The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto present:

Location/Dislocation
15 September 2011 – 15 June 2012

Curated by Denise Ryner in collaboration with Barbara Fischer

Opening Reception: Thursday 15 September, 2011, 4 – 6 pm

Location: The Jackman Humanities Institute, 170 St. George Street, 10th Floor
Public Hours: Monday – Friday 9 am – 5 pm

Jamelie Hassan
520 Pall Mall, fragment, 2001/2011
Gelatin silver print and ceramic tile
Image courtesy of Thielsen Gallery
Photo Credit : Jan Row 

This year-long exhibition of works by five renowned artists from Toronto, Montreal, London (ON), and New York examines spatial, environmental, and architectural manifestations of cultural dislocation. Artists Brendan Fernandes, Jamelie Hassan, Oliver Husain, Will Kwan, and Karen Tam consider the implications of a variety of uprooting and establishing forces, ranging from post-colonial diasporas, multiculturalism, and cultural re-articulation to economic exploitation and urban gentrification. Their photo- and installation-based works share an interest in the effects of globalization and the manifestation of hybridity and displacement in primarily urban contexts.

Location/Dislocation is the theme around which the Jackman Humanities Institute will organize its multidisciplinary 2011-2012 events and fellowships. This exhibition marks the first time that contemporary artists have been invited to respond to the institute's annual academic theme and its architectural setting.

Jackman Humanities Institute 2011–2012 Theme: Location/Dislocation
The experience of dislocation prompts insight into how people and ideas inhabit space, and what happens as they move. Many experiences of uprooting and exile are unwelcome, and arrivals in new locations often generate violence and intolerance. The arts and books, languages and stories of the old country often remain vital for immigrants, creating diasporic cultures of memory and need; at times the hybridity created in a new place is not a simple amalgam or a peaceful overwriting. Cities are the common site of exile and new creations, and in their architecture and overlapping communities of trade, worship, and education, cities provide an archival record of the disruptive encounters that result from dislocation. The task of humanities research is to engage these complex practices of memory, importation, colonization, and assimilation.

http://www.humanities.utoronto.ca

The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.