No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or reprinted in any form or used in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without the prior written permission by the publisher.
Front Cover Image “The Beacons of Boldness” by Ken Chang
Book Design by Nadira Narine
Curated by Faith Rajasingham
Book Text by Emily Peltier and Faith Rajasingham
Edited by Emily Peltier and Faith Rajasingham
Published by Scarborough Arts 1859 Kingston Road
Scarborough, ON, M1N 1T3 www.scarborougharts.com
ISBN: 978-1-9992909-5-5
We acknowledge the City of Toronto, Ontario Arts Council, Delta Downsview Bingo & Gaming, and Cedar Ridge Creative Centre in making our Annual Juried Exhibition a possibility each year. We are delighted to have been able to showcase the work of talented artists in our community with your support!
BIG ART BOOK: Issue 10 Metakinesis
AFRICAN ANCESTRAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Scarborough Arts acknowledges all Treaty peoples – including those who came here as settlers – as migrants either in this generation or in generations past - and those of us who came here involuntarily, particularly those brought to these lands as a result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery. We pay tribute to those ancestors of African origin and descent. We as an organization hold ourselves accountable to, and encourage our white and non-Black members of our community to advocate for, learn about, and immediately end anti-Black racism and oppression in any form. Scarborough Arts stands in solidarity specifically with our Black community members, and Black people around the world.
Art can be a powerful tool for change, but so too does there need to be evident societal change on the parts of non-Black and white people. Ways for white and non-Black people to elicit change is to commit to ending anti-Black racism and racism on the personal and institutional level.
We implore you to support the overall wellbeing, success, and lives of Black people and communities, always. In Scarborough and the GTA specifically, there are a multitude of tools and resources that can be accessed to continue this necessary work. Please see our website for some resources, organizations to support, and donation options.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The land in which Scarborough Arts is located has been the home of Indigenous people and Nations long before colonial documentation of time and is specifically the land of the Wendat, Anishnabek, Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Haudenosaunee. The territory of what is known today as Toronto is under the One Dish, One Spoon Wampum belt, a peace treaty between the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabek, and is a mutual agreement between nations for sharing land and resources. The territories that encompass Toronto, as well, are under a number of Treaties including Treaty 13, and in Scarborough specifically the Williams Treaties. There have been many Indigenous names and words associated with this place, and today, Scarborough is home to a multitude of Indigenous people, languages, and cultures from around the world.
We as an organization are composed of people from various walks of life. All of us at Scarborough Arts encourage you to support and advocate for Indigenous people and communities, everywhere. In Canada, specifically, this can look like many things; such as actively returning land, rejecting government legislation that violates the rights of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people, denouncing colonial histories within institutions, ending violence against Indigenous women, Two-Spirit, and girls, donating money to Indigenous youth groups, and any actions that genuinely support the wellbeing and success of Indigenous people, everywhere.
FOREWORD
Emily Peltier, Scarborough Arts Program Manager
Faith Rajasingham, Scarborough Arts, Program Coordinator
The 38th Annual Juried Exhibition and Big Art Book 10 would not be possible without the generous support and tireless work of Scarborough Arts’ staff and jurors. Thank you Megan Feheley and Rodney Diverlus for jurying Metakinesis; our fantastic team at Scarborough Arts: Emily Peltier (Program Manager), Faith Rajasingham (Program Coordinator), and Derek Spooner (SA Executive Director); as well as our 2023 Canada Summer Job staff for developing the curatorial statement and marketing design: Nawal Salim (Program Assistant), Tomée Tzatzanis (Outreach & Communications Assistant), and Laira Macapagal (Marketing Assistant). Thank you to Cedar Ridge Creative Centre for generously hosting the exhibition, and the fantastic creatives who elevated the AJE experience: Gnanushan Krishnapillai (DJ) and Daren Valdez (Photography and Videography). And finally, our immense gratitude to our volunteers Tim Limsana, Oliviana Cinco, Jordan Sook, Sofia Guevara, Faizaan Khan, Franny Fu, Juliana Lee, Hayden Lee, and Angela Bo-Chan for helping us create a magical day for all of you.
Everything around us is constantly in motion. Growth happens slowly, while change moves fast. The spaces we are most familiar with often feel like they will remain the same forever when suddenly there is a shift, and nothing is the same. Houses are being put up and torn down. New transit lines are appearing as others are disappearing. People are coming, people are staying, and others are leaving. What is happening right now around you? How did you get here, and where are you going? This year’s theme invites artists to explore the idea of movement in every sense of the word and how it translates into their life experiences. This is Metakinesis (meta·ki·ne·sis: movement, in transit, to come apart).
THE JURORS
Visual Art
Megan Feheley
Megan Feheley is an ililiw (Cree) interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto. They are currently working towards their BFA in Indigenous Visual Culture at OCAD University, and work predominantly in experimental sculpture/installation, beadwork, textiles, painting, and video. Feheley’s work has been exhibited internationally in Aotearoa (New Zealand), and nationally in Toronto, Regina, North Bay, Picton and in online presentations. Feheley has had a recent solo exhibition with Xpace Cultural Centre (Toronto, 2020), and was the recipient of the 2022 Virtual Residency with Open Studio (Toronto). They also participated in an award-winning collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum (Uncover/Recover project, 2019), for which Feheley was the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award (2019).
Literary Art
Rodney Diverlus
Rodney Diverlus (they/them) is a Haitian-Canadian multi-hyphenate artmaker and producer whose work spans the realms of live performance theatre, dance, multidisciplinary performance and media arts–film, digital media. Described by the Toronto Star as “one of Toronto’s fastest rising dance talents”, their work presents, at times, flaunts emergent representations of blackness, queerness, and diasporic life and freedom. They are co-founder of Above the Palace, a Black and Brown-owned production company that produces singular stories aimed at shifting culture. They produced the film ‘Aftercare’, which had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. Beyond their artistic practice, they moonlight as an artivist and community activator. They are a co-founder of Black Lives Matter—Canada, the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism and author of Canadian bestseller “Until We are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada.”
AWARD WINNERS
Annual Juried Exhibition 2023 First Place Winner for Visual Art
Niya Abdullahi in the whiteness, Film, 2022
Annual Juried Exhibition 2023 Second Place Winner for Visual Art
Andria Keen
Even as the Dust Moves Aspect 1, Bronze, copper wire, jute, sand, wooden tondo, 2023
Annual Juried Exhibition 2023 First Place Winner for Literary Art
Diana Stoicescu
Garlic Green Beans, Prose, 2023
Annual Juried Exhibition 2023 Second Place Winner for Literary Art
George Yonemori
Small Talk for Dummies, Flash fiction, 2023
2023 Scarborough Arts Student Achievement Award
Deniz Bodi
Dreamscape, Oil on canvas, 2023
Annual Juried Exhibition 2023 Staff Picks
Shennel Simpson I’m Standing Here on Kingston Road, Poetry, 2023
Blessyl Buan Neuroplasticity, Acrylic and Embroidery, Canvas, 2022
Jason Pagaduan For Howie, Prose, 2023
Ruža Vatreš Dancer, Oil on canvas, 2021
2023 Annual Juried Exhibition First Place Winner for Visual Art
Niya Abdullahi
in the whiteness, Film, 2022
Artist biography
Niya Abdullahi is a Multidisciplinary Artist, Technologist and the founder of @Habasooda, a collective dedicated to sharing the richness of the Muslim experience through a variety of storytelling avenues. Themes of identity, liberation and resistance inform her work. Her films have screened at TIFF Next Wave, Nuit Blanche Saskatoon, Breakthroughs Film Festival, Gallery 44, amongst others. She was a 2021 Hot Docs Accelerator Fellow and currently sits on the Advisory committee for the Nia Centre of the Arts BLACKOUT project and the City of Toronto’s ArtworksTO program
Artist Statement
in the whiteness is a poetic exploration of identity through the eyes of a Harari-Ethiopian woman, displaced via war, now living in Canada. She uses movement as a meditative method of reconnecting with her roots and in doing so, establishes a magical bond with her ancestors.
