Current+ Past Programming

View our programs archive here, in reverse chronological order by default. Filter and search by program type and title as well.

    EVENT SERIES >Social studies at Critical Distance: Session one

    EVENT>Film Notes

    SYMPOSIUM >Curating the Village: Open Sessions

    Making OtherwiseLara Arabian, Andreann Asibey, and Amy Wing-Hann Wong
    Karl Beveridge,Van Gogh’s Ear, digital photograph, 2025

    EVENT >Not/For the Money: A celebratory book launch with Embassy Cultural House

    Hard FeelingsA Somatic Workshop Series by Indu Vashist

    Lucky 13: A message from our Founding Director

    EXHIBITION > Learning to Be Here

    Show your support for Critical Distance's LUCKY 13!

    EVENT > Meet the Editor: Dena Davida presents TURBA Journal for Live Arts Curation

    FAIRS + FESTIVALS > Turning Tables 2: International Art Book Market + Show
    A person is standing in the middle of a studio. In front of hime is a large-scale abstract painting with dominant green colour. The rest of the space is cluttered with art supplies and shelves.

    EVENT: Curatorial Considerations: On Studio Visits at Youngplace
    A college of the book cover for As for Protocols and Convivialities.

    EVENT > Double Book Launch: As For Protocols and Convivialities in partnership with Vera List Centre for Art and Politics
    A large assemblage of colourful abstract paintings takes up an entire wall in an artist's cluttered studio

    EXHIBITION >The Contingent Image: John Climenhage and Critical Distance
    Installation view of Jenelle Smith's photography work "Gia" in front of a red brick wall at 180 Shaw Street. The photograph captures a leafy foreground with a stem that reaches out and covers the face of a person going down the stairs.

    PUBLIC ART: Billboard on Shaw by Jenelle Smith

    SYMPOSIUM >Dancemakers: What Can Dance Curation Do?

    FIELD TRIP >Bonny Poon / Conditions

    EVENT:Talk by Jonathan Middleton

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Catherine Blackburn

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Adama Delphine Fawundu
    A split image with a serene water reflection beneath a bridge on the left, and a shiny silver material draped over a human figure on the right, who is huddled in a space underneath the bridge and surrounded by concrete columns.

    REPORT:Access Working Group

    PROGRAM:Study Hall at Critical Distance

    Field Studies >New Directions for Critical Distance

    PROGRAM: Dancemakers Dance Curation Working Group

    Turning Tables >Art Book / Publication Fair + Show

    DIRECTORY SPOTLIGHT >Peer-to-Peer: The First Circle

    EVENT >Ontario Culture Days: Collage with Bushra Junaid
    A woman with dark brown skin is shown from the hips up standing on a beach in front of rolling ocean waves. She wears a white bodysuit with bloused sleeves, her hands placed over heart and abdomen, and her face is obscured by a covering beaded in cowrie shells.

    EXHIBITION:Burnt Sugar

    EVENT>Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn: Artist Talk at Critical Distance
    A close-up image of a man's hands, dressed in a suit, holding two black-and-white photographs. He is standing at a dimly lit bar with a half-full glass of white wine on the left side of the frame. The lighting creates a warm, reflective glow on the glass and table, adding a nostalgic and intimate atmosphere to the scene. One photograph shows two men, one seated and one standing, being photographed by a third man next to a camera on a tripod. The other image captures a group of people standing in front of a 1930s-era car.

    EVENT:Artist Talk by Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Ernesto Cabral de Luna

    EXHIBITION:thinking about forever

    EVENT>Diasporic Futurisms: Temporal Tempest

    EVENT>Live Performance: Adee Roberson and Rashid Zakat

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Adee Roberson

    EXHIBITION:this bridge between starshine and clay

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Yuhan Zheng
    A man in a striped button-up shirt and blazer looking straight at the camera.

    EVENT>In Conversation: Ahmed Naji and Fatma Hendawy

    EVENT>Afternoon with the Curator

    EVENT>Artist Talks: Katherine Melançon and Anahita Norouzi

    EVENT>The Time of Balsams: In Conversation with Lamis Haggag and Marina Fathalla

    EVENT>Concert: El Rass الراس | Toronto

    EVENT>Artist Talk + Opening Reception: Garden of Broken Shadows

    EXHIBITION:Garden of Broken Shadows

    EVENT>Artist Panel: Materialized

    PUBLIC ART: Billboard on Shaw by Nadya Kwandibens
    A photograph depicts a young boy sitting on the front steps of a house, with a landscape of an open field and trees shown in the far distance on the right-side. On the right and left side of the boy, two seated figures have been cut out of the photograph in a round, oblong shape, leaving an empty, white space. The edges of both cut-out shapes has been stitched with small, gold beads.

