Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition: Best of 2009. Don't miss First Canadian Place's annual presentation of innovative works by award winners from the 48th Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Congratulations to the represented artists, including: Dave Hind, Reuben Looyenga, Dan Driscoll, Scott Everingham, Alex Anagnostou, Jennie Suddick, Julia Hepburn, Min Hyung, Lesley McInally, Carmen Schroeder, Emily Gill and more. www.torontooutdoorart.org.

Part II: Beyond Institutions.

Exhibition – Mar 3-31, reception Thur 4 Mar, 5-7pm: Adrian Blackwell – Model for a Public Space, [knot]. In Reading Room, Hart House, University of Toronto.

Conference – Following the vigorous and contentious proceedings that took place during Extra-Curricular: Between Art & Pedagogy – Part I: Between Institutions in February, this second part of the conference, titled Beyond Institutions, is structured as a meeting of collectives, artists, and activists working on creative initiatives in a variety of locations using explicitly pedagogical models, formats, and tools in their work. Although diverse in background, the invited groups carry common points of reference and characteristics: investigating new formats for knowledge production with critical analysis of power relations at play; investing in local communities; cultivating learning environments that produce new social relations; and making these processes and outcomes public.
The conference features representatives from collectives including the Center for Urban Pedagogy (NYC), colourschool (Vancouver), Dodolab (Waterloo ON), La Lleca (Mexico City), Radical Education Research Collective (RERC) (Toronto), The Pinky Show (Honolulu, Hawaii), Toronto School of Creativity and Inquiry, and Ultra-Red (London UK). The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery's international artist-in-residence, Annette Krauss (Utrecht, Netherlands), will present the opening keynote lecture to kick-start the proceedings. Collaborating organizations for Part II include Gallery TPW (Toronto), Ontario College of Art & Design, The Centre for Media and Culture in Education (CMCE), REV-, and Toronto Free Gallery.

The setting of the Reading Room, an open student space inside Hart House, provides a context for discourses that can potentially be mobilized to diverge from or intervene in the "main curricula" of the larger educational institution. Roundtable discussions will take place in Adrian Blackwell's anti-hierarchical seating structure, Model for a Public Space [knot], while public workshops, a book launch, and film screening, will be held in various rooms in Hart House and off-site locations.

Mon 8 Mar, 7-8:30pm, in Music Room: Keynote lecture: Annette Krauss – "Towards critical links between art, education and activism".

Tues 9 Mar, 10-11:30am, in Reading Room: Roundtable 1 – "between word / image / action". Participants: colourschool and Annette Krauss.

Tues 9 Mar, 11:30am-1pm, in Reading Room: Roundtable 2 – "between autonomy and heteronomy". Participants: La Lleca and Toronto School of Creativity and inquiry.

Tues 9 Mar, 2-5pm, in Committees Room: Workshop – "Extra-Curricular Colour Study" with colourschool's Kristina Lee Podesva.

Wed 10 Mar, 10-11:30am, in East Common Room: Roundtable 3 – "between community & collaboration". Participants: Center for Urban Pedagogy, and The Pinky Show.

Wed 10 Mar, 11:30am-1pm, in East Common Room: Roundtable 4 – "between critique as theme". Participants: Ultra-Red, and Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry.

Wed 10 Mar, 2-5pm, in Committees Room: Workshop – "Feminist Pedagogy as Artistic Intervention" with La Lleca.

Thur 11 Mar, 9am-5pm, in Room 12-274, OISE (252 Bloor Street West, Toronto) & Fri 12 Mar, 9am-5pm, in Room 5-240, OISE: 2-day workshop –"D.I.Y. Learning-Weapon" with The Pinky Show.

Thur 11 Mar, 7-10pm, at Toronto Free Gallery (1277 Bloor Street West, Toronto): Reception & book launch for Recipes for an Encounter, published by Western Front and REV-).

Fri 12 Mar, 2-5pm, at Gallery TPW (56 Ossington Avenue, Toronto): Workshop – "What is the Sound of the Pedagogy of the Border?" with Ultra-Red. Pre-registration is advised, but all are welcome – info@extracurricular.info – for approximately 20 participants.

Fri 12 Mar, 7:30-9pm, in Reading Room, Hart House: Workshop – "Concrete Dreams: A Fantasy School" with RERC.