Due to movement by displacement, many first generation immigrant kids struggle with connecting to our homeland and cultures. Many of us feel both hypervisible and invisible within these foreign realms. in the whiteness examines these real feelings while also highlighting what it means to reconnect with elements of you. this is dedicated to us.
Garlic Green Beans, Prose, 2023
Because even my father, who rarely ventures outside of Romanian cuisine, Loved those Hakka garlic green beans
Those spicy morsels of delight,
Crunchy, tangy, delicately blanketed in oil
Next to my mother’s mâncare de cartofi or şniţel
It is rare to see him enjoying Something that I, too, love.
A side dish of comfort piled high with red chilis and gratitude
A replenishing of togetherness and yearning appetites
A hope that family histories can mend
Over veneered conversation and mouthfuls of shaky pleasantries
Mom wipes traces of oil and resentment from your mouth;
If we had just followed the recipe of another time, another place.
You can no longer hear the hum of Lin Garden’s red and white sign
Or the reverberating background clatter of cutlery and diners passing exuberant piles of Manchurian chicken on heaping platters of fried noodles across the table
As you repeat louder into the phone: ‘soft tofu and brown mushrooms please!’
They’ve only gotten your order wrong once in 16 years.
Overtaken by another condo -
An architectural intimation of capitalism and gentrification -
The intersection of Pharmacy and Sheppard
Will rattle once again with the bones of spectral unfamiliarity
The loss of place is hard to articulate in English;
My mind trips over the Romanian word necaz
To experience a necaz is a deep sorrow,
An unceasing, haptic wailing across frequencies;
A stop/motion vibration, a punch in the gut, a discontinuity of what (once) was
While simultaneously gesturing to bad luck
As if you had a hand in your own unraveling
Like an immigrant daughter’s guilt.
The gustatory memory of Lin Garden’s garlic green beans
Embraces me with sensuous pleasure peppered with grief
That lays flowers on the salty, stubborn grave of my tongue.
With a ravenous hunger that fills the depths of my throat,
The queer lesbian daughter builds a makeshift memorial for the dish
Made of lost language and moss draped over the kitchen chairs
Forcing post-communist eastern european parents to reconcile hope across the ocean.
Can a food haunt?
If we look behind the table, apparitions will approach The altar of our speculative desires
A public haunting at dinnertime, if you will
A parody of fictitious family privacy
Let the recipe cards dance in the wind like soiled laundry, Like a devouring of sensorial capacities that at once rupture and nullify And lay bare the grim reality of mom and pop shops across the city.
What if haunting were a conversation; a line of delicious inquiry in motion?
No-longer-here-places as connective tissue offering new ways of becoming
Within dystopian worlds
Through which family histories can heal over creased recipes
And offer sustenance to our transitory subjectivities as re/living, hungry, embodied archives.
Because even my father, who rarely ventures outside of Romanian cuisine, Loves those Hakka garlic green beans
Cooked by another immigrant family for 27 years
And picked by migrants who, too, dream of better worlds for their children. When does hunger turn into a manifesto?
2024 Annual Juried Exhibition First Place Winner Written Art
Diana Stoicescu
Garlic Green Beans, Prose, 2023
Artist Biography
Diana (she/her/they/them) is a queer lesbian, HIV+, first generation Romanian artist based in Tkaronto, Canada. They have a BA (hons.) in Women and Gender Studies from York University. Their writing grapples with themes of immigrant melancholia, HIV/AIDS discourse, intergenerational trauma, memory, belonging, and queer joy. Their writing has been featured in Brickyard Spoken Word, Living Hyphen, and The HIV Howler, while their photography series, Queer Virus (2019) has been exhibited at Gloryhole Gallery. Diana currently works as an independent vintage curator and resides with their partner, FIV+ cat, and rescue dog.
Artist Statement
The piece Garlic Green Beans can be conceptualized as an artistic grief response to the changing landscape of my family’s Scarborough neighbourhood. The cumulative losses of favourite cultural food shops as well as familiar visual markers perpetuated by rapid condo development in the area have shifted the ways that I relate to my family home and place. This creative prose invites readers to grapple with changes they have noticed in the city, and by extension, to consider how these changes impact our collective futurity in Scarborough and beyond. Through this work, I also explore the concept of haunting and how the loss of place locally can be traced/connected to larger losses of homeland, language, and culture as immigrants navigate a new life on Indigenous land. I also invite readers to imagine how haunting as a life-affirming practice can offer us possibilities for world building in the face of capitalist greed and the losses associated with the current socio-political climate.
2023 Annual Juried Exhibition Second Place Winner Visual Art
Andria Keen
Even as the Dust Moves Aspect 1, Bronze, copper wire, jute, sand, wooden tondo, 2023
Artist Biography
Andria Keen (she/her) is a graduate of OCAD University’s Cross-Disciplinary Life Studies program and the recipient of their 2023 Bluma Appel Award. Consumed by how and why we exist, Andria’s often labour-intensive work engages themes of temporality, cyclicality, and inclusion of the natural world by utilizing abstraction, figuration, and narratives such as fable to question our perspectives and place in relation to nature, ourselves and how we inhabit deep-time, both past and future.
Artworks from Andria’s explorative and intuitive multidisciplinary practice, including painting, collage, photogrammetry, sculpture and installation, have been shown at Grad Ex 108, Gallery 1313, John B. Aird Gallery, and East Danforth’s 2022
Nuit Blanche IN VIEW exhibition
Artist Statement
Human lives, like the fragile but fruitful maple key, are ephemeral. As such, every moment matters, whether we twirl, unfurl, rest, or root ourselves. We are part of the music and fabric of this world. Even As The Dust Moves embodies the lengthiness and weightiness of change. When the string is activated, the bronze-cast maple keys make playful, sparkling, hopeful sounds and mark the impact of effort and Time in the sand. The repetition of seeds speaks to effort and movement in every action action we take, or do not take. Each moment and each choice laying roots for future growth or stagnation. The keys will occasionally fall off and become buried in the sand; similarly, aspects of our lives, ourselves, and our world ebb and flow. In some moments, we resound with activity; in others, we fall into entropy.
Small Talk for Dummies, Flash fiction, 2023
November 2019
Me: Hey, how’s it going?!?
Me: Why, what’s wrong?
Abi: Hey Shawn! Not too good right now :(
Abi: I admitted myself into a psychiatric ward where they take my phone every night. They’re coming soon. I don’t want to be here anymore.
Me: Do you wanna talk about it? I’m here for you.
Abi: My foster parents screamed at me to leave and never come back because I was sad and ungrateful. I am so ungrateful. And they’re all I have now.
The scars on my arms are too deep to fade. I can’t do this anymore.
Me: Abi, promise me you’ll never choose a permanent solution to a temporary problem. You are stronger than your situation. You are the best singer I’ve ever met. The world needs you. I need you to be okay. You’re one of my best friends.
Abi: I’ll try to remember that, Shawn <3 How are you doing?
Me: School’s pretty stressful. And there are other things.
Me: Goodnight <3
Me: Hey, how’s it going?
Me: Are you still in the psych ward?
Abi: Sorry, I have to go. Goodnight :) Thank you!
March 2020
September 2020
Abi: Sorry, Shawn, I just saw this. I’m okay. How about you?
