Coming Out by Leslie Coleman

A mature Canadian-Caribbean artist, Leslie Coleman lives between Toronto and Belize. Leslie has devoted decades to a pursuit of mastering the timeless classic oil painting methods and B&W photography darkroom technique. This art for music lovers charts his expanding repertoire, seeking out, a stroke at a time, new freedom to open up his vision, full of fresh focus for the road ahead. Leslie methodically explores an expanding diversity of inventive imagery destined to situate his life experience as a gay man of colour, while connecting us to his recent realities of dealing with survival and recovery from several life-threatening health challenges… an outsider artist, Leslie exhibits his independent art spirit, freed from conforming to the established models, out to defy our (and his own) expectations. 

Curated by Sandy McLeod (she/her) is a Toronto based author and artist interested in questions of gender. She draws upon queer perspectives to create creative worlds through narrative and constructed environments.

Andrea Thompson is a writer, editor, educator and spoken word artist. Andrea was the 2009 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s Poet of Honour and in 2005 her spoken word album, One, was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award. In 2019 her album, Soulorations earned her a Golden Beret Award, and in 2021 she received the Pavlick Poetry Prize.

Her most recent work is The Good Word, a spoken word album that explores the intersection of Black history and faith.  With my latest spoken word album, my aim is to take you on an unforgettable journey to the intersection of faith and Black history. Through the tracks of this album, explore the spiritual influences that inspired Black history’s key creative moments – from the haunting slave spirituals of the old south, to the juke joints of the Harlem Renaissance, and the coffee houses of the Black Arts movement. This album is spoken word soul food, with a powerful message of history, love, faith and the enduring spirit that is the backbone of what it means to be Black in North America.

This programme showcasing independent Argentine and Latin American women filmmakers. This unique programme presents the work of artists who use a variety of different methods to explore the possibilities of the Super 8 format. The generation of filmmakers presented in this programme wants to make their voices heard and express their ideas and visions through their films: the stories are developed freely, allowing the erasure of the line that separates fiction from the experimental or the documentary.

Program:

*Historia Clínica / Medical History -  by Lujan Montes and Luciana Foglio
*Intemperie - by Lujan Montes
*Constitución - by Melisa Aller
*Desierto / Desert - by Melisa Aller
*Sun in the head - by Melisa Aller
*Valor de uso-Valor de cambio / Use Value-Exchange Value by Melisa Aller
*Cinescape - by Macarena Cordiviola
*Neón - by Azucena Losana
*Sp - by Azucena Losana
*Kapri - by Azucena Losana

Colectivo Toronto and Garage (London) with The Super Bakers - Eugenio Salas are hosting a Media Art Performance Presentation with Food Exchange. We are planning the making of a cookbook with our own recipes and will be sampling some of them! Colectivo Toronto will be showing a selection of silent films from the golden's Hollywood era as the backdrop for an evening of karaoke and for our special guest performer; a Media and Sound Performance by Ellen Moffat (She is a sound artist who uses assorted physical materials, digital technology and experimental processes to create sound) a background of films by Argentinean media artists Christian Delgado, and a performance by London-based Myss Taiken. Bearded, eclectic and energetic.

PROGRAM:

* Videos by Christian Delgado

"Liebre" ‐ 01:51' ‐ digital video 

"Perro" ‐ 01:54' ‐ digital video 

"Polvo" ‐ 02:22' ‐ digital video 

"Vacas" ‐ 01:54' ‐ digital video 

* Pop-Pourri ‐ Sound Performance  by Ellen Muffat
* Bearded Songs - Media Art Performance  by Myss Taiken

A retrospective of Leticia Obeid's videos, her work explore the problematic of communication, language, translation and writing, and its approached from different perspectives.. Presented by Club Cultural Matienzo (Buenos Aires-Argentina) and curated by Laura Preger.

PROGRAM:

"La huella de Saturno"

10:00' ‐ HD video colour

"Notas"

12:00' ‐ video colour

"Escribir, leer, escuchar"

06:00' ‐ h8 colour

"Dobles" 

10:00' ‐ HD video colour 

Leticia Obeid lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied arts at the School of Arts at the National University of Córdoba (UNC), and received a scholarship from the Antorchas Foundation. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in Argentina and internationally.

Laura Preger is a media and sound designer, currently she is doing a master's degree in Sociology of Culture. During 2011 to 2018; she has been working as curator and programmer at CCMatienzo. 

