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.

Fiona Bailey

October
(2008)

Original photographs with hand and machine stitched wool and polyester on silk.

Fiona Bailey studied Textiles at Sheridan College, where she graduated with honours in 2007. Fiona's work uses original photography, a life long hobby, as a fabric. She tea stains and distresses each photo, to look worn and aged. She further develops the photos with needle felted wool, and hand and machine stitch, making them into functional art objects. Fiona's photographs are never reprinted, making each piece truly unique.

Fiona loves old things that have a lot of character; houses and architecture, furniture, dishes, textiles and quilts, little trinkets and of course vintage fashions. She finds treasures beyond material ones at second hand stores and rummage sales, where she gets many ideas and inspiration. She is a collector of discarded things; she used to collect people's grocery lists found on the floor or in carts at the grocery store, and now her preference is for hand embroidered wall hangings found at second hand shops.

Amber Landgraff

Communicating Essentials
(2008)

"I set myself the task of distilling my collection of philosophical texts into their essentials. An obsessive reading of texts that could be found in my apartment took place over the course of a week and a half. A close reading with an eye for essentials changed the way that I related to the words - each time an essential was found became an event."

Amber Landgraff is an emerging artist living in the Toronto area. Her work often takes the form of performative gestures and public interventions. Recent exhibitions include the Infinite Exchange Gallery 2008 (Sub Zero, ICA, San Jose) and Eyelevel Re-shelving Initiative 3 2008 (Eyelevel Gallery, Halifax). She has also exhibited performances and installations in Toronto, Edmonton, and Guelph.

Stephanie Cormier

The Showoff Collection
(2008)

Stephanie Cormier lives in Toronto, Ontario. Her practice is conceptually based and includes photography, video and sculpture installation. Stephanie studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design where she completed her BFA. Her work has been exhibited across Canada as well as internationally and has earned several national awards and grants. Most recently Stephanie’s work was featured in Carte Blanche: Photography 1, a publication of Canadian photographers and also Mix Magazine.

Daphne Gerou

(Less Than) Beautiful
(2008)

Daphne Gerou is a Toronto based visual artist whose overall art practice points to drawing as a primary medium. She studies fine arts at the Toronto School of Art, and is currently pursuing an Art History undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. Gerou's work has been included in group and curated exhibitions in Toronto, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Berlin. Her work has also appeared in literary publications such as Vallum and Fireweed. Gerou has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, and drawing awards from both the John B. Aird Gallery and the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition.

The materials that I used to create the books in my library were either on hand, or came to be (like the matchbook) throughout the course of the project. The theme that emerged in the books is one that points to interpersonal dynamics and the human experience in general. The theme that emerged in my creative process is a tension between pretty packaging and not-so-pretty content. I called the library "(Less than) Beautiful."

Debbie Danelley

ReBound
(2008)

Winnipeg artist Deborah Danelley graduated from the School of Art- University of Manitoba in 1997, gold medalist in the Diploma Program with Major in Printmaking. Since then she has been working actively as a visual artist. To produce art every day is not a stretch – listening to the subtle clues, voices and signs that lead artists to do what they do is another thing that takes practice and focus. The materials used are recycled from three or four books and the text was found within them, sometimes added by their previous owners as if to leave a message for someone to find for themselves one day.

I have simply taken the messages I “found” each day for a week and “rebound” them for others to find yet again.

Aimee Lee

I wear yoga pants
(2008)

Aimee Lee is an interdisciplinary artist who works in performance, book & paper, installation, and text arts. Born in New York, she received her BA in Visual Arts from Oberlin College and her MFA in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts from Columbia College Chicago. She trained as a classical violinist, with later studies in jazz and improvisation. Her movement studies include contact improv, modern dance, trapeze, acrobatics, hula, and breakdancing. She has appeared in performances for the Chicago Cultural Centre, Museum of Contemporary Art, Glass Curtain Gallery, PAC/edge Performance Festival, and Tic Toc Performance Festival.

Under the Bionic Hearing Press imprint, Aimee's artists' books reside in numerous collections, including the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, Museum of Modern Art Library, Oberlin College Clarence Ward Art Library Special Collections, and King St. Stephen Museum in Hungary. She has been granted residencies by Art Farm, Jentel, Ox-Bow, Ragdale, Vermont Studio Centre, Weir Farm Trust Art Centre, and the Interdisciplinary Residency of Art and Ecology in Mexico. Funders include the U.S. Fulbright Program, Puffin Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts Special Opportunity Stipend Program, and Manhattan Graphics Studio.

Aimee currently resides in Seoul, Korea, as she researches the Korean hand papermaking tradition as a Fulbright Researcher.