Me: Good to hear you’re okay. I’m good. What’ve you been up to?
Thinking about what to do after graduation. You?
Me: Same. Crazy how long it’s been since I’ve seen you. We should meet when this is all over. Me: Remember the cafeteria?
October 2020
Me: THANK YOU SO MUCH! HOW’VE YOU BEEN?!?
December 2020
Me: Happy birthday, Abi! How’ve you been?
June 2021
Abi: Happy birthday, Shawn!
Abi: Thanks.
Abi: Hey, Shawn. Best of luck to you with whatever you’re doing. You have so many things to look forward to.
Me: You too, Abi.
Me: Okay, Gail. It’s a nice name. What made you change it?
September 2021
My name’s Gail now.
Gail: Yeah, thanks.
Shawn: Hey, Gail, what’s up?
Shawn: I’m worried about school. Too much stress.
December 2021
Gail: Not much, you?
Shawn: Happy birthday!
Shawn: Hey.
July 2022
Her: Hey, it just seems that all we have is small talk, which I’m not interested in. It’s not just you, but I don’t want contact with anyone from high school.
Shawn: Ok.
New Friend Request: Gail Request deleted.
October 2022
2023 Annual Juried Exhibition Second Place Winner Written Art
George Yonemori
Small Talk for Dummies, Flash fiction, 2023
Artist Biography
George Yonemori is a BIPOC author, spoken word artist, and poet from Scarborough, Ontario. His poems and short stories have been published by Young Voices Magazine, TCTE Short Fiction Contest, and the Royal Ontario Museum. He consistently explores themes of identity and mental health. He is in his third year of English at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He co-runs the non-profit organization Stay Golden Outreach and works as a ghostwriter.
Artist Statement
I wrote this piece after trying to reconnect with close high school friends. Movement and change affect me most through my relationships, especially how meaningful conversations and deep emotional connections dissolve into nothing small talk over time. I wanted to capture the emptiness and ultimate acceptance of this part of growth.
2023 Annual Juried Exhibition Student Achievement Award
Deniz Bodi
Dreamscape, Oil on canvas, 2023
Artist Biography
Deniz Bodi is an artist and researcher of Mongolian and Turkish ancestry. Her art explores human-land relations and the interface between spiritual and material worlds. Informed by Mongolian shamanism, her work is grounded in respect for nature and in recognition of the spirit of all living beings. Using magical and surreal imagery, Deniz hopes to invoke a sense of wonder and envision a world grounded in principles of respect and reciprocity.
Artist Statement
This dreamscape is a place of rest and reprieve but also a moment of worlds separating and colliding. In Mongolian and Siberian cosmologies, the spirit and material worlds are believed to touch in certain places. This painting acts as a portal to a moment of contact, where worlds seep into each other. The deer as an observer is implied to be in motion but also appears still compared to the vibrant background. As observers of our own lives, we similarly experience motion – witnessing how everything moves independently and as a collective. Inspired by Mongolian traditional knowledge that acknowledges that all living beings have spirit, ami, and as such everything is an agent, I wanted to highlight the movement and spirit of our natural world with the space around an object being just as important as the object in motion. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest dance, but it dances nonetheless.
I’m Standing Here on Kingston Road, Poetry, 2023
I’m standing here on Kingston Road
Waiting to behold the 102
The rush has started to get in my head
Cause I woke up late and couldn’t get out of my bed
Instead I stayed on my phone to see the amber alert
That I somehow missed
And the news stories about murder, famine, and war
Yet I have the right to stay in ignorant bliss
While families and countries are being torn apart
All it takes is one donation to make a change
One petition to start a revolution
A helping hand to stop an addiction
But the hustle and bustle of life keeps me in pursuit
Of my own needs and wants
The taunting voice that repeats “you can do more”
Turns into static as the clock tick ticks on
Unable to watch another breaking news segment
I wish I could change the channel on your situation
Going remote leaves you unaware of worldly operations
But it doesn’t hinder the horrors that people face out there Every homeless person we drive pass sits with a blank star The mothers that cross the street, we don’t know the children they bare Or the family members they lost
The cost of living has skyrocketed over the past couple of years Covid still, to this day, is leaving people in tears
Wishing that things had gone differently
Yet someone out there is crying joyfully because they passed a test A person just learned how to invest
Someone just received a “congratulations” email
There are countless possibilities of what could happen next A parent is holding their next of kin
No one knows the sacrifices that were made in order for them to make it into this world
It’s hard to hold on
Some of our arms ain’t strong enough to combat the gravity of life As it holds us down
But we’re constantly in orbit
Trying to grasp any star that soars
Yet they always seem too shoot way too fast
For anyone of us to cast our worries or sorrows
We burrow ourselves in our work and our studies
Hoping to create a greater tomorrow
BUT WHEN DOES TOMORROW ACTUALLY ARRIVE?!
I’ve strived for the highest grades
Worked tirelessly for minimum pay
Yet the sleep I manage to get doesn’t wipe the fatigue away Or the tears someone cried the other day
Let alone the children who fear for their lives
The nations who can’t even go outside
While somebody hides away in disarray
Wondering if they’ll ever say “I love you” again To their families and friends
While somebody hopes that they’re able to make ends meet Or reap the seeds of what they sowed I continue to stand, waiting for the bus
On Kingston Road
2023 Annual Juried Exhibition Staff Pick
Shennel Simpson
I’m Standing Here on Kingston Road, Poetry, 2023
Artist Biography
Shennel Simpson is a second year undergraduate student at the University of TorontoScarborough Campus. She’s double majoring in population health and biology, with a minor in psychology. Shennel enjoys volunteering on campus and out in the community as well, some examples include cooking meals at Feed Scarborough, looking after children at BGC East Scarborough, representing the undergraduate population at UTSC on the campus council, and being a part of many clubs at UTSC as an executive member. When she’s not studying, working or volunteering, you can find her writing poems, which she uses to connect with youth and young adults, and express her emotions.
Artist Statement
I created “I’m Standing Here on Kingston Road” to tell a “duality-dilemma narrative.” A lot of us can relate to waiting for the bus, or simply waiting to get to our desired destinations, preoccupied with the struggles of life. As we wait, various moments, whether they are joyful or dreadful, are affecting other peoples’ lives in different parts of the world. There can be so much going on, and although you want to cry, laugh, help, mourn, or exude any human emotion, you can only focus on so much at one time. Life goes on, whether you move or not.
2023 Annual Juried Exhibition Staff Pick
Blessyl Buan
Neuroplasticity, Acrylic and Embroidery on Canvas, 2022
Artist Biography
Blessyl Buan, a dancer, choreographer, visual artist and Doctor of Chiropractic, fuses her expertise to create artistic works that reflect rhythm, movement and land-based spirituality. Her visual artworks are a call and response to her “heart space” which channel the colour and brushstrokes in each piece. She is also the creative and owner of Buankissed, a contemporary jewelry line that elevates diasporic filipinx culture and supports Philippine Indigenous weavers.
Her body of work inspires future generations, including her four children, to transcend repression and to be aligned in authentic expression
Artist Statement
“Neuroplasticity” is a profound exploration of the intrinsic relationship between the inner world and the outer world. Inspired by my journey towards healing from depression, this painting is a testament to the transformative power of art. The canvas serves as a sacred space where the pace of my brain and the grace of movement converge, echoing the profound solace I find from the Land. Each brushstroke is a dialogue with my “heart space,” a call and response that allows my innermost emotions to cascade onto the painting.
For Howie, Prose, 2023
Every morning I would ask him where he was going, and he would always grin and proudly declare he was “going to the gym”.
It wasn’t a gym, but that’s what he called it. It was a mall down the street. He was a straightforward man with a shaved head. On warm days, he wore a black cap. On cold days, he wore a black toque.
