Taking It To the Streets

A series of public art projects in various Greater Toronto neighbourhoods.

Projects:

• The Street Art Postering Project
• 99 44/100% PURE
• Communities Virtual

This summer SAVAC is taking art out of traditional white-box gallery spaces and making a direct day-to-day contact with Diasporic South Asian Communities and other communities of colour. In essence, the streets of Toronto become our gallery walls. The intention of this project is to address issues of cultural significance to the Diasporic South Asian Communities and to cultivate new audience for contemporary art initiatives, towards the goal of connecting our art to our communities. This project is presented in three parts; Communities Virtual (an exhibition of digital photo-constructions and a series of on-line exhibition); the street Art Postering Project; and 99 44/100 % PURE (a Site-specific series of public installation).

Look for our Art……….on your streets!



The Street Art Postering Project
curated by Kevin D Souza

A series of three street art posters will be taking over the streets of our neighbourhoods this summer. In keeping with our vision to bridge the gap between culture, art and activism, this collaborative poster project connects local activists with practicing visual artists. In using mainstream media and commercial venues as acts of temporal intervention, this project reinterprets public spaces and interogates the concept of media culture. the community grounds become the medium.



99 44/100% PURE

A site-specific series of public installations/ interventions by Tamara Zeta Sanowar Makhan. This project investigates the issue of family violence based on the artist's personal experiences. this piece deconstructs the projected ideals of 'family sanctity', and addresses the violation of childhood 'innocence' and 'purity' and the pandemic of childhood abuse within all our communities.


Communities Virtual
Exhibition: Sweetness and Light
Installation: Project X
Online Exhibition: Spinning the web

17-31 July 1998
interAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre

Sweetness and light is a series of digital photo-constructions by UK artist Roshine Kempadoo. Combining icons of new technologies and representations of the British landscape to examine the social and psychological strategies put in place to create a successful economic entity, sweetness and light explores the essence of the term 'colonialism' through the specific example of sugar plantations in the Caribbean during the 15th century. Also, a series of online exhibitions by South Asian artists will be presented at InterAccess . These online exhibitions can also be accessed at the participating community centers and libraries in the GTA. These exhibitions are a collaboration between InterAccess, CyberStage, Desh Pardesh and SAVAC.

Project sites

InterAccess;

the South Asian Women's Centre;

Neighborhood information Post;

Bloor information and Legal Services;

Coalition of Visible Minority Women;

South Asian Family Support Services;

Canadians of Bangladeshi Origins;

Association of Women of India in Canada;

Gerrard/Ashdale Public Library;

Bloor /Gladstone Public Library;

and the streets of various local neighborhoods, including Gerrard St. E., (Toronto), Albion Rd. (Rexdale), and Finch Ave. E. (Scarborough)