Open Studio: Exhibition and Participatory Event AllArtNow Stockholm, Sweden November 6, 2024

Open Studio: exhibition and participatory event

AllArtNow, Stockholm, Sweden — November 6-9, 2024

For this exhibition, I transformed the AllArtNow gallery into an open studio and public art laboratory. The space included drawing stations, cameras, overlapping live-feed projections, video, monitors, drawing materials, and works and materials from my ongoing art practice. Visitors could watch me work while also moving through and participating in the installation.

Audience members were invited to draw and write at the drawing stations while cameras recorded their activity and projected it live onto the gallery walls. The overlapping projections combined drawings, writing, hands, objects, and other activity taking place in the space. At another station, I showed and discussed video material I had been developing from recent residencies in Toronto and southern Spain. The exhibition continued to change as people entered the space, made drawings, watched the projections, talked with me and one another, and became part of the activity taking place in the gallery.

The Open Studio continued an approach to exhibitions that I have explored off and on since Live Drawings at Plug In ICA in 1998 and Theatre Paint at Ace Art in 2000, where the exhibition space also becomes a place for making, experimentation, performance, and interaction with the public. In September 2025, I expanded on the overlapping drawing stations and live-feed projections from the AllArtNow exhibition for a School of Art Homecoming event in the Soundstage at the University of Manitoba, using multiple drawing stations, cameras, and overlapping projections.

 

Luminous Bodies Art Residency - Participatory Studio Performance - Gibraltar Arts Centre, Toronto Island Sept 28, 2024

Luminous Bodies Residency

Gibraltar Point Arts Centre, Toronto Island — September 16–29, 2024

In September 2024, I participated in the Luminous Bodies artist residency at Gibraltar Point Arts Centre on Toronto Island, directed by artist and educator Teresa Ascencao. During the two-week residency, I worked in my studio while also participating in discussions, studio visits, and exchanges with the other artists in residence.

During the residency I developed a studio installation as a space for experimenting with live-feed video, projection, physical objects, drawing and performance. Cameras recorded activity taking place within the studio and returned it to the space as projected imagery. I was interested in the relationships that could develop between a physical action, the person or object being recorded, and its simultaneous appearance elsewhere in the studio through live video.

I also experimented with making the projectors themselves mobile. I placed projectors on swivel chairs and attached ropes to the chairs so that I could pull and rotate them during the performance. As the chairs swivelled, the projected images moved in arcs along the walls and through the installation. This allowed the position and movement of the projections to become another improvised element within the performance.

For the final public event on September 29, I turned the installation into a collaborative and participatory performance involving one planned participant and three people who joined the performance spontaneously.The collaborative performance itself was entirely improvised. Each participant seemed to have their own informal score, entering the projection environment individually and allowing the other performers their own space and time.

At different moments I interacted with individual participants, while at other times I remained in the background as they progressed through their own actions with the materials and objects. There was no predetermined sequence, but an understanding seemed to emerge among the participants about when to enter, when to wait, and when to allow another person to perform. During the final closing performance, the studio became a temporary public laboratory for experimenting with bodies, objects, live-feed video, moving projections, and improvisation.

The project continued my ongoing work with collaborative performance and live-feed projection and became part of the development that continued during my subsequent residency at Bajo El Olivo in southern Spain and my Open Studioexhibition at AllArtNow in Stockholm later in 2024. 

Video Documentation: View the Luminous Bodies playlist of edited videos documenting the final performance, rehearsals, and installation experiments during the residency: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLImia5qLiBr0

 

PEOPLE FIGURE Again and Again Again: Collaborative Drawing, Performance and Live Feed Projection June 22 & August 9, 2ooaow'

PEOPLE FIGURE Again and Again Again

June 22 and August 9, 2024
In partnership with Ace Art, Winnipeg

PEOPLE FIGURE Again and Again Again was initiated by movement artist Ian Mozdzen as a collaborative drawing and performance project involving a group of artists and performers. The project combined figure drawing, improvised performance, live feed projection, video, found objects and audience participation. Frankie May, a former School of Art student, participated as a performer, while Lila Fazal participated in the drawing activities. The project progressed through rehearsals and experiments with different collaborators, leading to two public events on June 22 and August 9, 2024, presented in partnership with Ace Art.

During the events, participants were invited to draw the performers, with drawings accumulating on the walls and becoming part of the changing performance environment. Performers responded to the drawings, projected images, other performers, and materials and objects within the space. Live and previously recorded drawing processes were also projected into the environment, allowing the physical performers and drawings to overlap with enlarged moving images.

The closing performances brought together different combinations of performers and drawing activities. Rather than following a predetermined sequence, the performances were improvised, with individual participants bringing their own approaches to movement and interaction. Materials and objects including paper, clothing, rope, brooms and other found objects could be picked up, worn, moved or incorporated into the action. At different moments, drawing continued while performances were taking place, so the visual environment continued changing around the performers.

The project continued my interest in treating drawing as a physical and time-based activity. Drawings were not only finished images but accumulated traces of what had happened during the events. Bodies, drawings, projections, shadows, objects and the activity of making could occupy the same space, with each performance producing combinations that could not be completely anticipated beforehand.

Video Documentation:
View the PEOPLE FIGURE Again and Again Again playlist of edited video documentation from the June and August performances, rehearsal sessions and experiments connected with the project: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP7kBVFd05EZQRY28_WXytgi6ICQPt8j1