Opening this Saturday, September 21, the third edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) aims to recognize several truths at once. Aptly titled Precarious JoysThis year’s edition will address the political, environmental, and economic instability of our world, highlighting the heartbreak of living in such a vulnerable time and affirming the need for artistic spaces that will be the cradle of radical social change. The biennial will run until December 1st and will feature 36 local and international artists with performances, workshops, and events spread throughout the city. eleven placesincluding two main hubs at 32 Lisgar Street and on the ninth floor of the historic Auto BLDG at 158 Sterling Avenue. Visitors can attend all programming events, from exhibits to panel discussions, completely free of charge.
The title of the next edition is derived from six central concepts called “key guidelines“, which co-curators Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López established through conversations with contributing artists: “joy,” “precarious,” “home,” “polyphony,” “comfort,” and “coded.”
“The key guidelines lent themselves naturally to the title,” Fontaine said in an interview with Hyperallergic“and they talk about forms of solidarity between all forms of precarious life, human and non-human.” Rather than responding to a single theme for the biennial, the artists and curators were guided by these six tracks to produce and select works.
Fontaine and López—who is based in Lima, Peru, and is the biennial’s first international curator—both stressed that collaboration was at the heart of their approach, seeing their role as that of facilitator of dialogue rather than curator per se.
“Dominique and I decided to do joint research in conservation,” Lopez said. Hyperallergic“When people ask me, ‘What section did you organize?’ I can’t answer them because we oversee the whole process together.”
The curators also made a deliberate choice not to include academic essays in the catalogue, instead building it on conversations with artists and scholars. This decision, along with the wide variety of exhibition venues, was part of a concerted effort to make the biennial more accessible to Toronto’s diverse population.
To this end, the public programming planned to accompany Precarious Joys focuses on movement and dance as both archives and tools for mapping trauma, resilience and pleasure. The biennial will also host multilingual events, including a Cantonese opera and a workshop with the Starlight Chinese Opera Performing Arts Center October 26. Each biennial venue will also feature recurring storytelling sessions, during which local artists will be able to engage directly with visitors and provide a more in-depth explanation of their practices.
The term “precarious” comes from conversations with a Chilean-born artist based in New York Cecilia Vicuñawho began creating small temporary installations from waste and debris in 1966 which she called precariousplural form of “precarious” in Spanish. The works are conceived in an ephemeral manner, always at risk of being destroyed by bad weather or carried away by the tide.
As part of the biennial, the Collision gallery will present Vicuña’s installation Future.O (Future.E)which pays tribute to a Canadian victim of MKUltra Project Gail Kastner, who underwent severe electroshock therapy at the hands of a doctor hired by the CIA to develop mind-control techniques. One of the new works is “Change of Consciousness,” a single-page artist’s book made from a cigarette pack—a nod to the fact that Kastner, at age 18, wrote on cigarette packs to keep records after electroshock therapy damaged her memory. Vicuña’s work also references ancient crafts like quipu (“knot” in Quechua), which was referenced in the first precarious she did. The quipus were used as recording devices Indigenous communities in the Andean region used the term “Quipu Girok” (knot recording) as their physical lingua franca until the Spanish colonial forces destroyed the vast majority of them. Vicuña will present an installation entitled “Quipu Girok” (knot recording) (2021) at the biennial 32 Lisgar Street hub.
Self-taught Balinese artist Citra Sasmita is also interested in ancestral storytelling in her practice and will present three new works at the biennale drawing on her interest in Kamasan style of painting. The tradition was historically an exclusively male art formbut as a feminist artist, Sasmita adapts the style to reimagine Balinese myths and epics to center women and call for their liberation.
The second principle of the title, “Joy,” was proposed by a Toronto-based artist, activist and educator. Pamila Matharu“I came to think about a visual representation of joy because I felt a little overwhelmed by the idea of sharing a traumatic narrative,” the artist said in an interview with Hyperallergic. They will present a new multimedia installation entitled earth naal _ with you reflecting on the teachings of their mentor, also an exhibiting artist WinsomWinsom.
Matharu, a mentee of the Fresh Arts movement of the 1990s, often honors the artists who shaped their practice, much of which is based on the “embodied archives“radical black artists. On September 21, they will appear on a sign with Winsom and the artist-activist d’bi.young anitafrika. Matharu explained that they took the opportunity to participate in an event with Winsom. “A Shradhanjali (tribute) to your guru “(Teaching) is a very normal act of love (in South Asian culture),” they said, “and I’m very tired of Western hegemony.”