Regardless of the weather he always wore the same black shirt that read “Mall Walkers Club” on the front in bold white font, along with his track pants and white runners. He also carried the largest bottle of water I’d ever seen.
“Morning,” he’d say as he passed by, “fine weather we’re having. Remember to stay hydrated, ok?” “Big plans for the day?” I’d reply, and he’d grin and say, “Same old, same old. I’m headed to the gym!”
A few hours later he would drop by and share the day’s gossip. “So and so went on for a while about how she’s been having trouble sleeping lately,” or “another funeral next week,” or “such and such brought coco bread.” When he finished recalling the day’s events, he would end our conversation with, “you should come next time. Everyone’s nice.”
This routine went on for a few years. He woke up bright and early, said his morning prayers, ate a small breakfast, and headed to the “gym”. He always took the long way to greet me. Afterwards he would give me the latest gossip. I never minded. In fact, I enjoyed the company. Our daily encounters would energize me.
Although the mall was a few minutes away, I’d never felt comfortable in them. “Too much going on,” I’d tell him, and he’d quickly remind me, “We’re the only ones out there anymore, you know? Most shopping is online these days,” I didn’t know what that meant. Surely groceries can only be done in person, I replied. “You’d be surprised. These new phones can do everything.”
One morning he passed by with a child. “This is my grandson,” he said, “I’m walking him to school today while his mommy and daddy are at work.” “Big plans for the day?” I asked. “I’ve got to pick him up for lunch,” he replied. I felt unusually tired that day. The next morning, he passed by with the same child. He did that for the next few weeks. Eventually, I stopped seeing him.
Years later his grandson visited me.
He told me that his grandpa slipped on ice and couldn’t walk no more. “He told me to tell you something, though. Let’s see,” he pulled out his phone, “Oh that’s right. ‘You never miss the water until the well runs dry’. I don’t know what that means, but that sh-- deep.”
Jason Pagaduan
For Howie, Prose, 2023
Artist Biography
Jason Edward Pagaduan is an Ilokano writer, storyteller, and ethnographer born and raised in Scarborough, ON. He is also a PhD candidate in the department of Sociology at the University of Toronto, where his dissertation examines the multiple meanings of aging among an ethno-racially diverse community of mall walkers in Toronto.
Artist Statement
I began this painting early this year as I was trying to balance being a student again, working various jobs and being an artist. It can be chaotic and fun to be moving between these spaces and parts of my identity, seeing my confusion and growth in each area, and the many ways they all overlap through time. Many of the pieces I work on tend to be left unfinished for anywhere between weeks, months and years. My paintings stay still as I grow, and then change again too when I return to it.
This piece feels like a starting line for me, in a place where I had gotten comfortable processing change, and realized oh, there is much more to go. But the feeling of having achieved a step forward and the joy that comes with that subtle movement, is something that I see in this piece. As I again fall into the excitement, fears and worries about what is next, I see and appreciate the whole cycle more clearly when I stop and move the brush.
2023Annual Juried Exhibition Staff Pick
Ruža Vatreš
Dancer, Oil on canvas, 2021
Artist Biography
Ruža Vatreš is a Kitchener-Ontario resident born in 1999. Coming from an artistic family, she has spent much of her life painting. She often draws inspiration from her Balkan cultural background as well as personal family history, and some of her current artistic explorations are leading towards synthesizing literary and visual art. Her “In the Garden” series explores specific floral motifs as metaphors for memory and change, and weaves them together with family archival images. Visual artists like Olja Ivanjicki, Petar Lubarda, and Canada’s Sadko Hadžihasanović serve as reoccurring inspiration for the aesthetic aspects of her compositions.
Artist Statement
My current practice explores the intersection of memory, trauma, and gender through the recurring motif of wallpaper rose patterns. The works reference familial photographs, primarily images depicting myself or my mother as children and in the process of artistic creation—though the works range in subject matter, including soldiers, weddings, and portraits. The roses are a self-imposition upon the memories of the past, and often actively engage with each scene--either receding to the back to let the memory shine brilliantly or overgrowing it completely. These pieces connect past experiences of artistic expression to the present, and while various aspects of my life have changed, the creative passion persists.
2023 Annual Juried Exhibition Big Art Book Cover Winner
Ken Chan
The Beacons of Boldness, Acrylic on Canvas Panel, 2023
Artist Biography
Joined Scarborough Arts Foundation in 2015
Various works of art were selected and/or published as follows:
2015 Big Artbook of Scarborough Arts Foundation
2016 members exhibition of Scarborough Arts Foundation
2016 solo exhibition at Leaside Library; Big Artbook & Jury Exhibition of Scarborough Arts Foundation
2017 Big Artbook & Jury Exhibition of Scarborough Arts Foundation
Artist Statement
A boat is making its nocturnal journey through a stormy sea. The surging swells and rolling waves make it difficult and challenging for the travellers to chart a safe path forward. It requests resolute fearlessness and judgement of the crew to negotiate the fierce forces of the sea. The streaks of light on the horizon offer the boat a way forward to a safe harbor. They are the source of hope. The shining lights further unveil the adventuring spirits of the intrepid travellers. The lights accentuate the boldness of the travellers who overcome the challenge and adversity of a treacherous journey. They are the beacons of boldness.
Andrew Huot
Walks with Rosie, Artists’ Book - Letterpress, pochoir, cut paper bound in a cloth case binding, 2009
Artist Biography
Andrew Huot is a book artist, bookbinder, printer, and conservator in Scarborough, ON, where he operates Big River Bindery, a studio for bookmaking, letterpress printing, and book conservation. He holds a Masters in Book Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BS in Printmaking from Portland State University. His artists’ books use photographs, linoleum cuts, and text to share the humorous side of everyday life around us. His artists’ books are in collections from the Art Institute of Chicago to Yale University. Andrew teaches online and in his own studio and for the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, and has taught at the University of Illinois School of Information, at the John C Campbell Folk School, BookArtsLA, the International Preservation Studies Center, and the Guild of Book Workers, among others.
Artist Statement
This book chronicles two weeks of daily walks with my dog in our Philadelphia neighborhood, marking the routes and occurrences on the way. The city is reduced to line, shape and color, and transparent papers reveal the echoes of yesterday and an allusion to tomorrow.
Words that somersault, prose, 2023
I remembered the days sitting in class, playing with my Hello Kitty stationeries to pass the time. My second grade teacher, Ms. Waid, was saying something to the class, but I didn’t understand the words coming out of her mouth. A month ago, my family had just relocated from Taipei to Atlanta, Georgia.
According to my mum, when I first arrived, the only thing I knew how to say in English was “Hi, my name is Sonia.” Self introductions were about as far as I got. But that changed when I started attending ESL at school. Short for English as a Second Language, the class was designed for nonEnglish speakers learning how to read, write, and speak English.
Outside of my usual classes, I attended ESL a couple times a week. After handing out classwork to everyone else, Ms. Waid walked over to my desk near the door. Her eyes twinkled in the honeyhued lamp lights, as she knelt down and told me I can leave for ESL. I gathered my pencil case, notebook, and quietly slipped out the back.
I followed the ivory bricked hallway, passing kids in other classrooms. Our ESL room was dressed in white brick with a faded navy carpet. I settled in a plastic chair around the wooden table in the centre of the room. My teacher handed me some worksheets, which sat in front of me like inert shapes on a coffee coaster.
The hours of learning grammar and vocabulary in ESL are a blur in my memory. My teacher practiced reading exercises with me to strengthen my verbal skills. The trouble was piecing together syllables with their corresponding sounds. At first, vowels and consonants rolled around my mouth like applesauce. The letters somersaulted and crashed over each other into a nestle of syllables. I knew my pronunciation was weird, making me self-conscious about speaking up in class. To help me overcome my reticence, my teacher told me: “Break down the word, and sound out the syllables slowly.”