Parallel Lines is a pronounced intervention in an existing structure and shape, the one determined by the drywall. Therefore, I will explore the “gallery wall” as a subject and a structure device by playing with color, form and space to study some of the its inherent sculptural characteristics. Drywall is a type of board made from plaster and wood pulp that in the case of most of the galleries is used by artists to exhibit usually pre-made artwork, in this case I will create my work onsite, during the installation time. My intention is to evoke a sensory experience of the space to raise the interaction between the public and the built environment of the gallery and its context which is inseparably tied to this proposed artwork.

Rita Camacho Lomeli is Toronto base multidisciplinary artist whose performance -based projects centre on ephemeral sculpture, artist's books, video and curatorial projects. She received and MFA from OCADU. She has exhibited her work individually and collectively in Toronto, all over Canada and internationally.

Francisca Duran is an experimental media artist based in Toronto, Canada. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous film festivals, and group screenings, including HotDocs, DOK Leipzig, London International Film Festival, Images Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and the John Hansard Gallery and Ben Russell Gallery. Her practice has been supported by research and production grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. Duran holds an MFA in Film Production from York University and a BAH from Queen’s University, and continues her professional development at artist-run centres such as the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), Toronto Animated Image Society (TAIS) and Gallery 44. In addition to her art practice, Duran has worked as a graphic designer, as adjunct university and college faculty, and as an arts administrator. 

Tracy German is a Toronto based Indigenous filmmaker, artist and educator. Over the past twenty years Tracy has created a variety of film, video and mixed media works. In 2006, Tracy German completed the acclaimed “In A Present Distance…” a 27:00min. experimental video, made over eight‐years from 16mm and super 8mm collected images. It is a mesmerizing portrait of motherhood framed around a train trip to Quebec City, in which fragments of a woman’s life emerge and speak subtly and sublimely to the journey of life: of grieving and loss, of happiness and sadness as well as the joyful and reverent gestures of living.
Tracy German holds an M.F.A. from York University in film production and a Media Arts diploma from Sheridan College where she teaches p/t in the BFTV program. Tracy German is also the show runner (Producer/Director/Writer) for Wild Archaeology a documentary tv series on APTN.

Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof  is a Toronto-based experimental filmmaker. She is a graduate of Media Arts at Ryerson University (BAA) and Communication and Culture at York University (MA) and (PhD). Izabella’s film and video projects have screened in numerous group programs at international film festivals, cinematheques, galleries and art centres in Canada and abroad.
Kelly Egan is a Toronto-based filmmaker, animated sound composer, scholar and archivist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication from Carleton University, Master of Arts in Communication and Culture from York/ Ryerson University, Master of Fine Arts in Film/Video from Bard College, a Certificate in Film Preservation from the Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House and a PhD in Communication and Culture from the York/Ryerson Joint Graduate Programme. 

Gail is an actor and independent award winning filmmaker. She grew up in a Métis village in Northern Saskatchewan and speaks her language Cree/Michif fluently. Her films have screened in festivals worldwide. She wrote, directed and produced her first video, Little Indians, in 2004 and has never stopped. She attended the prestigious Women in the Director’s Chair in Banff, spoke at Privy Council, performed at the Sydney Opera House and has been on numerous panels on Indigenous filmmaking. Gail founded Assini Productions to produce Indigenous films. Gail is a former board member of ImagineNative.

Chris Kennedy  is an independent filmmaker, film programmer and writer based in Toronto. He programmed for the Images Festival from 2003-06 and Pleasure Dome from 2000-06.
He co-founded and co-programs Early Monthly Segments and programs.
He is the Executive Director of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto. He holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he was co-founder and host of a weekly film salon. His work as an artist and programmer operates in dialogue with the history of film as art, exploring the medium’s materiality in a contemporary context.

Alize Zorlutuna is a Turkish-Canadian; Toronto based media artist and writer who employ a diverse range of media in her practice. The desire to activate interstices where differing perspectives, emotions, and physical entities meet, and the meanings created in those meetings rests at the heart of her work. Alize graduated  from the Sculpture and Installation Program at OCAD University, where she won multiple awards. She also has an honors degree in International Development Studies from Dalhousie University. Alize has shown work at Interaccess, Toronto Free Gallery and Xpace and Nuit Blanche.

Scott Miller Berry is a filmmaker and cultural worker. By day he can be found at Workman Arts where he is Managing Director, previously he was Director for ten years at the Images Festival. Recipient of the 2015 Rita Davies Margo Bindhardt Award for cultural service in Toronto, Scott sits on the Boards of Media Arts Network of Ontario and Independent Media Arts Alliance; and has recently screened films in Ottawa, Hamburg, Oberhausen, Bangalore, Seoul, Zagreb, Vienna, London (UK and ON), Montréal, Québec City, Calgary, Regina and Sackville.

