Critical Distance Program Type Billboard on Shaw

Artist Adee Roberson‘s billboard Transport Connection (Sister Nancy) is on view at 180 Shaw Street through October to November, 2023, as part of the exhibition this bridge between starshine and clay featuring works by artists Renee Gladman, Adee Roberson, and Rashid Zakat, and curated by Safia Siad. The exhibition explores and illuminates sonic innovations and architectures that create and hold space for Black aliveness. 

OCAD University’s RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers (CEAD), in partnership with Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC), is pleased to present the Public Art Billboard and Exhibition Essay Career Launcher featuring artwork by Yuhan Zheng and a commissioned essay by Avalon Mott.

Billboard on Shaw co-presented by Native Women in the Arts and Critical Distance in partnership with Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and Partners in Art, featuring Shiibaashka’igan: Honouring the Sacred Jingle Dress by Nadya Kwandibens.

This outdoor component of the exhibition Materialized presents an image by newly-appointed Toronto Photo Laureate Nadya Kwandibens. Photographed at the Naotkamegwanning roundhouse, the portrait depicts three Anishinaabekwewag sharing a candid moment of laughter, subverting the “stoic Indian” trope that characterizes historical portraits by non-Indigenous photographers. It is said that laughter is medicine—this image brings together that energy with the healing power of the jingle dress.

Artist Jake Kimble’s billboard Grow Up #4, is on view at 180 Shaw Street through March to April, 2023, and is presented by Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in partnership with Capture Photography Festival and Critical Distance. The work reflects on the challenges of contemporary life and the many future unknowns looming over young people today.

The billboard Burtynsky Suite, created by curators  Morgan Melenka and Megan Gnanasihamany’s for the exhibition The Equivalence of Alloyed Gold, is on view at 180 Shaw Street October to November, 2022. The exhibition results from a year-long experimental commissioning and exhibition process incorporateing ideas of communication and sensory translation. It features works by Stephanie E Creaghan, Andy Slater, Gillian Dykeman, Chandra Melting Tallow, Ashna Jacob, Aislinn Thomas, Anne Macmillan, Tamyka Bullen, and Dayna Danger.