The Learning Zone

Image citation: Between Friends/Entre Amis. National Film Board of Canada, Still Photography Division, Ottawa, Canada, 1976. McClelland and Stewart Limited, Toronto.

This past October, the Writing & Learning Centre (WLC) hosted visiting artist Chantal Gibson , A Historical In(ter)ventionist and educator from Vancouver.

During her visit, Chantal worked on a collaborative interactive altered book installation, called Between Friends. This event was held at the Learning Zone from October 30 to November 3.

Chantal invited OCAD U faculty, students and visitors to participate in the writing of this book by weaving, braiding and linking their shared stories from past to present, across borders between the US and Canada.

Image credit: Chantal Gibson

To learn more about the inspiration and the book Between Friends please follow this link or contact Stephanie Dayes (WLC) sdayes@ocadu.ca.

Manuela Morales video, After Darkness, is currently on view at XPACE’s External Space gallery located in OCAD U Library Services: Learning Zone.

After Darkness, is a video that touches on the emotional aftermath of sexual violence that occurred between two family members.

Morales uses a two-channel video, juxtaposing family emails with landscape. Capturing the tranquility of the landscape with audio bytes of birds, footsteps, and wind blowing through grass with email correspondence between family members. The back and forth online communication reveals to the audience the intricacies and uncertainties faced by the family as they work together and offer support.

The text in After Darkness creates a nuanced and honest conversation about the effects of sexual assault on a personal and collective level….Morgan Sears William

On until April 4

February 21 is the final day to view Lucille Kim’s stop-motion animation/video performance, 1973 – 1979 at  External Space, hosted in the Learning Zone.

Lucille Kim’s art practice involves drawing, video, performance, sound and photography used in the explorations of self, and her Cambodian family history.

Throughout the video, Kim performs coin therapy on her father, a healing technique that relieves aches and pains, and other illness of the body—connecting her to the pain that her father went through when working in Cambodian rice fields between 1973 to 1979, during the Khmer Rouge regime.

…a coin functions as the drawing medium, with the body as its canvas. This technique not only expands the definition of drawing as a practice, but also critically examines our relationship as artists with the subjects we study and portray through drawing.  Alvis Choi

For further readings on 1973 – 1979, download Alvis Choi’s exhibition essay.

On until February 21

XPACE: External Space presents a new exhibition, Shifting Gestures (Father/Daughter) by Zana Kozomora.

The ritual of “Turkish Coffee making” is captured through the lens, documenting Kozomora’s Serbian-Canadian father imparting familial customs and values by demonstrating the repetitive grinding technique and preparation of Turkish coffee.

Mirrored video stream of father and daughter grinding coffee beans invites the audience into their home to witness this symbolic cross-generational knowledge transfer.

Download exhibition essay by Réka Szepesvári.

External Space is XPACE’s gallery for media based works that can be viewed at the Learning Zone or online.

On until January 2, 2017

Doorcuts produced by Zak Tatham, Toronto based video and filmmaker also co-founder of Family Contact Production Studios is currently on exhibit at XPACE’s External Space hosted at Learning Zone.

Please read Jill Blackmore Evans’ exhibition essay online.

On until August 17

External Space is an exhibition gallery located within OCAD U Library Services’s Learning Zone at 113 McCaul St. hosting a series of media-based videos and animations.