    EXHIBITION:Materialized

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Jake Kimble

    EVENT>Critical Distance at 401 Richmond's Holiday Open House

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Morgan Melenka and Megan Gnanasihamany

    EVENT>Artist Panel: The Equivalence of Alloyed Gold

    EVENT>Conversation and Screening: Adrià Julià and Noa Bronstein

    EXHIBITION:The Equivalence of Alloyed Gold

    EVENT>Adrià Julià: The Penitential Tyrant: Dolores Is Pain

    EVENT>Larissa Sansour: Soup Over Bethlehem

    PUBLIC ART EXHIBITION:Place Settings II

    PUBLIC ART: Billboard on Shaw by Adrià Julià

    EVENT>Reza Nik: sofreh for two

    EXHIBITION:Living Data, Presumed Dead

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Tanya Lukin Linklater

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Karen Tam

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Eleana Antonaki

    EVENT>Life Cycles: Live Performance by Whyishnave Suthagar

    PUBLIC ART: Billboard on Shaw by Yelaine Rodriguez

    EVENT>OF THE SACRED: Opening Reception

    EXHIBITION:Of the Sacred

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Brendan George Ko

    EVENT>Info Session: Ways of Attuning

    Ways of Attuning >A Curatorial Study Group

    Archive: CONTINUING STUDIES: Ways of Attuning: A Curatorial Study Group

    EVENT>Performance: A landscape’s spine

    EXHIBITION: You sit in a garden

    EVENT>Art Book Fair: Critical Distance at Edition/Art Toronto

    EVENT>Performance: CORPS ROCA presents L’ESPÈCE MOLLE

    PUBLIC ART EXHIBITION: Place Settings

    PUBLIC ART: Billboard on Shaw by Tsēmā Igharas

    EXHIBITION: Groundwork

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Jorian Charlton

    EVENT>Case Study: El Alto

    EVENT>Workshop: Galeries Ontario/ Ontario Galleries' Professional Development Series

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Kablusiak

    PROGRAM: Public Displays of Affection

    EVENT>Discussion: Archive Means and Mediums with Reel Asian

    EVENT>PDA Workshop: Alt-Text Time

    EVENT>PDA Case Study: A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention

    EVENT>PDA: Crip Culture and Digital Experiments

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Zinnia Naqvi
    Provisions Live reading poster image, consisting of partner logos, images of objects and dates of reading series

    EVENT>A Live Co-Reading of Provisions - Radical Care

    EVENT>In Conversation: Charlotte Zhang & Friends of Chinatown Toronto
    figure stands in front of wooden door. She is wearing a suit and holding a live chicken. There is a cleaver knife on the ground next to her

    EXHIBITION: Pine Street: Charlotte Zhang

    EVENT>Eleana Antonaki In Conversation with ma ma

    EVENT>Accessible Curatorial Tour: A Big Heritage With a Glorious Past

    EVENT>Dying.storytime

    EVENT>Dying.poetry

    EVENT>The Culture of Crip Aesthetics

    EVENT>Dream-Worlding with Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning

    EVENT>How to Make Your Own Word Scavenger Hunt with Vanessa Dion Fletcher

    EVENT>Indigeneity, Neurodiversity and the Arts

    EVENT>Ocean Archive: CDCC in Exchange with TBA21-Academy (Vienna)

    EXHIBITION:A Big Heritage with A Glorious Past

    EXHIBITION: The Wisdom of Ruins

    FAIR: Critical Distance at Edition Toronto 2019

    EXHIBITION: Access is Love and Love is Complicated

    EXHIBITION: Fruitmachine | Aidan Cowling

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Pejvak

    EVENT>HAPPY HOUR WITH THE HIV HOWLER

    EVENT>PRESSING THE ISSUE Part 2: Critical Arts Publishing in Canada Continued

    EVENT>Curating for the Future with AGYU Visiting Curator Tian Zhang

    EXHIBITION: Publishing Against the Grain

    EXHIBITION: Room For Shifting Expressions: Critical Distance at NUIT ROSE 2019

    EVENT>Reading Groups at Gallery 44 and Critical Distance

    EVENT>Live Performance: System of a Gesture by Camille Rojas

    EXHIBITION: An Archive, But Not An Atlas

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Curtiss Randolph

    EVENT>Artist Talk: Nicole Kelly Westman

    EXHIBITION: Nicole Kelly Westman: a slight space amidst

    EVENT: Amanda Beech: Constructing Time | Talk + Screening

    EVENT>Amanda Beech: Constructing Time | Talk + Screening

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Ivanie Aubin-Malo
    Performance documentation (still), Ivanie Aubin-Malo in response to work by naakita feldman-kiss at SAW Video (Ottawa), 2018.

    EXHIBITION: Public Syntax
    Taboo Health, DIYing Free, installation with Design TO Festival at Critical Distance Centre for Curators, 2019.

    EXHIBITION: DIYing Free for DesignTO
    CDCC Edition/3 featured book covers

    FAIR: Critical Distance at the 2018 Edition Art Book Fair

    EXHIBITION: Through lines
    Nadia Myre, Indian Act (Billboard), 2002, digital print on adhesive vinyl, 8 x 8 feet, from Through Lines curated by Noa Bronstein, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, 2018. Installation documentation by Toni Hafkenscheid.

