Curatorial Tour with Indu Vashist and Toleen Touq

A program of: P. Mansaram: The Medium is the Medium is the Medium

Wednesday, March 6, 2019, 6:30 pm

Join us for a curatorial tour with curators Indu Vashist and Toleen Touq. Spanning more than five decades, the selection of works in P. Mansaram: The Medium is the Medium is the Medium highlights both material and spiritual elements from the artists’ surroundings and everyday life–including characters, symbols and spaces–to convey the artist’s meditative and transcendent processes in both form and content. In that regard, the ways in which Mansaram assembles different media and creates a sense of place present the viewer with a nuanced narrative of the diasporic experience.

Indu Vashist has served as the Executive Director of SAVAC since 2013. Currently, she is serving her second term on Executive of the Board of MANO (Media Arts Network of Ontario), she sits on the Advisory Board of Blackwood Gallery, and the Advisory Council for Creative Time Summit hosted by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. She has written and published extensively including: “Redefining South Asia without Borders.” (Art Gallery of Mississauga, 2013); “From Collective to Institution.” (Surrey Art Gallery, 2015); “Family Photo Album.” (Art Asia Pacific Vol 95, Sept/Oct 2015); “What do you do?: Basil AlZeri’s You Do What You Love Because You Do One Two, and More Than Two.”  (University of Waterloo Art Gallery, publication forthcoming). Prior to working at SAVAC, she had been equally splitting her time between India and Canada. In India, she worked with artist, queer and feminist arts organizations and collectives: Bombay-based Queer Nazariya International Film Festival, Delhi-based Nigah Media Collective, and Madras-based Marappacchi Theatre Group.

Toleen Touq is a curator, cultural producer and writer who has recently moved to Toronto. Her approach takes site-responsiveness as a methodology to build radical pedagogical platforms and alternative knowledge systems. Previously based out of Amman, Jordan, she co-founded Spring Sessions (www.thespringsessions.com), an annual residency program that brings together 20 artists, scholars and cultural practitioners in a collaborative and experiential learning environment for 100 days every spring. She also initiated The River Has Two Banks (www.theriverhastwobanks.net), a multi-disciplinary platform that addresses the historical, political and mobility commonalities between Jordan and Palestine. Her writings have been published with Ibraaz, A Prior, Manifesta Journal and others. She has received several fellowships from the Clore Leadership Program (UK), the Berlin Biennale (Germany), Art Dubai (UAE) and the Franchise Award from Apexart Gallery (NY). Over the past decade, she has worked as a mentor for emerging artists and looks forward to bringing her expertise to Toronto.