Coco Guzman, known also as Coco Riot is a queer visual artist of Spanish origin, who is internationally known for her activism and artistic exploration of gender equality and feminist issues.  After obtaining a Master of Arts in Comparative Medieval Literature at Paris VIII University in 2003, she began exploring queer graphic novel as an artistic medium. Guzmán was accepted to a prestigious French art school, the Toulouse Fine Arts Academy, to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She moved to Montreal in 2008 and currently lives in Toronto.

Juana Awad is a multidisciplinary artist; also she has a degree in Semiotics and Theater Studies from the University of Toronto, Canada, and a MFA in Media Art from the Slade School of Fine Art London, UK. She moved to Berlin after receiving a DAAD Scholarship for Research at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since 2002 she has been working as an artist and curator, directing festivals and cultural projects. She was co-director of the Carnival of Cultures and Production Manager of the Afrikamera Film Festival in Berlin.  

Nicholas Pye lives and works in Toronto. Nicholas completed a Master of Fine Art degree at Concordia University, and received his undergraduate degree at the Ontario College of Art and Design. 

Sheila Pye studied painting, photography, and video at the Ontario College of Art and Design, where she graduated winning the top scholarship. She completed her MFA in film production at Concordia University in Montreal.  Currently, she lives and works in Madrid Spain.  

Their work has been screened in numerous international film festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, Canada; the Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland; and Les Rencontres Internationales in Paris, Berlin, and Madrid. Also been exhibited internationally at numerous galleries and art organizations.

Teresa Ascençao is a multimedia artist whose work toys with social constructs of body language, costume, socially inscribed objects and spaces, and inner corporeal experiences. Her folk and pop inspired artworks employ concept-related mediums and technologies that invite audiences to play with iconographies and scenarios involving gender, seduction, consumption, and class.

Teresa Ascencao was born to Azorean parents in Sao Paulo, Brazil and immigrated to Canada at a young age. She holds a Graphic Design Diploma from Humber College and graduated with distinction from the University of Toronto’s Honours Fine Art Studio program. She holds an MFA specializing in Media Art and Sex-Positive Feminism from OCAD University. Ascencao’s work has been exhibited internationally. 

Rosa Mesa is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice extend to installations, performance, video and public interventions. Rosa was born in Canary Islands -Spain- and immigrate to Toronto, Canada. In 1996 she started her studies at the OCAD graduating in 2002. Today her work covers video and sound explorations, drawing, performance and public interventions. She has exhibited in Spain, Canada, Serbia, Corea, Japan, Switzerland, Germany , Brazil, France, Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba. Her interest in reaching the audience is also explore mainly through the performance and public intervention mediums, she has also created several blog projects to contact with the internet world. Since 2004, She works between Spain, Canada and Germany. She is presently doing a residency at the Centro de Arte La Regenta, Las Palmas.

Sybil E. Lamb is a multidisciplinary Canadian artist. Lamb’s work is Modern Genre Painting made from contemporary Illustration and is implicitly made by a diverse pallet of studio media. Fine Art made for walls include hybrid-paintings incorporating print and Illustration in their production. A prolific illustrator and by using a collection of miscellaneous surplus print and computer techniques can organize and compose an ever-growing collection of hand drawn images into maximalist detail filled compositions full of attention demanding character and narrative. In 2014 she move her studio to Windsor, Ontario.

Z’otz* Collective are Nahúm Flores, Erik Jerezano, and Ilyana Martínez, formed in Toronto in 2004. Z’otz* Collective has worked out of a shared studio in Toronto and has exhibited in galleries and artist-run centres across Canada, the US, Mexico and Europe. Z’otz* was invited to create a mural for the PanAm Path, coinciding with Toronto 2015 PanAm Games. Exploring themes of intercultural translation, displacement and identity construction, they examine immigrant condition topics. They meet weekly to collaborate on multi-media works, which include drawing, painting, collage and site-specific drawing installations. 

Ráfagas Canadienses (Canadian Gusts) curated by Guillermina Buzio; presents a fragmented journal inside the diversity of video art production in Canada. These shorts cross the boundaries between architecture, video installation, actions. As the program was originally intended for a Spanish speaking audience it is immersive in the aesthetically form, the sound and the performances. The space were they are placed could be any, including an internal space, the architectural surroundings, the city lines, like a private room, or the space for their own sexuality, the subtle violence and the sexuality of the other. 