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Nadia Myre

    EXHIBITION: Exposing Liminalities

    FAIR: Art Book Week at Critical Distance
    Nadège Grebmeier Forget, Rendering on View (Betty Rowland meets Angela Aames). Performed on May 27th 2017 as part of the installation Walls of Wind: The mirroring and rendering. Created in the context of the group exhibition I've Only Known My Own curated by Nicole Burisch and presented from April 21st to June 10th 2017 at OPTICA, Montréal. Photo: Paul Litherland.

    EXHIBITION: … move or be moved by some ‘thing’ rather than oneself.
    Nadège Grebmeier Forget, After Rendering on View (Betty Rowland meets Angela Aames), May 27, 2017, performance documentation and multi-platform intervention (billboard, 8x8 ft), in ...move or be moved by some 'thing' rather than oneself, curated by Florence-Agathe Dubé-Moreau and Maude Johnson, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, 2018. Installation documentation by Toni Hafkenscheid.

    PUBLIC ART: Billboard on Shaw by Nadège Grebmeier Forget

    EXHIBITION: Forward Facing
    Dayna Danger, Kandace, 2018. 8 x 8 foot billboard at 180 Shaw Street in Toronto's West Queen West neighbourhood. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid. 

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Dayna Danger

    EXHIBITION:We Look at Animals Because
    Winter 2018 Billboard on Shaw, "Ego" by Quratulain Butt, from We Look at Animals Because, curated by Nahed Mansour and Toleen Touq, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, 2018. Installation documentation by Toni Hafkenscheid.

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Quratulain Butt

    FAIR: Critical Distance at the Edition Art Book Fair

    EXHIBITION: Fermenting Feminism
    Fall 2017 Billboard on Shaw, "Living Things" (Eva Zeisel vessel, kombucha, lines pattern) by Sarah Nasby, from Fermenting Feminism, curated by Lauren Fournier, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, 2017. Installation documentation by Toni Hafkenscheid.

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Sarah Nasby

    EVENT: Future Legacy | Design for Canada’s Next 150 Years

    EXHIBITION: Moving Home | The Art and Embodiment of Transience Emerging from Canada’s Child Welfare System
    GENERATORS Presented by CDCC in partnership with the Toronto Art Book Fair, curated by Anthony Stepter, 2017

    EXHIBITION: Generators | Presented by CDCC in partnership with the Toronto Art Book Fair

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Aislinn Thomas

    EXHIBITION: Signals & Sentiments

    EXHIBITION: Precious Commodity

    EXHIBITION: In House 2017 | Benefit Art Show + Silent Auction for Paperhouse Studio

    EXHIBITION: The Path, The Divide

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Ruth Adler

    EVENT: Day With(out) Art 2016 | Compulsive Practice

    EXHIBITION: Crossing the Line | Contemporary Art from Denmark

    FAIR: Critical Distance at the Edition Art Book Fair

    EVENT: Manar Moursi | Sidewalk Salon: 1001 Street Chairs of Cairo
    Claudia Wieser, Fischreiher, 2009, Gold leaf on book page, 25.5 x 20 cm from The Amoebic Workshop, curated by Astarte Rowe, 2016, Critical Distance Centre for Curators. Installation documentation by Toni Hafkensheid.

    EXHIBITION: The Amoebic Workshop

    PUBLIC ART:Billboard on Shaw by Steven Beckly

    EVENT >Slipstreams in the Cinesphere at InFuture

    EVENT: Drain | A Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture
    Simon Benedict media still with figure in action painting

    EXHIBITION: painter project – version 4 | Simon M Benedict

    EXHIBITION: Working Title | TYPOLOGY at the Toronto Art Book Fair (TOABF)
    Susana Reisman, Respirator masks (Custom Prototypes), Toronto, 2015.

    EXHIBITION:On The Surface

    EXHIBITION:Script, Stage, Screen | Ciprian Mureșan

    SCREENING:China Now | Selections from Cinema on the Edge
    Deborah Wang, Earth Plugs, 2014, white gypsum cement, dimensions variable, from Loose Ends, Critical Distance Centre for Curators 2016. Installation documentation by Toni Hafkenscheid.

    EXHIBITION:Loose Ends

    EXHIBITION:Moving right along

    EVENT SERIES > Moving Images in Contemporary Culture
    Maria Flawia Litwin, Anima (detail), 2015

    EXHIBITION:The Lowest Relief
    View of the exhibition space with artworks displayed on white walls and one sculpture displayed on a white plinth.

    EXHIBITION >The New Gods

    EXHIBITION:Flights & Landings

    EXHIBITION:A Riveder le Stelle
    Installation view of "Language Barrier Too" from Elemental: Book Works by Cathryn Miller, 2014, TYPOLOGY Projects.

    EXHIBITION:Elemental

    EXHIBITION:Of Other Faces
    The Order of Things or, The Second Conference of the International Network of Personal Relationships (INPR), curated by Shani K Parsons, installation view with work by Leif Low-Beer, TYPOLOGY Projects, 2014.

    EXHIBITION:The Order of Things

    EXHIBITION:Erratic Room