UPCOMING EVENTS
The Women’s Kit – REGENERATION
Opening Reception Thursday, October 5 @ 7 – 10pm
Panel Discussion / Tuesday October 17 @ 7pm
Ada Slaight Student Galleries, Second Floor
Hours 7:30 am to 12:00 am
OCAD University 100 McCaul St, Toronto
Contact: 647-919-7336
Email: torontofac@gmail.com
http://www.thewomenskit.org
http://www.factoronto.org
*Event is trans inclusive / transphobia will not be tolerated
*Venue has gender neutral washrooms
*Venue is wheelchair accessible
*Scent reduced event / no perfumes or colognes please
23 artists
drawing from the past
bringing to the present,
moment-by-moment expression
forty-two years later
a discovery
much has changed
and yet not enough
An intergenerational art exhibition and launch of The Women’s Kit website celebrating the history and visibility of feminist art in Toronto.
In 1973, The Women’s Kit was produced in Toronto at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) by researcher and artist, Pamela Harris, along with a team of fellow artists and educators. These women assembled a dynamic educational resource with over 150 items that relate to the socialization of femininity.
The Women’s Kit was distributed to high schools and colleges to encourage students to observe and question the limitations set on prescribed gender roles. Since its creation, The Women’s Kit has found its home at the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE) at OISE as a subject of research and scholarly publication.
During a meeting in 2014, members of the Feminist Art Conference viewed the kit and were enchanted by the time capsule of the feminist art movement in Toronto. Through funding by an anonymous donor and hundreds of volunteer hours, they sought to immortalize the kit through a massive digitization project.
FAC is strongly motivated by a feminist imperative to document the pioneering work of the kit’s creators. This new website is as a testament to the importance of feminist history and the necessity of visibility. By publishing The Women’s Kit online, FAC is bridging the feminist generation gap. The creation of the digital platform also allows the kit to return to its origins as an educational tool for wide dissemination.
For the development of the website, FAC procured funding from a generous anonymous donor. The educational expansion on the project solidified with additional funding from OCAD University through the Ada Slaight Foundation and an Arts Education Projects grant from the Ontario Arts Council. This critical funding supported students in an exploration of the kit, culminating in the creation of artwork inspired by its contents. Outfitted with museum gloves, current Drawing and Painting students at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, along with recent alumni and local youth, dug through this rich archive responding with contemporary viewpoints on feminism today.
The resulting exhibition, REGENERATION, seeks to provide an in-depth and intersectional approach to The Women’s Kit, one that re-examines several critical conversations rooted in generations of feminism and fertilized by LGBTQ2S+ love, afro-futurist narratives, race politics, diasporic conversations, gender identity and sexual diversity. They explore new feminist realities and amplify artist narratives that were silenced at the time of the kit’s inception due to power and privilege at play. The arts-engaged youth do this through printmaking and zines inspired by pop art and the graphic arts movements contemporary to the kit.
The resurrection of the kit at this critical moment in the feminist movement and the ensuing conversation between past and present culminates with the launch of The Women’s Kit website and the REGENERATION exhibit of new artwork created by a current generation of storytellers.
Join the conversation through art and explore The Women’s Kit website at the opening reception on October 5th!
OCADU Drawing and Painting
Current Students and Recent Alumni
Becca Wijshijer
Bethany Davis
Cristine Yunyk
Curtia Wright
Debora Puricelli
Iman Aziz Bhatti
Myra Merchant
Natalie King
Niloo Inalouei
Roxanne Curci
Wei Qi
Will Carpenter
Youth Participants
Anne Vo
Edan Maxam
Isabel Morris
Jessica Chang
Jessica Zhang
Kira Nguyen Do
Magda U-Falcon
Maude Christie
Mia Yaguchi-Chow
Rainier Magtalas
Tina Gong
Vicky Wang
Sophia Xavion Alexis
Project funded in part by the Ada Slaight Foundation and the Ontario Arts Council
PWYC Donation at the door (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Cash bar and party snacks!
Facebook event here!
RECENT PAST EVENTS
FAC Residency Open Studio will happen at Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas Street East on May 24th.
FAC Call for Artwork About Feminism and Health
Curating Conversations through Creation
Call for Artwork for exhibition of 10″ x 10” artworks for the Truth About Healthy Lives Conference
Over the past five years of FAC programming, we have encountered many artists creating work about how patriarchy affects their health. Topics such as the politics around breast cancer, mental health, disability rights, menstrual health, reproductive rights and fertility are explored in our exhibitions and panels.
For some time, we have had the goal of creating a project that would focus on this topic as an anchoring curatorial theme. Recently, we have been invited to curate a conversation through art at the Truth About Healthy Lives Conference taking place at the Toronto Reference Library events space on April 8.
Organizers believe the work from our community will be both inspiring and provocative for their 500+ attendees. With the event space in mind, our curatorial team is asking for works of a standardized size of 10″ x 10”. We are looking for intimate works that speak to the themes of health from a feminist framework.
Click Here for more details
To get more details go to our facebook event page here.
FAC Partners with Refashioning Masculinity with a screening of James Knott’s video
“Keep lying to yourself, Pinocchio”
Free and open to the public!
RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/refashioning-masculinity-fashion-show-tickets-24355782802
What:
Exhibit | 7pm – 10pm
Fashion Show | 8pm
When:
Thursday May 5, 2016
7pm- 10pm
FAC, CWSE, and WIAprojects Celebrate International Women’s Day with a panel exploring historical and contemporary graphic design for the Women’s Movement in Toronto, and an exhibition at OISE of Feminist Organizing posters dating back to the early 1970’s!
Wednesday March 9th, 7:00 pm – OISE UofT, 252 Bloor St. W., 2nd Floor, Room 295
Event details HERE!
FAC members Kate Welsh, Neena Sharma, llene Sova, Jordana Franklin and Aldeli Alban Reyna will be speaking about Feminist Art Organizing on January 23rd!
PAST EVENTS
Miss Hokusai- Reel Asian Film Fest November 2015
Artscape FAC Residency Exhibition-May 2015
Exhibition at Her2- January/February 2015
NSFW Theatre Centre Exhibition- November 2014
FAC Culture Days- September 2013
