September 27, 2018 – November 30, 2018
Michèle Karch-Ackerman: Bluebird Dress Factory
Bluebird Dress Factory explores the intersection of time and death, humanity and ornithology. For over twenty-five years, Michèle Karch-Ackerman’s artistic practice has involved the act of making of clothing – for ghosts, the dead, the forgotten, and the hurting.
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 27, 2018, 5 pm – 8 pm
Artist talk: 6 pm
Artist Statement:
My grandmother Julia was an avid birder. In the early 1900’s she, along with her husband Alfred (a prominent Montreal architect) went on birding expeditions and collected specimens to donate to the Natural History Society of Montreal. I inherited three objects from Julia when she passed. Her delicate birding gun, a tintype of her as a little girl (wearing a blue striped dress) and a spooky sepia photograph of Julia and a bunch of little girls in First Communion ‘bride’ outfits sitting with a group of stern looking nuns. These three artifacts, my dream-like recollections of visiting my grandmother’s Montreal home as a young girl, the recent death of a dear friend, my own feelings of bewilderment and loss as my children have grown up and ‘left the nest’, the thrust of bird migration, Victorian mourning practices, Emily Dickinson’s contemplative poems and famous ‘white dress’ (she lived a life of solitude and only wore white) and Agnes Martin’s white paintings have inspired my installation project ‘Bluebird Dress Factory’.
The Bluebird Dress Factory presents a ‘flock’ of white and blue flowered children’s garments which are suspended and floating, each stitched to represent Julia and her multitude of offspring (using patterns and heirloom fabric dating from the late 19th century to the 1960’s with featured archival photographs) and an installation of Victorian-era ‘garment factory’ furniture/ephemera, antique dolls and toys. These objects are complemented by a parallel installation of historic taxidermy bluebirds, nest and egg ephemera on loan from the Royal Ontario Museum. All of the garments and the vintage birds feature hanging tags with dates that extend as far into the past as the mid 19th century.
I make clothing for ghosts. The dead, the forgotten, and the hurting. For twenty-five years I have stitched conceptual wardrobes to manifest healing.
The Bluebird Dress Factory exhibition is a healing exploration for myself. The installation project and performance comprises an aesthetic and conceptual progression of my practice. I am excited to explore through installation the layers of time that I am currently witnessing (and their emotional after-effects).
Michèle Karch-Ackerman
Associated events:
Bluebird Encounters with Molly Peacock
Bluebird Encounters with Julie Kirkpatrick
Textile, Memory & Storytelling panel discussion
May 1, 2018 – June 17, 2018
Piero Martinello: Radicalia. Presented by Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
Piero Martinello, Il Lunazzi, Udine, from the chapter Deviation, in Radicalia, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.
Opening Reception: May 1, 7 pm – 9 pm
Artist Talk: May 1, 6 pm
Piero Martinello travelled across his home country of Italy in search of “outsider” men and women who embrace radical choices. The resulting project, Radicalia, comprises five sections that each connote a different kind of radical—including nuns, criminals, ravers, saints, and town fools—captured through portraits in a range of photographic formats, including vernacular images and those he has taken himself. For the Toronto iteration of his project, Martinello has worked with the historical context of Campbell House, interspersing the photographs among its period decor. His intervention introduces a most unlikely gathering of characters into a domestic space that, in reality, none of them would ever otherwise enter.