Sat 13 Mar, 1:30pm, at Gallery TPW (56 Ossington Avenue, Toronto): Screening – Read the Masks. Tradition is Not Given (2009, 80min.), a film by Petra Bauer and Annette Krauss. Discussion with Annette Krauss and Janna Graham.

The Extra-Curricular conference, installations, screenings, and events are open to the public and free for all with registration required for specific events. To register, send an email to info@extra-curricular.info with your full name, organization / position, phone number and sessions you plan to attend.

Tim Zuck. Tim Zuck's dedicated approach to painting and drawing has produced a distinct body of work that eludes classifications of abstraction or representation. In this exhibition geometric forms seem deceptively simple, but upon focused looking they reveal complex formal relationships that underscore the process of perception, subtly examining the codes of representation.

Alex Wolfson and Bojana Stancic: And so, the animal looked back...
Shuttle out there on the Performance Bus to the Jan 28th and Mar 11th presentations of And so, the animal looked back... departing OCAD (100 McCaul Street, Toronto) at 6pm sharp and returning downtown at 9pm. Seating is limited; please call 416 736 5169 to reserve free tickets. Jan 28th & Mar 11th tickets are reserved for individuals on the free Performance Bus. (There is no bus for Jan 29th & Mar 12th performances).

Writer / Director: Alex Wolfson. Set Designer and Visual Concept: Bojana Stancic. Costume Designer: Vanessa Fischer. Sound Designer: Matt Smith. Actors: Amy Bowles, Lindsey Clark, Vanessa Dunn, Nika Mistruzzi, Liz Peterson, Evan Webber.

One day Max begins to speak. Then to write. The primatologists are unsure of what to do with this new development. Soon Max begins to compose a long essay on the subject of the separation between man and animal, chimpanzee and animal, man and chimpanzee. Word leaks out to the world at large about Max. People become frenzied. Strange things begin to occur as the world starts slowly to fall apart. Pairs of animals, both human and otherwise, begin to congregate around the laboratory. Finally it becomes clear, Max's essay is the last words to be spoken before a new flood, a new apocalypse, but unlike the deluge that occurred before the first play, this flood does not simply destroy, it also reconfigures new identities, new share subjectivities. The play ends not with a prescription of what must come but simply with an understanding that things must change, and what will come is a mystery to them all.

And so, the animal looked back... is a unique venture of the AGYU into the world of experimental theatre, a theatre that has its roots equally in the art world and queer performance. The AGYU has commissioned two new plays under the overall title of And so, the animal looked back..., the performance of which opens and concludes an installation that will retain props, performance elements, and projections from the first play.

Erik Bennink – mixed media.
Josef Kursky – acrylic on canvas.

Oil Cloth Lunch, and other reasons to be cheerful. Curated by Ihor Holubizky.
The historical pursuit by the artist to both learn and break from the art of the past is explored in this exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints from the permanent collection, including works by Willem Claesz Heda, Philips Breughel, Hiroshige, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Gustave Courbet, Tony Scherman, Eric Atkinson, Richard Hamilton and Rick Pottruff.

Cartographies – Dionne Simpson. Toronto-based Dionne Simpson's distinctive works are created through a process inspired by the West African art of thread pulling – the removal of thread from material in order to create patterns and images. Employing her canvas as a metaphor for the underlying fabric of Canadian society, Simpson embeds fragments from contemporary culture – from corporate logos, images of media personalities to remnants of daily life – into these self-portraits and landscapes. Co-curated by Sally Frater.

Delio Delgado: Discarded Plans. Lower Ramp. Delio Delgado presents a new series of mixed media drawings created over found blueprints, which serve as a support for his narrative. The discarded blueprints bear the weight of their actual or potential consequences. In urban Ontario, newcomers already live over the lives of those who not so long ago displaced Aboriginal inhabitants. Yet the continuous imprint of their existence is stamped on the landscape, as illustrated in Delgado's (himself an immigrant from the Dominican Republic) work.

Photovoice Youth Arts Project. Upper Ramp. The YMCA's Youth Gambling Awareness Program has collaborated with The Carriage House Alternative Education Program and the Art Gallery of Peterborough for the Photovoice Youth Art Project, which is the result of efforts to engage youth in the use of photography to record and reflect their strengths and problems.

Gallery ArtPlus solo exhibition – Ivan Unwin: Do Least Harm. Included in this collection is a set of political and environmental activist works, with human rights and land abuse as subjects.

Talk with curator Emily Falvey (in English), in the context of the group exhibition, Exploded View.