This mini-conference, delivered online via Zoom, is presented on the occasion of a two-part series, called The Great Exchange. Coinciding with Teeth, Loan and Trust Company: The Trylowsky Collection and Toronto-based artist Bill Burns' project, The Goat, the Salt, the Oil.
Dr. Zenon Trylowsky opened his dental practice on the twelfth floor of the Vancouver Block Building at Granville and Georgia Street in 1996; the majority of work in Trylowsky’s collection was acquired through exchange — particularly beneficial for artists working independently without a dental plan. As curator Patrik Andersson notes, "On December 3, 1919, unable to pay his American dentist Daniel Tzanck in cash, the artist Marcel Duchamp made and signed a fake cheque written in the amount of the 115 dollars that he had been billed. The significance of this false Teeth, Loan and Trust Company, Consolidated cheque may be measured both by the fact that the dentist accepted this original copy as payment and that Duchamp valued it so highly that he bought it back from him years later at an inflated price...not only does Duchamp ‘Thank” Dr. Tzanck with this work, but the spelling of “check” refers as much to a cheque as it alludes to Duchamp’s obsession with the game of chess."
Eminent Toronto-based artist Bill Burns will continue his research during a Fall/Winter residency at Griffin Art Projects from December 8 to February 28, in a project that further prompts an examination of parallel economies. Burns’ ongoing research includes The Goat, the Salt, the Oil, a performance series that positioned global trade as an art practice; at Griffin, the artist will research a further speculative iteration of his project, activating the site of the Vancouver Harbour and producing a series of short films, this time potentially proposing the trade of red snapper for goat’s milk, yogurt for honey, organizing a shipment of Nepalese salt for olives or other foodstuffs in Vancouver. The residency includes a photo study of Vancouver dockyards, trains and freight yards, drawings—“pre-documents”—of potential future trades and short Super 8 film diaries of Burns’ everyday life in a pandemic, under the regime of advanced global industrialism.
The Hives of Catalytic Exchanges panel discussion will feature Dr. Janis Timm-Bottos of Art Hive, William Huffman of West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative and Jonny Sopotiuk of VALU-COOP and will be moderated by Griffin’s adjunct curator, Dr. Karen Tam. The conversation will explore alternative economies in art that provide models for reciprocal engagement, art-making, and mutual aid that nurture community and build solidarity. From creative co-operatives to community art studios to mutual aid groups that support and care for their members and peers, these alternatives to the traditional notion of art and labour, help sustain the livelihood of artists and cultural workers through the provision of income streams and the sharing of resources, skills, and knowledge.
After the presentations, join us for Chats & Chews, an informal post-conference discussion. Bring an appetizer and/or a drink, and join us in conversation with Dr. Karen Tam and Grace Law of aiya!哎呀 Collective to unpack the ideas sparked at the conference. Initially conceived as part of the Whose Chinatown? virtual conference, Chats & Chews are intended as informal mingling sessions for community members to connect and come together to explore the themes discussed in the previous panel over casual conversation, virtual drinks and snacks. Chats & Chews will be moderated by Grace Law of aiya!哎呀 Collective.
Bill Burns’ work about advanced industrialism, donkeys, goat’s milk, salt, safety gear, and honey bees has been shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Mendes Wood Gallery, Sao Paulo; 303 Gallery, New York; the Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.He has published artists’ books with publishers in Canada, Germany, USA, UK, Austria, and Denmark. His most recent titles include A Book About the Power 100, published by Verlag Mark Pezinger, Vienna (2018) and Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us, published by YYZ BOOKS and Black Dog Publishing, London, UK (2016). His artists’ editions are included in collections at Tate Britain, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Getty Center, Los Angeles. Mr Burns is also Artistic Director of the Dogs and Boats and Airplanes Experimental Children’s Choir. The choir has produced live performances and audio works at festivals in Australia, Argentina, the UK and Canada. Bill Burns studied under Mowry Baden at University of Victoria, Canada and with Gerard Hemsworth and John Latham at Goldsmiths College, London, England. He is represented by MKG127, Toronto; C4 Contemporary, Los Angeles.
