Public event: Saturday, November 25, 2017 1 to 5 p.m
Presented by Onsite Gallery
Curated by Ala Roushan and Maiko Tanaka, OCAD U
In collaboration with Patricio Davila, Ali Qadeer and Shaheer Tarar, OCAD U
With support from Public Visualization Lab
Featuring performances and talks by Tsēma Igharas, Natasha Myers with Ayelen Liberona and Zoe Todd; with contributions from Natalie Jeremijenko and FRAUD (Fran Gallardo & Audrey Samson)
Tree Temporality was a speculative project exploring more-than-human considerations of public art in our natural and urban environments, practicing methodologies that unlearn colonial, academic and scientific approaches to research. Through the tree and other intelligent entities, we hope to acknowledge existing sentient relations and agencies, from soil and skin, to technology and synthetic-life, to animals and organisms, to law and territory.
The project has been initiated through a series of internal gatherings led by a group of artists that presented their perspective on this topic and its critical role in their practice, addressing the research questions: If we reflect on the tree’s relation to time and territory, might it perform as precedent in how we regard resilience, permanence, ephemerality, legality and land within public art practice? How does thinking through time of a tree address other temporalities that may exist?
The content and connections that emerged from these sessions have shaped the performative public event through which recommendations for a more-than-human public art practice will unfold.
Collectively we continued to reflect on the boundaries between the artificial and the organic implied by shifts in technology, impacting connectivity, perception and more-than-human interactions.
Order of presentations:
Zoe Todd
Natasha Myers
FRAUD (Fran Gallardo & Audrey Samson)
Tsēma Igharas
Panel Discussion
