Summer photo album

Summer in Mississauga was packed full of fun thanks to the Art Gallery of Mississauga. I've got the photos to prove it!

Craftification on Canada Day
The Toronto Church of Craft and the Spinners and Weavers Guild work with participants to transform the street into a work of craft.

Grace N Style + Jessica Thompson + LAL

Kareem from Grace N Style works with the audience to demonstrate Jessica Thompson's wearable art, the Freestyle SoundKit.

Toronto collective LAL perform, delivering futuristic rhythms melting into warm basslines with hints of South Asian roots and hip hop formations.

Clothing Swap
Mississauga welcomed Syracuse, New York artist, Christina Kolizsavary with a clothing swap. Particpants got to clean out their closets and take home great new wardrobe pieces!

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Lunch, a tour and discussion with curators and artists on Sunday, July 27. Here participants are enjoying coversation inside Adrian Blackwell's Model for a Public Space.

Inside the Coil

Visitors to the Gallery, during Adrian Blackwell's Models for Public Spaces exhibition, interacted with Monster Coil. Radiant City was screened during the exhibition with the Coil as a comfy seating arrangment.

Artist's Talk

Please join us for the artist talk of Sharmila Samant this Thursday August 14th at 7PM
Art Gallery of Mississauga, 300 City Centre Drive, Mississauga, tel: 905 896 5088

Sharmila Samant, Against the Grain, 2008

FREE shuttle bus from Toronto

A bus will leave the front of 401 Richmond Street West at 6:30 PM and return at the same place for 9:00 PM.

Executive Director, Hank Bull and Curator Makiko Hara from Centre A as well as Executive Director, Haema Sivanesan from SAVAC will also be present to introduce the project and discuss their organizations.

Sharmila Samant (b. 1967) is a major contemporary Indian artist living and working in Mumbai. Her work deals with issues of local identity within the context of globalization. Samant examines the homogenizing effect of commodification and consumer culture in relation to developing economies. Visiting Canada for the first time, Samant will undertake research with the Goan community in Toronto, Mississauga and Vancouver and develop an installation and artist book project titled “Kathajaal: A Web of Stories”.

Kathajaal: A Web of Stories will examine factors informing the return immigration of Indo-Canadians to India. Samant uses a multi-disciplinary approach, working in photography, installation and video.

Samant states, “The projects I undertake involve eclectic collecting, documenting and recycling of urban debris, looking at the mundane and the profane. The works critique the market forces that define the cultural and art practices of the peripheral nations and question how our identities, within the global set up, can be sustained via a hybridization of our culture.”

Haema Sivanesan, Executive Director of SAVAC states, “Sharmila Samant is a significant international artist, whose work is rigorous, politically engaged and socially informed. It is a privilege to host her visit to Toronto, and to have her develop a project with the South Asian community here”

Samant’s work has been included in major international exhibitions and biennales including ”The Biennale of Sydney: Revolution – Forms that Turn” (2008); “Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India”, The Asia Society, New York, (touring, 2004 -2007); “Century City – Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis”, The Tate Modern, London, (2001).

Radiant City in the Gallery

Come cozy up at the Art Gallery of Mississauga inside Adrian Blackwell's Monster Coil. We'll provide the popcorn and entertainment! FREE










Tuesday August 12
Tuesday Night at the Movies: Radiant City
7 pm to 8:30 pm
Art Gallery of Mississauga

Whether you call it sprawl or growth, the suburbs have been the dominant form of community planning in North America for fifty years. In this incisive study, Gary Burns and Jim Brown peer into the windows and lives of those who call suburbia home. Canada, 2007. English.

History in a Box: Diorama making

Saturday, August 9th
Noon to 2pm
3pm to 5pm, at the Art Gallery of Mississauga
Ages 8-12 yrs
FREE pre registration suggested to ensure a spot
Register at info.agm@mississauga.ca or call 905 896 5506

History in a Box: Diorama making
A diorama is an imaginary mini-world or a scene in a box. Dioramas can incorporate cut outs, figures, models and drawings.

During the exhibition, Explorers and Dandies in an open letter to Canada Post: Frederick Hagan & Kent Monkman, Educator, Shaun Dacey will work with children ages 8 to 12 to explore how our official version of history is recorded. Through the creation of colourful dioramas, based on the works of Frederick Hagan and Kent Monkman, children will have the opportunity re-imagine history’s events with themselves as the authors.

Frederick Hagan’s (b. 1918, d. 2003) works have had the honour of being sanctioned to represent Canadian history. Issued from 1986-89, the Explorations of Canada postage stamp series was commissioned by Canada Post as a tribute to select explorers.

The current practice of artist Kent Monkman shares a similarity, in that history is regarded. However, it is an unsanctioned history which the artist constructs from the mined personal accounts of George Catlin, the traditions of 19th century landscape painting and the experiences of indigenous and two spirited people.

Explorers and Dandies in an open letter to Canada Post: Frederick Hagan & Kent Monkman will be on view at the Art Gallery of Mississauga until September 7, 2008.