Janis Timm-Bottos, PhD, ATR-BC, is a former physical therapist, a board-certified art therapist, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal. Timm-Bottos is the founder and director of the Art Hives Network Initiative which links 227 art hives worldwide. She promotes arts-based social inclusion through the development of neighborhood and institutional third spaces of mutual care for all ages, along with specialized studios for groups requiring more support to regain their footing in society. Her research investigates Public Practice Art Therapies and the art hive as a therapeutic anchor for individuals, families, and communities. She currently serves as the PI for FRQ-S engAGE Living Lab Créatif, located in a local mall, and is serving as a co-director of Concordia’s “Design, Arts, Culture and Community” of Next Generation Cities Institute.
An Art Hive is a community art studio that welcomes everyone as an artist. From a neighborhood pop-up in a park or local library to a space in a university, gallery, or museum, at its heart, an Art Hive is about inclusion, respect, and learning new skills from each other. It's a welcoming place to talk, make art, and build community. We're in it for our own healing and responding in creative ways to things that matter. www.arthives.org
William Huffman is an arts administrator, curator, educator, and writer currently with West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, who divides his time between the Kinngait and Toronto operations. Huffman is also an occasional instructor with University of Toronto, Toronto School of Art, and Visual Arts Mississauga. His recent curatorial work includes several national and international travelling exhibitions.
Established in 1959, West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative has enjoyed an international reputation for the exquisite prints, drawings and carvings created by its Inuit artist members. In addition to operation of the Kinngait Studios at the Kenojuak Cultural Centre in Kinngait, the cooperative maintains a Toronto marketing division office, Dorset Fine Arts, which is responsible for interfacing with galleries, museums, cultural professionals, Inuit art enthusiasts and the art market globally. The mandate of West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative includes public relations, promotion, advocacy, government relations and special projects relating to Kinngait Inuit art. Governed by an all-Inuit Board of Directors, the organization also maintains a local retail grocery/hardware store, a restaurant, rental properties and various utility contracts. As a community owned organization, practically all Kinngait adults are shareholders, profits are distributed back to the community in the form of annual dividends. westbaffin.com
Jonny Sopotiuk is a visual artist, curator and community organizer living and working on the Unceded Indigenous territories belonging to the Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh-ulh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and Tsleil-Watututh peoples in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His interdisciplinary practice explores compulsion and control through the lenses of production, labour, and work. Jonny is the President of the Arts and Cultural Workers Union (ACWU), IATSE Local B778 and is a founding member of two arts worker cooperatives: the Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative (VALU CO-OP) and Stitchers Cooperative. Democratically operated by our artist-members, Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative (VALU CO-OP) is a value driven worker cooperative.
VALU believes in empowering artists and cultural workers through fair, secure, and flexible employment that supports artists to do what they do best—make art. VALU strives to work and organize in an intersectional and anti-oppressive framework that supports our members’ needs, and contributes meaningfully to our communities. VALU is proud to be both a fully unionized organization, and a democratically run workers co-operative—an innovative new organizing model. VALU produces high quality, sustainably made campaign materials and creative services at our Chinatown Studio; including buttons, stickers, graphic totes and t-shirts, and a range of print services.
Karen Tam is an artist whose research focuses on the various forms of constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities, through her installation work in which she recreates spaces of Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural encounters. Since 2000, she has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in North America, Europe, and China, including the Deutsche Börse Residency at the Frankfurter Kunstverein (Germany), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (Canada), and CUE Art Foundation (CUE). She was a finalist for the Prix Louis-Comtois in 2017 from the Contemporary Art Galleries Association and the Ville de Montréal, a finalist for the Prix en art actuel from the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec in 2016, and long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2016 and 2010. Tam lives and works in Montréal and holds a MFA in Sculpture from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths (University of London).
Grace Law is a cultural worker, community builder, and visual artist with focuses in contemporary art, public art, social practice, cultural specific ways of making, and participatory collaborative process frameworks.
aiya 哎呀 is an intergenerational group of artists and Chinatown community members who are using the tools of arts and culture to make work that addresses the displacement and cultural erasure in Edmonton’s Chinatown. Beginning with the 2017 removal of the Harbin Gate, the collective is compelled to create spaces of mourning and remembering. The dismantling of the gate is symbolic of ongoing displacement and is an outcome of capitalist and colonial values. aiya 哎呀’s core members are Grace Law, Wai Ling Lennon, Shawn Tse, and Lan Chan Marples, and has worked with the Art Gallery of Alberta and Nuit Blanche in Edmonton.