A MULTI-MEDIA ART PARTY CELEBRATING STORIES & JOURNEYS

FEATURING: SOUNDTOGRAPHY, NAOMI DARYN BOYD’S BLOOD, WATER & BATHURST STREET, AND VISITING ARTISTS ADAM W. MCKINNEY AND DANIEL BANKS

MEET THE ARTISTS | DANCE WORKSHOPS | HANDS-ON INTERACTIVES | SNACKS & DRINKS | MUSIC & MORE

Inspired by the current exhibition in the FENTSTER window gallery, HAMAPAH (Hebrew for ‘the map’), FENTSTER presents pop-up projects on view for one night only! All inspired by the form and metaphor of maps, these works intertwine personal narratives, memory, migration and place, mapping individual stories through the languages of dance, sound and visual art. Soundtography is a collaborative project using sound to map out the migration and displacement journeys of a group of Toronto-based artists.

Experience the inaugural presentation of Soundtography, an immersive sonic installation featuring the sound maps of Bennette Baguisa, Lenka Lichtenberg, Tanya Qadir and Maham Chiragh. Presented outdoors for the first time, Naomi Daryn Boyd’s BLOOD, WATER & BATHURST STREET is an interactive, hand-made 18-meter long wool map of Bathurst Street that engages with their Jewish roots in Toronto, stories of Toronto’s Jewish community and the little known narratives of the Indigenous Peoples that have dwelled, gathered, and journeyed through these lands for millennia. Boyd’s embroidered Memory Map, w/ sounds (2021-2022) will also be in view. And, meet visiting U.S. artists Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks in advance of the Canadian premiere screening of HaMapah / The Map Dance-on-Film, which inspired their site-specific FENTSTER installation that maps Adam’s narrative as a Black, Jewish, Indigenous Queer man in the United States.

DANCE WITH US!

Join all level, all ages outdoor dance classes through out the night with dance Immersion’s Zahra Harriet Badua-Baffoe and DNAWORKS’ Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks

Presented by FENTSTER, Prosserman JCC, DNAWORKS, The Dabke Collective, dance Immersion and Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism with support from Kultura Collective 

IMAGE: Naomi Daryn Boyd, Memory Map, w/ sounds, 2021-2022. 165 x 80 cm

ABOUT SOUNDTOGRAPHY

Soundtography is a collaborative project of The Dabke Collective using sound to map out the migration and displacement journeys of a group of Toronto-based artists. It began with a series of workshops, which explored the emotional and physical landscapes of our journeys through places, bodies and that which anchors us. This process involved each artist collecting and recording sounds as well as journaling to trace their own narrative and eventually produce a “sound map”. These sound maps are invocations tracing memory, grief, homecomings and simultaneously have become places in themselves, to visit, to dwell in, to become. Central to the process was creating a space for both an individual and collective exploration, where sound became a shared language, to witness the ways in which these maps weave into one another, and imagine possibilities of healing and transformation that emerge from such moments of belonging. As the project continues, the Collective is experimenting with the ways in which this work can be experienced, and what it means to extend an invitation to listen, to possibly find oneself in another’s story, or be carried through familiar and unfamiliar places amid these sonic archives.

Project conceptualization: Maham Chiragh, Tanya Qadir and Kinana Issa.

Facilitating artists: Maya Bastian, Roula Said, Emanuelle Gibello and April Aliermo

Participating artists: Bennette Baguisa, Lenka Lichtenberg, Tanya Qadir, Maham Chiragh, Eugenia Ochoa

Curatorial Coordinator: Claudia Pensa Bowen

Learn more: instagram.com/dabkecollective/

ABOUT NAOMI DARYN BOYD’S INSTALLATION

BLOOD, WATER & BATHURST STREET is about navigating an active relationship to land, place, and community through textiles. This project began with the artist exploring their family’s multi-generational history here in this place now known as Toronto, and the broader Jewish community that has grown here. Beyond blood relations, Boyd has sought to establish further connection and understanding of/with the lands and waters that have shaped these territories. Many Indigenous Peoples have dwelled, gathered, and journeyed through these lands for millennia, yet their stories and ongoing presence have been largely erased from public memory here in the city. The Map, made of an 18-metre-long scroll of wool fabric, encompasses Bathurst Street and its geographic surroundings, from the current shoreline of Niigani-Gichigami (Lake Ontario) up to Steeles Avenue (the City of Toronto’s northern boundary). It is unequal parts of family tree, topographic exploration, historical survey, storybook, and material research. The work was first exhibited this past March at OCAD University as Chapter One: A Map is Born. Visitors are invited to contribute their own narratives and knowledge, expressed through a variety of materials. Boyd has just completed their graduate studies at OCADU. Previously, they graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, BC, completing a BDes with a major in Industrial Design and a minor in Social Practice and Community Engagement (SPACE). Naomi’s work here has led to an interest in design practices that are engaged in social justice, equity, community building, and non-traditional modes of learning. Analogue material and craft practices hold a special place in their heart as a means of exploring embodied knowledge, skill sharing, and connections to place.

Learn more: naomidboyd.ca

ABOUT HAMAPAH

Earth, artifacts, movement and memory come together to form this new installation created for FENTSTER by the artist duo and married couple, Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks, based in Fort Worth, Texas and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This exhibition is an outgrowth of their film, dubbed “a genealogical dance journey,” directed by Banks with McKinney as dancer / choreographer. They traveled to the places where McKinney traces his roots and where he danced in this site-specific work: Ouidah, Benin; Kraków and Siedlanka, Poland; as well as cities, towns, fields and shores across Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, and Wisconsin. The installation is in dialogue with McKinney’s ancestor, the 16th century scholar, Rabbi Moshe Isserles, and his foundational work: HaMapah, Hebrew for both ‘tablecloth’ and ‘map’. The artists map the narrative of a Black, Jewish, Indigenous Queer man in the United States, who inherits a lineage of genocide, forced migration and oppression; cultures of vibrance, community and resilience; and a past teeming with loss and omissions. In a gesture of release and exaltation, McKinney offers an opening for each of us to dance our own maps into existence. Learn More: fentster.org/dnaworks