Jen Pilles

I Wish I Hadn't Done That
(2009)

Jen Pilles is a third-year illustration student at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. She is founder/co-founder of the Welland Zine Library, OCAD Zine Library and Sheridan Zine Library.

Cara Spooner

Movement Maps
2008

"By creating daily movement maps that documented both dance and pedestrian movement, the subjective nature of place and perspective became my priority. The personal scale, accuracy and symbolic notation was explained through a fragmented legend on the back each map which included things such as who I interacted with, topics I discussed, recipes I used as well as the poem from that day's 'poem-a-day'. (a task I have been practicing since March)"


Since completing her BFA at York University, Cara Spooner has been involved in many performance and installation work as both a performer and choreographer. She has performed with the Integrated Dance Artists Collective, Matthew Romantini, the Parahumans, Yvonne Ng, Bluemouth Inc. and has presented solo work at Series 8:08. She has choreographed for the Toronto Fringe Festival, Labspace Studios, Ladyfest, Pleasure Dome's Toronto New Works showcase, Art Harvest and will be collaborating with American artist Robin Lasser on a performance installation in the coming year. Recently Cara and Alicia Grant created a performance/installation for 20 performers and 20 household objects titled 5x4. Their site-specific dance/film interactive installation The Residents was presented as a part of Toronto's Nuit Blanche 2007 at the Casa Loma stables and was named the "#1 pick of the night" by the Toronto Star. Cara and Alicia have also performed their site-(un)specific pieces It/Out/In as well as Mourning Sunshine as a part of the St. John's Festival of New Dance in June 2008 which was also named 2008's 'best site-specific dance piece in Canada' by the Globe and Mail. They will be debuting a new collaborative performance installation as a part of the 2009 programming at Xpace Gallery titled Draft 4.

Simon Rabyniuk

Dirt Workers (7 Days in 21 Movements)
2008

"For a period of seven days I collected and saved the inconsequential paper markers of my movement and consumption; a collection that I added to, with the shiny bits, that caught my eye, glittering in the gutter. Each days holdings were composed -- loosely grouped by time of day found -- and scanned; then divided into three. A basic photocopy transfer technique was used to embed the 21 images onto off-white, machine made, insubstantial paper."


Simon Rabyniuk makes full confession of the misdeeds of his youth. A few cigarettes, a few mouthfuls of meat, a few annas pilfered in childhood from the maidservant, two visits to a brothel (on each occasion he got away without “doing anything”), one narrowly escaped lapse with his landlady in Plymouth, one outburst of temper, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University (2006) — that is about the whole collection.

As the middle child, of Jim and Cathie Rabyniuk, he has been socialized in the art of diplomacy and peacemaking -- while on average receiving 10 less hours per week of parental attention then his siblings -- diplomacy and peacemaking emerged as tactics for establishing an equitable distribution of love within his family.

He is currently exhibiting a series of diptych paintings in King City, ON, in a space where social skills are work-shopped with children with autism or Aspergers Syndrome. He has also recently lent his volunteer support to the Toronto Free Library, taking place at the Toronto Free Gallery.

Deborah Margo

Made in Cuba and Canada
(2008)

Gouache, coloured pencil, ink, markers, seeds and plant matter, pastel paper, glassine paper, collaged magazine paper, thread and scotch tape.

"The title of the book and the author's name are not written on the spine or the cover of the book. Nevertheless, the title can be inferred by the pieces of text on the box's various exterior surfaces. To be explicit, the book is a cigar box made in Cuba with it's final destination and transformation occurring in Canada.

"The seven object/books are text-less. Instead their contained leaves and seeds are signs of past and future growing seasons. Each one contains something different that can be identified by the sample found in the small glassine envelope attached to the “cigar” form by thread. In alphabetical order – but not representative of their placement in the box – there are: Basil leaves, Gideon’s Trumpet seeds, Hollyhox seeds, Marigold seeds, Mint leaves, Myrtle leaves and Scarlet Runner Bean seeds.

"In remembering what the box originally contained, I made my own “cigars” based on some of the plants I tended this past summer as a professional gardener working in the Ottawa region."

Deborah Margo was born in Montreal in 1961 and currently lives in Ottawa. She received an undergraduate Fine Arts degree from Concordia University in Montreal (1984), and a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia (1990). Her work combines different disciplines including sculpture, painting, drawing, photography and ephemeral installations persistently questioning the contextual identities of public and private spaces. In addition, she has experience as a curator, writer and, since 1999, has been teaching painting and sculpture at the University of Ottawa.

Morag Schonken

Morag Schonken Volume One thru Seven
(2008)

Morag Schonken has created a poetic and provocative response to the experience of living. This journey is remembered, embedded in her skin. Schonken's pieces are each an awakening of a moment and all with a comment on how we are imprinted by each other, the environment and ourselves. Born in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, she is a fibre-based installation artist. She currently lives and works in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Schonken has a fine arts diploma from the Toronto School of Art. She interned at Propeller Gallery in Toronto in 2006-7. An avid traveler, she has lived and created in Australia, Singapore, England, Africa and Canada. She has since moved to Winnipeg to participate in the Foundation Mentorship program through Mentoring Artists for Women's Art (MAWA) as mentee to Shawna Dempsey. Most recently she has shown in The Swag Bag Project; The Exhibition at The Semai Gallery and Fixed/Variable at MAWA.