Canada produces a vast and diverse independent film production made by a community of filmmakers that stretches from coast to coast of the country. This program wants to show you that rich production of experimental and independent shorts produced by different Canadian filmmakers. Program: "Bunte Kuh" by Ryan Ferko, Parastoo and Faraz Anoushahpour / "350 MYA" by Terra Long  / "It Never Really Happened" by Dennis Day  / "Thunderbolt" by Heidi Phillips / "Poem" by Dan Browne / "Untiltled" by Madi Piller / "More is Less" by Andrew J. Peterson / "This Town of Toronto" by Izabella Pruska / "Famous Diamonds" by Daniel McIntyre

Artist Talk/Presentation - From linear to interactive - creative and technical challenges on sound design and media crossover artist. Eduardo Vaisman started professionally in sound for movies in 1992, he worked in more than 50 feature films from six different countries, he also worked in short films, documentaries and collaborated with artists on installations in art galleries and museums. In 2007 immigrated to Canada pursuing a career change making sound design for video games. Since 2011 he works at Ubisoft Toronto as Lead Audio Team and participated in the sound design of AAA games like Splinter Cell Blacklist and Far Cry 4. 

Kika Nicolela is a Brazilian artist, filmmaker and independent curator, living between Brussels and São Paulo. Graduated in Film and Video by the University of Sao Paulo, Nicolela has also completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts. She has participated of over 100 solo and group exhibitions worldwide, including the Kunst Film Biennale, Bienal of the Moving Image, Bienal do Mercosul, Ventosul Bienal de Curitiba and Bienal de Video y Artes Mediales. Her videos have been screened and awarded in festivals of more than 30 countries. She was in residence at the Gyeonggi Creation Center in South Korea and LIFT in Canada.

Canada produces a large variety of independent works in film and video on the queer theme, where filmmakers challenge the status quo through films that present different themes, points of view and aesthetics. "I'm Yours" by Chase Joynt / "Moohead" by Deirdre Logue  / "All That is Left Unsaid" by Michéle Pearson Clarke / "Sight" by Thirza Cuthand / "Being Green" by Jess Dobkin / "Untitled (eleven years) by Scoot Miller-Berry / "From Alex to Alex" by Alison S.M. Kobayashi / "Beyond the Mirror's Gaze" by Iris Moore / "The Island" by Trevor Anderson.

Abstract Expressions in Animation, curated by Madi Piller. This program explores, through independent filmmakers and animators, the work of the artistic group P11. The Group of 11 was a group of artists who grouped themselves in 1953 in the city of Toronto. The program presents film/animations by the following artists: Richard Raxlen, Patrick Jerkins, Elise Sinard, Richard Reeves, Nick-Fox-Gieg, Félix Dufour-Laperriére, Ellen Besen, Steven Woloshen, Pasquale La-Montagna, Craig Marshall and Lisa Morse.

Canadian artists produce one of the best productions in videos, films and new media that the world has to offer. This is a multi-thematic program that hits the viewer’s imagination; is a contemporary art form that combines technology with installation art, incorporating the space as a key element in the narrative structure. This program includes a great variety of techniques, styles and themes Projections by Lisa Birke, Dan Browne, Alexandre Larose, Kent Monkman, Jude Norris/Tatakwan, Mée Rose and Alize Zorlutuna.

A group of traditional visual artists who use drawing as their main practice has the opportunity to receive a two day classic animation workshop to give life to their creations. We invited Janice Schulman as the animation instructor and Eduardo Vaisman as the sound designer workshop instructor. The artists are: Sandra Brewster; a Toronto based multimedia artist. Fiya Bruxa; a visual artist and actress, performance. Margarita Alex Flores; a self-taught multi-media artist base in Toronto and Coco Guzman (Coco Riot); a visual artist.

PROGRAM:
"Memory in Bones"
"Thirst: Canada’s Dirty Little Truth"  

"Twilight Dancers"
Focussed upon the short documentary work of Gail Maurice, Theola Ross and Paola Marino, this session discusses the effects of colonialism on First Nations communities. The session also explores resilience and culture. SPEAKERS: Joanne Dallaire, Nataleah Hunter Young and the filmmakers; Gail Maurice, Theola Ross and Paola Marino.

Julian Gallese, TAIS 2018 International Artist in Residence. Over the course of a month in studio, Julian has produced a 360 immersive animation with the working title “Banana Bread”. Created in his style of 2D classical animation, Julian will present this new work as a part of his talk, alongside a few other pieces from his portfolio of work. Julian Gallese is an independent animation filmmaker from Costa Rica. Since studying Classical Animation at the Vancouver Film School, Julian has had his work shown in festivals and galleries around the world.