My teacher’s advice soon came into good use. One day, I was sitting on the library floor, flipping through a Junie B. Jones book. I’ve read it before, but this time, my eyes caught something different. The character’s middle name was Beatrice. I frowned. “Why is her name Beat-rice? What kind of parents named their child Beat-rice?” I slowly uttered the syllables. No, what if it’s pronounced Bea-trice? Or Be-a-trice? Ahh. Maybe that’s how the syllables connect together. It sounded more reasonable. Still, what a strange name, I thought.
As I walked back from the library, I found myself heading to a different room. Fresh pencils and a navy carpet. I arranged my Hello Kitty stationeries at a new desk. Just as I sat down, my third grade teacher Ms. Issac handed me a cursive practice book. I opened it and greeted the words again.
Sonia Tao
Words that somersault, prose, 2023
Artist Biography
Sonia Tao (she/her) is a writer with a Honours BA in Media Studies from the University of Toronto. She worked as a freelance writer for Rungh Magazine. Her exhibition reviews, poetry, and personal essays can be found in Scarborough Arts Big Art Book, Hart House Film Board newsletter, and Gallery 1265 magazine. Outside of writing, she plays the flute and watches Studio Ghibli films (her favourite is Kiki’s Delivery Service)
Artist Statement
The story reflects on my family moving from Taiwan to America at age seven. Relocating to America enabled me to learn English, which was a pivotal moment in my childhood. It gave me a form of communication that I’ve used fluently over the past 16 years. At this point in my life, I don’t think twice about speaking English with friends, family, and colleagues. But there was a time when the English language was as foreign to me as Mars. How did I move from not knowing English to “knowing” English?
Samila Makhdoom
Book of Thoughts, Graphite, 2023
Artist Biography
I’m Samila M., a Freestyle artist based in Toronto, Ontario, dedicated to inspiring and encouraging other artists. Through my creations, I strive to offer opportunities to dreamers and elevate their dreams. Drawing is my key to success and has become a lifelong passion, which I feel honored to pursue. I give my utmost effort and attention to detail, as I believe each piece of artwork can shift my viewers’ perspectives and unlock new potential. With my artwork, I hope to ignite inspiration in those who may have lost their spirit and share my message that with success comes great opportunities. For me, relentless pursuit has been and always will be the goal.
Artist Statement
This art piece is a representation of brain development, it shows how humans’ brains have grown throughout certain ages. The expansion of brain growth shapes future possibilities by fostering advanced cognitive capabilities, ultimately guiding individuals towards greater opportunities and a more profound comprehension of their environment. I have used different elements and principles of art, such as contrast, balance, realism, and space, to create an artwork that helps to recognize cognitive development.
Mikaela Cordero
Every Day, Poetry, 2023
Artist biography
Mikaela is a first-generation Filipino-Canadian emerging performer and playwright based in Toronto. She majors in Theatre Production Design at York University. Selected credits: If You Ask Me Film Shorts (Rendezvous With Madness/Workman Arts), Paniwala: Acts of Faith (Kultura x AGO Live), Apprentice Electrician (Ruby and the Well S1 - Shaftesbury/NABET), Quiet Revolution (AMY Project - Canadian Stage/Summerworks), GIRLS/GIRLS/BOYS (TIFF Jumpcuts), Distress Signals (Kid’s Help Phone), Spring Moon (Mixed Theatre Company), Evita & Cabaret (Scarborough Music Theatre), One Song Glory (Musical Stage Company), Collapse (Carlos Bulosan Theatre Company), Sweet Charity (Mainstage Theatre Company). She has trained at Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts in Dramatic Arts. In her spare time, she works as a figure skating coach.
Artist statement
“Every Day” describes the feeling of swimming to shore after drowning for years. It explores themes of death anxiety, the choices we make, and gratitude for each minute in a day. It asks the reader to ground themselves with the mantra, “I am here. I am breathing. I am alive”, and meditate upon the transitory nature of every passing day we spend on Earth.
Ruža Vatreš
Overdrawn, Painting, 2022
Artist Biography
Ruža Vatreš is a Kitchener-Ontario resident born in 1999. Coming from an artistic family, she has spent much of her life painting. She often draws inspiration from her Balkan cultural background as well as personal family history, and some of her current artistic explorations are leading towards synthesizing literary and visual art. Her “In the Garden” series explores specific floral motifs as metaphors for memory and change, and weaves them together with family archival images. Visual artists like Olja Ivanjicki, Petar Lubarda, and Canada’s Sadko Hadžihasanović serve as reoccurring inspiration for the aesthetic aspects of her compositions..
Artist Statement
My current practice explores the intersection of memory, trauma, and gender through the recurring motif of wallpaper rose patterns. The works reference familial photographs, primarily images depicting myself or my mother as children and in the process of artistic creation—though the works range in subject matter, including soldiers, weddings, and portraits. The roses are a self-imposition upon the memories of the past, and often actively engage with each scene--either receding to the back to let the memory shine brilliantly or overgrowing it completely. These pieces connect past experiences of artistic expression to the present, and while various aspects of my life have changed, the creative passion persists.
A Moment in Time, Poetry, 2022
For a moment in time we held your hand, arms opened wide. Looked over your shoulder the dogs of war hard on your heels; death and destruction laying behind. Fear in your eyes, a breath of relief –safety at last, a hope filled sigh. Perhaps one day, one day… loved ones and home.
If we never see each other again, I hope you’ll remember you were not alone, that kindness existed here in this place for a moment in time.
Teresa Hall
A Moment in Time, Poetry, 2022
Artist Biography
I’ve been writing poetry since a young child and am often inspired by the beauty of nature during long walks on the Scarborough Bluffs. Most of my poetry is environmental in nature but lately have been branching out into philosophical and more personal musings. Happily, my poetry has been published by Tower Poetry Society, 2016-2023, Devour Art and Lit Canada (7), Ontario Poetry Society, Scarborough Arts Big Art Book Anthologies including Spring Forward, Members Collection, Agape Review, Military Experiences and the Arts, Canadian Stories, The Voice Newspaper, 2018, Toronto City Hall Rotunda, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto Sign flash lines in celebration of Canada’s 150th among others. My poems have also been on exhibit at the Bluffs Gallery, Agincourt Library, Carnegie Gallery in Hamilton for month of June, 2022 as well as the Scarborough Civic Center, Nuit Blanch.
Artist Statement
When I think of movement, I first think of the passage of time which is constantly in motion. I wrote the poem ‘A Moment in Time’ when saddened by the need of so many people for help during moments of war in a war torn country. For this particular moment in time we can hold out a hand collectively as a compassionate nation and assist those in great need.
Andrew Huot
Directions, Artists’ Book - Letterpress printed, bound in cloth covers in a slipcase, 2009
Artist Biography
Andrew Huot is a book artist, bookbinder, printer, and conservator in Scarborough, ON, where he operates Big River Bindery, a studio for bookmaking, letterpress printing, and book conservation. He holds a Masters in Book Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BS in Printmaking from Portland State University. His artists’ books use photographs, linoleum cuts, and text to share the humorous side of everyday life around us. His artists’ books are in collections from the Art Institute of Chicago to Yale University. Andrew teaches online and in his own studio and for the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, and has taught at the University of Illinois School of Information, at the John C Campbell Folk School, BookArtsLA, the International Preservation Studies Center, and the Guild of Book Workers, among others.
