Geologist Ed Freeman will be providing an overview of the history of brick-making in Toronto that spans the subjects of climate change, labour, soil taxonomy, and gentrification.

Following Ed Freeman’s talk, we will invite the audience to participate in an exploration of Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations using bricks from Feminist Art Museum’s installation. This special performance will be facilitated by musicians/composers Anne Bourne and Christopher Willes, as part of their process of developing a new performance of Oliveros’ work at the Museum.

FREE RSVP: https://www.gardinermuseum.on.ca/event/talk-ed-freeman/

About Feminist Art Museum

The Feminist Art Museum (FAM) is conceived of by curators Xenia Benivolski and Su-Ying Lee as a national, multi-site pilot project. FAM will use brick as a metaphoric and material reference to create a space for dialogue on institution building, place, space, and land.

FAM asks: What are ways of being on the land that have been supplanted by colonialism and patriarchy? What knowledge can institutions and culture makers access if seeking to approach these projects with a socio-political consciousness? Visitors to the Gardiner Museum are invited to participate in the symbolic building and disseminating gesture by contributing and bringing in their own bricks, which will become part of the installation in the gallery. The formation of the brick pile will take form over the course of the project as it grows.

Amid the installation, the exhibition hall will also host “riot rock rattles” made in a workshop facilitated by artist Tsēma Igharas, and public rehearsals led by artist Christopher Willes of Pauline Oliveros’ seminal “Sonic Meditations” to consider the sonic as a way to take up space.

About the Community Arts Space: Art is Change

The Gardiner Museum’s unique history and identity is rooted in the city, but its future is increasingly shaped by those beyond the core cultural corridor. As space increasingly becomes a premium downtown, the Gardiner has collaborated with six cultural and community partners to consider how institutional outreach can be re-shaped by local artists, curators, and architects. Looking to the rapid high-rise developments happening within the Museum’s own Yorkville neighbourhood, the projects in Art is Change consider how the city’s unique and varied local histories of art and social activism can be re-mapped for the future.