Each of the themes, or “chapters,” in Radicalia focuses on a different group of individuals captured in distinct modes of documentation. “Deviation” refers to those historically known as “town fools,” each of whom Martinello encountered in various small Italian towns or villages and photographed in traditional portrait format. Every “fool” stands apart in some way through their own volition, and with the support of their respective community who embraces their eccentricities as an essential part of the whole. Religious extremity is addressed in two chapters: “Devotion,” otherwise referred to as the saints and blesseds, which gathers vernacular images of deeply religious men and women across history who have become venerated saints; and “Contemplation,” which documents cloistered nuns currently living in convents across Italy, using images derived from the nuns’ passport photographs. “Eversion” portrays members of the Italian Mafia in collections of portraits organized by clan in a style known as “triumph photography”—a form of photo-collage traditionally used to identify and demonstrate the organization and connection within specific criminal groups. Lastly, “Evasion” captures anonymous participants at raves, parades, and festivals. These expressive images show their subjects caught in the midst of their revelations, in moments of interior ecstasy, capturing the full expression of the notion “to rave”: to be delirious, incoherent, and deeply enthused.
These various forms of individual existence, encompassing a wide range of contemporary and historical lives, come together under an unexpected collective umbrella in Radicalia. Here, criminals, eccentrics, and religious devotees are united in their shared expressions of embraced difference and “outsider” status. For his installations, Martinello places the portraits in ornate antique frames; in the Campbell House intervention, he has mounted them on walls in multiple rooms throughout the former home, particularly those designated for guests—the sitting room, dining room, and ballroom—replacing the period prints and portraits that would normally occupy its walls.
The original owners of Campbell House, Chief Justice William Campbell and his wife, Hannah, focused the structure’s design around comfort and entertaining. Today, the museum house continues to be used as a meeting place and a space for socializing. Constructed using classical Greek and Roman style emphasizing symmetry and proportion, the building reflects a highly ordered, traditional style at odds with Martinello’s subject matter, which emphasizes uniqueness and eccentricity. His characters offer an entry point for considering a different trajectory of history that emphasizes individual expression and the resistance of societal norms. Each person portrayed here is motivated by their own method of intense devotion— whether to an emotion, religion, or any number of beliefs that drive their distinct purposes. Martinello’s series blends the sacred and profane, and all manner of unique lives in between, to speak out against homogeneity.
Organized by CONTACT in partnership with Campbell House Museum.
Supported by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Toronto. Curated by Bonnie Rubenstein
April 14, 2018 – April 20, 2018
In-House Collisions: Student Art Exhibit
In an exhibition of work by the 4th year Print and Sculpture students in the Art and Art History Program at Sheridan College, Angelica Brzyska, Becky Santo, Emiley Webb, Chloe Yang and Hailun Yuan respond to the history and setting of Toronto’s Campbell House. Working with themes of relationships and interactions, each student has chosen a specific location within Campbell House to situate their work. The exhibition will include works in print, video and site-specific sculptural installations.
Spring 2017-Spring 2018
Terrazzo Tower, 2017
Harley Valentine
Terazzo Tower, 2017 Photo: Harley Valentine
Cast in the earth as a concrete boulder, this architectural relic was exhumed from the brown fields of Toronto’s historic Tower Automotive site. Valentine has carved into its rugged surface a polished staircase that neither begins nor ends. Terrazzo Tower, paired with his signature stainless steel Cordian work, represents an imaginative concept of “future drawing on the stairs of time”.
Positioned as a sculptural intervention at the focal point of Campbell House’s garden, Terrazzo Tower causes an aesthetic disruption to the symmetry of the Georgian Architecture while creating a dialogue on architectural conservation.
Harley Valentine explores the intersection of technology, architecture, performance and sculpture in monumental works and immersive installations.
January 24, 2018 – March 16, 2018
WAR Flowers – A Touring Art Exhibition
During the First World War, Canadian soldier George Stephen Cantlie plucked flowers from the fields and gardens of war-torn Europe and sent them home to his baby daughter Celia in Montréal.
One hundred years later, his touching ritual has provided the inspiration for this innovative multi-sensory exhibit.
WAR Flowers examines human nature in wartime through artistic representations that combine Cantlie’s letters and pressed flowers with original scents, crystal sculptures and portraits of 10 Canadians directly involved in the First World War.
The WAR Flowers exhibition is a production of Reford Gardens. This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada.