Artist Statement
This set of five guidebooks directs you to a destination around the city using a more uncommon set of landmarks. Written in the city of Philadelphia, these directions can be used in any city by anyone. The ephemeral and shifting landmarks used in these books can be found almost anywhere and make the journey as important as the destination.
Whirligig, Poetry, 2023
I look at all the colours of my spinning top resting motionless.
I recall its revolutions how I would spin the tin tapered bulb on my bedroom floor between my small fingers and thumb how a rainbow appeared before my eyes a spectrum whirring blurring into an eighth shade of fun I was dizzy with delight.
My whirligig whirled round and round wobbling tilting to the ground finally slowing down collapsing my firm little hand halting its orbit.
Now I stop time motion space in this place I find myself where the world keeps turning round and round faster and faster out of bounds still I always circle back to my own special sphere playing with my trinket of yesteryear.
Tanya Adèle Koehnke
Whirligig, Poetry, 2023
Artist Biography
Tanya Adèle Koehnke earned her MA in English from York University. Tanya taught English at several colleges and universities in Toronto. Tanya also has a background in arts journalism. Tanya’s poems appear in The Ekphrastic Review; The Ekphrastic World Anthology 2020; Framed & Familiar: 101 Portraits: An International Anthology of Poetry and Photography; Hamilton Arts & Letters; Big Art Book; Poets & Painters; The Canvas; Canadian Woman Studies; Verse Afire; Harmonic Verse: Poems for the Holidays; Christmas at Spillwords; tinted memories; Forever Soup; Sleet Magazine; Tea-Ku: Poems About Tea; Foreplay: An Anthology of Word Sonnets; Bards Against Hunger: 10th Anniversary Anthology; Tickled Pink, an anthology of ekphrastic writing about pink-themed works of art; Grid Poems: A Guide and Workbook; Eastern Sea Bards: A Poetry Anthology by East Coast Poets; Alchemy and Miracles: Nature Woven Into Words; and other publications. Tanya has received several awards for her poetry.
Artist Statement
“In my poem, “Whirligig,” I recall playing with a spinning top when I was a child. Back then time flew while I was having fun, but it was also paradoxically still because playing with my spinning top permanently imprinted my memory of when “I was dizzy with delight.” I freeze that moment in time in my poem by emphasizing the metakinetic features of my spinning top and the marvellous mobile things it did when I spun it “round and round.”
My poem is nostalgic, but it also exists in the present. I acknowledge that time goes fast indeed— that “the world keeps turning” regardless. And yet, it is in that recognition where “I find myself” now as an adult. “I stop time motion space / in this place” yet “still I always circle back / to my own special sphere” that recaptures the delightfulness of my childhood play.
Tanisha Kumar
Moving Around, Photography, 2023
Artist Biography
Tanisha is a queer Hindu-Punjabi interdisciplinary artist who defies boundaries and explores the intersection of various art forms. With a passion for filmmaking, Tanisha has cultivated a diverse skill set that encompasses painting, writing, photography, and performance art. Drawing inspiration from Scarborough, they bring a unique perspective that works on challenging societal norms.
Artist Statement
The house, pictured towards the back, is being built new and the older home near the front is set to be sold. This image is about the constant flux in movement within Scarborough. Every day, there are new developments within Scarborough’s network. With gentrification moving in, Scarborough families are moving out.
my sweet home, harar, Poetry/Creative writing, 2023
i used to know you. the heated winds of your atmosphere. your hot air was my medicine. for one look at your beauty was the coolness of my eyes. home, harar.
we’d wash our clothes in your vast rivers. fresh water sprouting from God knows where but we’d thank thee and clean. we’d thank thee and drink. we’d thank thee, and be. it was a simple life but it was a good life. the walls guarding you locked when Maghreb called … your baris told stories of our past. The mouths of our forefathers recited bismillahirahmaniraheem yaseeen yaseeeen yaseeeen wal quraanil haqeeem as they built the tall structure that protected our homes. in the name of God, the most gracious, most merciful. these ancient corners, kin.
lush green all around. bless-ed to be blessed. the orange mangoes grew on their own. you were our peaceful paradise. even the hyenas were drawn to your sanctuary and then hand-nourished by your people with shoor and basar.
I used to enter the maze of jugol to the voices of young children playing giro. ziyara of your 99 masjids, i levitated to our brothers echoes as they remembered God as they chewed chaat. i rejoiced in yemaaj ni hashaana, yimaj nuqena, yimaj yuqgoyto, yimaj feredee. sanctifying me was the smell of bun and libanaat. Ayaach in gufta, they were our queens. We’d steal as much blessings as we loudly say ameeen. Their duaas were our power. the stars reminiscent of tawakaltu allalah wa la hawla wala Kuwwata illabillah. For the stars above argo bari taught my grandma qur’aan’. this is holy. You were holy. many moons later.
i walk your streets alone. no one calls me. faces in-cog-ni-to. the maze is quiet. left to pass the houses, I whisper Allahu Marhim for these were the dwellings of the stewards of your land. zanya masha, zanya masha, zanya masha - infiltrate our soil. I’m lost in you. I don’t know where to go. The sounds don’t teleport me anymore. The red rock is gone, maybe they built a house over him. The family of birds departed long ago. Kill the aruuzach. Don’t you? When you change the grass to stone. The rivers arid. I don’t hear laughter no more. they have soured your sweetness my love, for you, was end less and I never wanted to leave you though I can’t regret what I couldn’t help. but it hurts that I don’t know you anymore. (my sweet home, harar.)
Glossary:
Maghreb: sunset prayer (islam)
Baris: gates, in Harar there are five gates - the city is surrounded by walls and is a unesco heritage site
Yaseen: is a chapter in the quraan
Shoor: porridge that is given to the hyenas of harar during the day of ashura(muslim holiday)only in harar
Basar: meat. In harar, they hand feed hyenas - it’s now a tourist site
Jugol: town centre of harar
Ziyara: cultural tradition of visiting homes and masjids
Chaat: aka khat stimulant leaf, chewed in East Africa but originated in Harar Bun: coffee, coffee is known to originate in harar yemaaj ni hashaana, yimaj nuqena, yimaj yuqgoyto, yimaj feredee: traditional song Libanaat: frankincense
Ayaach: mothers
Gufta: traditional cloth that only married women wear tawakaltu allalah wa la hawla wala Kuwwata illabillah: traditional proverb Argo bari: one of the five gates of Harar
Allahu Marhim: may Allah have mercy on them (we say this about people that passed away) Zanya masha: day/night
Aruuzaach: grooms (in reference to the battle of chelenqo that made Harar apart of Ethiopia when 40 Harari grooms were killed and there was a large genocide of Hararis.)
Niya Abdullahi
my sweet home, harar, Poetry/Creative writing, 2023
Artist Biography
Niya Abdullahi is a Multidisciplinary Artist, Technologist and the founder of @Habasooda, a collective dedicated to sharing the richness of the Muslim experience through a variety of storytelling avenues. Themes of identity, liberation and resistance inform her work. Her films have screened at TIFF Next Wave, Nuit Blanche Saskatoon, Breakthroughs Film Festival, Gallery 44, amongst others. She was a 2021 Hot Docs Accelerator Fellow and currently sits on the Advisory committee for the Nia Centre of the Arts BLACKOUT project and the City of Toronto’s ArtworksTO program
Artist Statement
someone that is displaced from their home land. has returned to a completely different world. listen as they reminisce on memories, and what was home.
What The Wind Has Carried Away, Poetry, 2024
Maple keys (the helicopters of my childhood),
Wishes from white dandelion seeds,
Cigarette smoke behind the baseball diamond, Dragons.
A crumpled up page of yesterday’s news
Two lovers whispering,
A baby’s first laugh Birdsong.
