Critical Distance DIRECTORY Shani K Parsons

Since the mid-90s, Shani K Parsons has pursued a multidisciplinary practice focused on exhibition-making — initially through the lenses of architecture, urban planning and public arts administration, then installation, graphic, and environmental design, and most recently through research, writing, curation, and collaboration.

In the process she has produced an eclectic body of work ranging from intimate book works and publications to immersive installations and exhibitions for venues including the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Rhode Island School of Design and RISD Museum, the Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA NY), and Mixed Greens, a contemporary art gallery in Chelsea.

After nearly a decade of living and working in New York, Shani moved to Toronto with her family. Bringing together her experience in the various aspects of exhibition-making — as artist, designer, critic, and curator — she is building in Critical Distance a hybrid space for collaborative and cross-disciplinary experimentation, an independent venue for exhibitions on all forms of local and international contemporary culture.

Image: Claritas, velvet and wood from FLIGHTS & LANDINGS (installation view), site-specific installation in the north stairwell at Artscape Youngplace, 2015.