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Please join on on THURSDAY, MAY 5TH, at 6:00 PM EST at Eastern Bloc for the official opening party for In the Middle, a Chimera, as well as the opening for the exhibition element at Eastern Bloc. No reservation is required; mask wearing will be mandatory, and social distancing will be maintained during the event.
The exhibition will be open at Eastern Bloc up until and including May 18th from Tuesday to Saturday, 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST.
In the Middle, a Chimera considers how new, breakthrough technology developed under the veil of capitalism inevitably bends to its whirling, maelstrom pull (sometimes despite more communitarian originary intentions): the goal of this exhibition/project is to envision and develop community-oriented futures where this pull is redirected towards mutually beneficial relationships, and ways in which we might undermine or re-conceptualize these technologies to not only nurture ourselves but our surrounding ecosystems and environments.
FEATURED ARTISTS
jacqueline beaumont | post-binary genetic sequences
jacqueline beaumont is a bio-material architect, artist and researcher. Her research weaves together Queer Ecology, Artificial Reproductive technologies, Transgender studies and Material engineering. She has been exhibited, lectured and recognized internationally including a gold medal from IGEM (MIT 2019), Concordia university undergraduate fellowship(2020), presented work at MUTEK (2021), Culture² (2021), Center Pompidou (behavioral matter 2019), and FoFa Gallery (2020). She graduated with a BFA in Fibers and Material practices at Concordia University. Currently she works as a research affiliate of the Milieux institute under Dr.Alice Jarry (Concordia University research chair in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality) as well as the Biointerface lab at Mcgill.
Diyar Mayil | Broom
Diyar Mayil is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation and performance. Her work explores the public life of marginalized bodies. Comfort, discomfort, adaptation, and the acceptance of different bodies in both public and private are recurring subjects in her practice. Her work has recently been shown at La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, Printemps numérique and the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Upcoming commitments include residency at the Banff Center in Alberta and NARS Foundation in NYC. She holds a BFA from Concordia University, where she has recently completed her MFA. Originally from Istanbul, she now lives and works in Montreal.
Ojo Agi | There Is Space For You Here
“There is space for you here” is a series of drawings exploring self-care and empowerment. The common feminist response to sexist and racist representation is to look back, reclaiming the gaze as a site of resistance. But what if, instead, we opted to look away, making space for ourselves to rest, recover and restore?
In “Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery”, feminist writer bell hooks insists that Black people “are so well socialized to push ourselves past healthy boundaries that we often do not know how to set protective boundaries that would eliminate certain forms of stress in our lives… Since society rewards us most, indicates that we are valuable, when we are willing to push ourselves to the limit and beyond, we need a life-affirming practice, a counter-system of valuation in order to resist this agenda.”
While self-care practices are diverse and suited to each individual’s needs, they all begin with setting boundaries and disengaging from the things that we no longer want. Inspired by the practice of refusal, these drawings suggest that making space for ourselves begins with saying no.
Timothy Thomasson | I’m Feeling Lucky
My work primarily is created with computer animation, and utilizes real-time technologies to create continually generative environments and systems. I am questioning the ways moving images are produced and consumed within both historic and contemporary contexts, particularly examining the affects computer generated images have on society, culture, and perception.
Mark Igloliorte | Makpilitak UKalagalâk (Tile Talk)
Mark Igloliorte (Inuk, Nunatsiavut) is an artist, essayist and educator. He is an associate professor of Frameworks and Interventions in Indigenous Art Practices, Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University. As a scholar and artist his work investigates relating to indigenous futures through a grounding in the embodied practices and language. His use of the kayak, kamutik (Inuit sled) and skateboard speak to relating to the land how it is traversed and with specific ties to a pre-colional past and an indigenized future. Igloliorte’s artistic work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across Canada as well as internationally. Including including New Zealand and The Netherlands. Igloliorte has a new Immersive Video Production Project as one of 6 mid-career Indigenous exploring the power of 360-degree video and augmented reality for digital storytelling which will be featured in an eight meter high Lavuu as the Nordic Pavilion in the 59th Venice Biennale contemporary art international exhibition between April and November 2022.
Philippe Vandal | saturation by accumulation
At the intersection of technological, ecological, and artistic preoccupations, Philippe’s work bridges bio-inspired critical design, environmental chemistry, and site-specific tangible media interventions. He has been interested in prototyping and exploring small-scale devices as both scientific tools and sensitive frameworks for intervening, visualizing, remediating, and thinking with different local sites impacted by the mismanagement of landfill and construction waste, snow removal, and industrial leachates. Addressing issues of socio-environmental justice, his work seeks to align with critical landscape studies, waste and discard studies, and environmental realism to examine the practical, sociocultural and political capabilities and limits of remediation framework to engage with at-risk materials, sites, and communities. Philippe’s work has been presented at the International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA2020: What is Sentience?), VAV Gallery, Art Mûr, and collaborative work at Centre Pompidou, Ars Electronica, les Rencontres Hexagram, Ada X, and Mutek. Philippe is currently completing a BFA Major in Intermedia Cyber Arts.