Paper airplanes, folded by a young boy’s hand.
Fireflies off Paudash Lake
Sirens at midnight
Your ashes.
Lisa Hazelwood
What The Wind Has Carried Away, Poetry, 2024
Artist Biography
Lisa Hazelwood was born in Scarborough, and still lives here many, many, many years later. When not working, writing, crafting or hanging out with her kids, she can be found looking for the perfect book at the bookstore or library.
Artist Statement
When I think of something always in motion, I think of the wind. My favourite poem is ‘Who Has Seen The Wind’ by Christina Rossetti. I wrote this as a thank you to her.
Alanoud Emaish
That’s just life, Medicine bottles and hot glue
Artist Biography
Alanoud Emaish is an emerging multidisciplinary artist based in Turtle Island. She is currently pursuing a double major in Human Biology and Health Studies at the University of Toronto. Alongside her academic pursuits, she is a self-taught painter and graphic designer, lending her creative skills to craft graphics and logos for various clubs and organizations.
Beyond her artistic endeavors, Alanoud actively participates in human rights demonstrations, firmly believing that art serves as a powerful form of advocacy. Her artistic mission is to enlighten the public about ongoing injustices while preserving the rich traditions within her community.
Artist Statement
Alanoud Emaish is an emerging and versatile artist based in Turtle Island. Her artistic repertoire spans across various disciplines, including graphic design, painting, sewing, cross-stitching, and mural art.
Lately, Alanoud’s creative focus has been on celebrating and preserving Palestinian culture, a journey she undertakes with guidance from several seasoned artists.
In a deeply personal and transformative aspect of her artistry, Alanoud also integrates her own struggles, notably those related to her physical health. Through her work, she aims to transform these challenges into a source of beauty and resilience, making the healing process more bearable for herself & others facing similar obstacles.
Mikaela Cordero
Dandelions, Poetry, 2023
Artist Biography
Mikaela is a first-generation Filipino-Canadian emerging performer and playwright based in Toronto. She majors in Theatre Production Design at York University. Selected credits: If You Ask Me Film Shorts (Rendezvous With Madness/Workman Arts), Paniwala: Acts of Faith (Kultura x AGO Live), Apprentice Electrician (Ruby and the Well S1 - Shaftesbury/NABET), Quiet Revolution (AMY Project - Canadian Stage/Summerworks), GIRLS/GIRLS/BOYS (TIFF Jumpcuts), Distress Signals (Kid’s Help Phone), Spring Moon (Mixed Theatre Company), Evita & Cabaret (Scarborough Music Theatre), One Song Glory (Musical Stage Company), Collapse (Carlos Bulosan Theatre Company), Sweet Charity (Mainstage Theatre Company). She has trained at Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts in Dramatic Arts. In her spare time, she works as a figure skating coach.
Artist Statement
“Dandelions” speaks to this city’s ever-evolving skyline. It decries the lack of affordable housing and condemns the effect of gentrification Toronto’s communities.
Nevita Untitled 2018-2023, 30x36 Acrylic
Nevita Sankar
Untitled, Acrylic, 2018-2023
Artist Biography
Nevita is a multidisciplinary artist based in Scarborough. She works in drawing, painting, film, photography, sculpture and more. These different mediums and forms of working are sometimes brought together into multimedia pieces. With interests in both the sciences and the arts, there is no limit to the direction in which her work can go. The keen exploration of her many interests has displayed the interconnectedness of her thoughts, and has challenged her to find new ways of bringing them all together in all their varying forms. Nevita graduated from OCAD University’s Cross-Disciplinary Art program in 2019, with a specialization in Life Studies and a minor in Drawing and Painting. She is currently pursuing her teaching degree at OISE, with Visual Arts as her teachable subject.
Artist Statement
I had started this piece a few years ago, when I was confused about and unsure of my identity as an artist. I was in an art program at school at the time, and overtime, felt i had not grown at all in that respect. I started this painting for myself, as a way to gain back a sense of control and detachment from expectations as an artist. It always felt a bit off back then. This piece was moved around with me through many changes, kept in storage, or behind cabinets and bed frames. And over time I would come back to it and see my expressions in a slightly new light, remembering the old ones, and knowing that I felt different now, looking back. I don’t often remember to sign my pieces, maybe because they rarely ever feel finished, or I would always have something I could continue to do. Nothing is ever really static. Especially people.
There was a time when I was burnt out as a student and artist. But now after a few years of working, taking my time to create in different ways, and doing things my own way, I am a student with a better sense of readiness for freely exploring who I am, and reawakening my artistry as well.
Reflections, Poetry, 2018
1860’s farmhouse, tin roof shining in the sun, back porch invites us, mom’s gardening work done.
Locust trees seem to touch the sky as we peruse through magazines, drinking in
the quiet afternoons interrupted only by a field sparrow’s song.
Me champing at the bit to encounter life, perched on adulthood’s edge.
Those few precious years are forever woven in between time’s experience.
My mother recounting stories of the war, my parent’s long struggle in a new land, finally achieving goals and dreams. I took this mostly for granted, when I look back, it seems.
How could I know she would teach me strength, how to truly live, somehow sense what was right from wrong. That no matter where the journey took me, I would never really be very far from home? 1
Teresa Hall
Reflections, Poetry, 2018
Artist Biography
I’ve been writing poetry since a young child and am often inspired by the beauty of nature during long walks on the Scarborough Bluffs. Most of my poetry is environmental in nature but lately have been branching out into philosophical and more personal musings. Happily, my poetry has been published by Tower Poetry Society, 2016-2023, Devour Art and Lit Canada (7), Ontario Poetry Society, Scarborough Arts Big Art Book Anthologies including Spring Forward, Members Collection, Agape Review, Military Experiences and the Arts, Canadian Stories, The Voice Newspaper, 2018, Toronto City Hall Rotunda, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto Sign flash lines in celebration of Canada’s 150th among others. My poems have also been on exhibit at the Bluffs Gallery, Agincourt Library, Carnegie Gallery in Hamilton for month of June, 2022 as well as the Scarborough Civic Center, Nuit Blanch.
Artist Statement
When thinking of movement, one thinks of the passage of time which is constantly in motion. With the poem ‘Reflections’ I am looking back at not only the passage of time in my own life, but also at how eager I was to move forward into adulthood and the embracing of life’s experiences.
With the help of the wisdom from my parents in my childhood and teen years, I was able to happily achieve this move into adulthood and make my own decisions.
Ana Vatres
Mechanical Shell, Painting, 2021
Artist Biography
Ana Vatres is a Canadian artist and Yugoslavian immigrant who has worked as an artist for almost thirty years. She earned her BFA from the University of Pristina in former-Yugoslavia and spends her time creating and teaching art to a range of students in her studio, while also providing for a child as a single mother. Her works draw inspiration from her dual cultural experience, from Slavic Avant Garde-inspired abstract paintings to stylized Canadian landscape paintings.
Artist Statement
My interest in abstracting seashells is varied—aesthetically with the vivid colours and the way light fractures the surface, and thematically in their inherent mystery, their mathematical perfection, and their feminine implication. The process of painting these objects in stylized, dynamic, and exaggerated proportions turns them into vehicles of human emotion, which allows me to treat each painting as an intimate self-portrait. This piece in particular reflects on the rhythmic design of a shell and turns the object into a seamless moving force, like a clock or a cog. It suggests both a satisfaction in one’s “spot” and the endlessness progression of time.
You Smell Like Travel, Poetry, 2022
You smell like faded blue jeans torn at the knees,
Your brown leather wallet slipping out of
The worn back pocket of your left ass cheek.
