Critical Distance Program Type Billboard on Shaw

Billboard on Shaw presented by Critical Distance, featuring Burtynsky Suite by Morgan Melenka and Megan Gnanasihamany, 2022.

Burtynsky Suite is composed of four reproductions of Carrara Marble Quarries, Cava di Calagrande #2 by the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. The reproductions range in degrees of abstraction, but each, unlike the seemingly cool distance of the original photograph, contain the rough edges of the process of translation and the clear marks of a subjective artistic rendering.

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Billboard on Shaw presented by Critical Distance, featuring A Very White Flower, by Adrià Julià, 2022.

A Very White Flower references Julià’s ongoing interest in the history of production, consumption and expansion of popcorn in modern colonial history. The image of a single kernel of popcorn functions as a prompt to consider Julià’s reflections on the historical and socioeconomic intricacies of the global corn industry and its relationship to Mexican culture and the popularization of popcorn in the United States after the Great Depression, especially in regards to popcorn’s connection to cinema.

A Very White Flower is presented in the context of Place Settings (curated by Noa Bronstein), a large-scale, durational project that considers how food functions to connect and disrupt.

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Billboard on Shaw presented by Critical Distance, featuring Suk by Tanya Lukin Linklater, 2021. Produced for this billboard space is an image of Tanya Lukin Linklater’s poem, Suk. Originally appearing in the artist’s book of writings entitled Slow Scrape, Suk is re-contextualized here in order to propose an alternative pace to the movement of bodies that pass by on the street, acting as an introduction to the exhibition that continues inside the gallery space. Though separated from its original context as part of a series of writings, traces remain to this life in the faint words visible on the reverse pages. This visual quality offers a reference to Lukin Linklater’s meditations on memory, language, and erasure which continue in both…Find out more

Seeds for the Future, Seeds for Now is a multi-part project by Montréal-based artist Karen Tam, reflecting on the significance of access to culturally connected foods, locally grown produce and networks of care. The composition shared here brings together images of Tam’s grandmother on her thriving balcony garden, various drawings by Tam of the veggies and herbs she has been cultivating, and a drawn reinterpretation of a certificate of horticultural merit awarded to Tam’s grandmother in 2008 for her community plot. Beneath the billboard is a custom-built planter in which Tam has grown various herbs and vegetables from seed. Structures like planter boxes and balcony gardens outpace their humble forms, immediately connecting us to fresh food and to community when…Find out more

This billboard is part of the group exhibition A Big Heritage with A Glorious Past, curated by ma ma (Magdalyn Asimakis and Heather Rigg). It features the piece entitled Haunting is an Act of Love, by Eleana Antonaki. A Big Heritage with A Glorious Past presents the work of Eleana Antonaki and Marina Xenofontos in an inconclusive dialogue around the migratory experience. In their practices, both artists explore transnational feminist perspectives, honing in on the adversities of migration and strategies of settling and creating homes while in exile.Find out more