large selection of pens, I made my way to the Montreal History Group's Colloquium at McGill University last Friday. Shortly after I started this blog, my friend, Jackie, contacted me about a project she had been thinking about for quite some time, which we are now (maybe temporarily) calling the "Women of Montreal project." Our goal is to set up an online, interactive platform for people to discover and learn about lesser-known women throug

#art #embroidery #newproject #textileart #fibreart #artistorian

Yesterday, I joined Joyce Pillarella – oral historian, graphic designer and educator - and a group of other walkers interested in learned more about the history of Italians in Ville-Emard on a walking tour/scavenger hunt of the area. Joyce led us on a Jane's Walk this beautiful afternoon, and urged us to think about Ville-Emard and our own in neighbourhoods in different ways. We had to think about concepts, reflecting on the past, present and future of the community to try to

At the beginning of this sweet journey, all I had to make was the cake. Once I looked through photos and ideas, I kept getting inspired by all the cuteness and the rest is history. This was the week where my Inner Nonna came out. Every time I finished one treat I had to make more thinking nothing would ever be enough. I finally understand the pain and fear my nonna goes through every supper. I will never tell her to stop making food because it is just impossible. I started th

Ten books, countless articles, two sleepless nights and 20 pages later, I finished my first final essay this week. Although I'm not 100% happy with the end product, I've really been amazed at all that I was able to discover about my source, La nobiltà delle donne. I know I could have gone a lot further with it in my paper, but I've done a good job anyway. This is the perfectionist in me kicking in (I've even told myself that I'll rewrite it once I get the comments back from m

Ephemeral, multi-dimensional and paradox: these words come to mind when thinking about the Phi Centre’s latest collaboration with the DHC Art foundation, Immatériel, a collection of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s work curated by Monika Kin Gagnon. Similar to Cha’s body of work, the exhibit intertwines viewers’ senses of sight and sound. We read, watch, listen, look and even touch – there is an interactive screen for viewers to explore more of Cha’s works in the Berkeley Art Museum’s