You smell like torn maps folded wrong
And shoved into the glove compartment
And of flat tires, no spare in the trunk
And Sunflowers dancing at the side of a dirt road.
You smell like the weathered wood of a fence
The gate hanging on one rusty hinge.
You smell like cows...no... horses..
You smell like fifty cent postcards spinning on a carousel
And spilled ink.
And of miniature soaps and shampoos lined up on a pink countertop
From a hotel room abandoned in the seventies.
You smell like the bible.
You smell like travel. You smell like home
Lisa Hazelwood
You Smell Like Travel, Poetry, 2022
Artist Biography
Lisa Hazelwood was born in Scarborough, and still lives here many, many, many years later. When not working, writing, crafting or hanging out with her kids, she can be found looking for the perfect book at the bookstore or library.
Artist Statement
When I think of motion, I think of leaving, and then coming home. I wrote this poem from two points of view, from both the person who stayed home, and the person returning.
Andrew Huot
Naviagation, Artists’ Book - Cut paper, letterpress, bound in cloth covered boards. 2009
Artist Biography
Andrew Huot is a book artist, bookbinder, printer, and conservator in Scarborough, ON, where he operates Big River Bindery, a studio for bookmaking, letterpress printing, and book conservation. He holds a Masters in Book Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BS in Printmaking from Portland State University. His artists’ books use photographs, linoleum cuts, and text to share the humorous side of everyday life around us. His artists’ books are in collections from the Art Institute of Chicago to Yale University. Andrew teaches online and in his own studio and for the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, and has taught at the University of Illinois School of Information, at the John C Campbell Folk School, BookArtsLA, the International Preservation Studies Center, and the Guild of Book Workers, among others.
Artist Statement
Sometimes it’s not the stars that guide you. This book uses city names to make the constellations used to guide the artist’s family to their next destination. A carousel book that spans over 8 feet when open, the dark blue paper and cut holes reveal the light shining on the background paper.
Mikaela Cordero
A Bizarre Love Triange, Poetry, 2023
Artist Biography
Mikaela is a first-generation Filipino-Canadian emerging performer and playwright based in Toronto. She majors in Theatre Production Design at York University. Selected credits: If You Ask Me Film Shorts (Rendezvous With Madness/Workman Arts), Paniwala: Acts of Faith (Kultura x AGO Live), Apprentice Electrician (Ruby and the Well S1 - Shaftesbury/NABET), Quiet Revolution (AMY Project - Canadian Stage/Summerworks), GIRLS/GIRLS/BOYS (TIFF Jumpcuts), Distress Signals (Kid’s Help Phone), Spring Moon (Mixed Theatre Company), Evita & Cabaret (Scarborough Music Theatre), One Song Glory (Musical Stage Company), Collapse (Carlos Bulosan Theatre Company), Sweet Charity (Mainstage Theatre Company). She has trained at Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts in Dramatic Arts. In her spare time, she works as a figure skating coach.
Artist Statement
“A Bizarre Love Triangle” mourns the loss of a love connection in real time. It evokes imagery of a winged heart in flight over Lake Ontario and the rivers which flow from it. The heart hungersbeating, yearning, learning.
Jennifer Toffoli
JHAWK, Ink on Watercolour Paper, 2023
Artist Biography
Jennifer Toffoli is a self-trained “doodler-extraordinaire.” Often wavering between quietly quirky and deliciously dark, her work blends elements of abstract and pop-art to create a style that is uniquely her own. An avid reader and music lover, Jennifer draws much of her inspiration from the books and songs she adores. Believing that is it better to be peculiar than perfect, Jennifer aims to add a bit of whimsy to the everyday. Her work has previously been published by the University of Toronto and the Scarborough Arts Council, the AGO and displayed at the Graven Feather, Papermill and Bluffs galleries in Toronto.
Artist Statement
In my experience, change has always been sudden and drastic. It is comprised of watershed moments that have inevitably changed the course of my life. It has required resilience and strength, courage and compassion, perseverance and the sheer determination of will.
If one is lucky, life’s lessons will be learned gently and with ease. Others, however, can only hope to find a shelter to weather the storm while waiting for the dawn of a new day.
Erica Dionora
Arrhythmic, Painting/Acrylic, 2023
Artist Biography
Erica Dionora is a Canada-based writer and illustrator. Her works have been published in Plants & Poetry journal, Ricepaper Magazine, Lida Literary Magazine, and Seaglass Literary Magazine. She is working on a collection of poetry and illustrations. For more of her works, visit www. dionorae.com or on Instagram @acire11erica.
Artist Statement
My illustrations are explorations of narratives that tie Drawing together elements of environmentalism, social trends, and fantastical contexts, I was inspired by the theme of “Metakinesis” to create this piece. “Arrhythmic” is an exploration of the relationship that we have with the rapid transformation of the natural world in response to the modern world’s avaricious development of technology.
Lake Legs, Poetry, 2023
I could still feel Paudash Lake in my legs,
By the time we hit the 28.
I could still see the water,
Like it was reflected in the rearview,
Still like glass,
Only broken by the solitary loon
Diving beneath the surface for food.
I could still feel that ache in my shoulders, From the steady dip - left, then right, left, then right - Of the kayak paddle with the crack in one corner.
I could still smell campfire smoke on my clothes,
And in my hair, still wet from one last swim.
And I could still hear the buzz of island’s cicadas.
The siren’s song that will always call me home
To where the water lilies bloom.
And I will always see you.
Lisa Hazelwood
Lake Legs, Poetry, 2023
Artist Biography
Lisa Hazelwood was born in Scarborough, and still lives here many, many, many years later. When not working, writing, crafting or hanging out with her kids, she can be found looking for the perfect book at the bookstore or library.
Artist Statement
As a kid, I always thought it was cool (and a little freaky) that even after I would get off of a boat, I could still feel the rocking back and forth in my body.
Tanisha Kumar
Heading Home, Photography, 2023
Artist Biography
Tanisha is a queer Hindu-Punjabi interdisciplinary artist who defies boundaries and explores the intersection of various art forms. With a passion for filmmaking, Tanisha has cultivated a diverse skill set that encompasses painting, writing, photography, and performance art. Drawing inspiration from Scarborough, they bring a unique perspective that works on challenging societal norms.
Artist Statement
This image is about the transportation within Scarborough. With RT’s (Line 3) recent closing, many new routes have been made throughout Scarborough (bus routes), making NEW developments that have should have been made for years.
Niya Abdullahi
tey zilabasaam ay, Acrylic on canvas, 2023
Artist Biography
Niya Abdullahi is a Multidisciplinary Artist, Technologist and the founder of @Habasooda, a collective dedicated to sharing the richness of the Muslim experience through a variety of storytelling avenues. Themes of identity, liberation and resistance inform her work. Her films have screened at TIFF Next Wave, Nuit Blanche Saskatoon, Breakthroughs Film Festival, Gallery 44, amongst others. She was a 2021 Hot Docs Accelerator Fellow and currently sits on the Advisory committee for the Nia Centre of the Arts BLACKOUT project and the City of Toronto’s ArtworksTO program
Artist Statement
“Tey zilabasam ay” is a prayer on canvas. It illustrates the duaa offered by my mother, grandmother and the mothers before them. It means “may the women in Black be mothers to you”. Being in transit and in constant movement through changes means you may not be around your family, community or “home”. This prayer is hope that your chosen family will find you, no matter where you may be.
I’ve always loved this prayer, and I’m certain that this duaa has ensconced my being, I’ve witnessed it manifest within my life and I hope the same for you. Wherever you go, may you be loved, seen and cherished. May you be protected in life by the mothers dressed in Black. May they support your journey, offering you peace and a sense of home, always.
A B O U T S C A R B O R O U G H A R T S
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