Lost Secrets of the Royal
soJin Chun, Louise Noguchi
A Space Main Gallery
November 9 – December 11, 2011
Curated by: Ben Donoghue, Heather Keung
Copresented by: Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto
ARTIST TALKS at A SPACE GALLERY with soJin Chun, Louise Noguchi, Cindy Mochizuki, Daïchi Saïto: Sat Nov 12th, 3 - 4pm
A SPACE GALLERY Opening Reception: Sat Nov 12th, 5 - 7pm
BLACKWOOD GALLERY Opening Reception: Wed Nov 9th, 5 - 9pm
The Lost Secrets of the Royal project is a commissioning initiative of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) and the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival working with four new installations by Cindy Mochizuki, Daïchi Saïto, soJin Chun and Louise Noguchi. The discussions leading to this project originate with Colin Geddes’ donation of an archive of incomplete and decaying 35mm Hong Kong films salvaged from the basement of what is now Toronto’s Royal Cinema. The only stipulation for Geddes’ donation of this trove of orphaned reels was that they became the source for remaking, transforming and plundering into new works.
The collection includes period dramas, comedies, martial arts, and pink films. All the prints in the collection are incomplete and in various stages of decay and discolouration. Artists were invited to produce new works that could challenge the source material and break with overtly didactic collage-based composition. Emerging from this are four projects by contemporary Asian-Canadian artists that challenge cinematic narrative, locational identity, movement, and technologies.
Presented with the support of a Media Arts Commissioning grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
A Space Gallery
Installations by soJin Chun and Louise Noguchi
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 110
(416) 979-9633, info@aspacegallery.org
Hours: Tue to Fri 11 AM – 6 PM, Sat 12 – 5 PM
Artist Talk at A Space Gallery: Sat Nov 12th, 3 – 4 PM
Opening Reception at A Space Gallery: Sat Nov 12th, 5 – 7 pm
Blackwood Gallery
Installations by Daïchi Saïto and Cindy Mochizuki
Kaneff Center, University of Toronto Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road North
(905) 828-3789, blackwood.gallery@utoronto
Hours: Mon to Fri 12 – 5 PM, Wed 12 – 9 PM, Sat- Sun 12 – 3 PM
Opening Reception at Blackwood Gallery: Wed Nov 9, 5 – 9 PM
FREE Transportation to Blackwood Gallery for the Opening reception: Wed Nov 9, 6:30 PM
Bus departs OCADU, 100 McCaul St at 6:30 PM. Bus departs Blackwood Gallery at 8:30 PM
Biographies
soJin Chun is a visual artist who explores multi-layered cultural perspectives dealing with identity, place and the everyday. Chun’s work references her personal diasporic experiences and hybridity (Korea, Bolivia, Canada).
Toronto-born Louise Noguchi received her MFA from the University of Windsor and her AOCA from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. She is currently a professor in the Art and Art History program, a collaboration between the Sheridan Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning and University of Toronto Mississauga, where she teaches photography and performance-based art. Using video, photography, sculpture and other media, Noguchi’s concepts confront the spectator’s notions of identity, perception and reality. Her work has depicted wild-west rodeo skills that explore performances in trick roping, knife throwing, sharp shooting, gun spinning and tricks with a whip. More recent videos have examined tourist locations and key monuments of her Canadian and ancestral histories as locations of cultural memory and experience.
louisenoguchi.com
Heather Keung is a Chinese-born Canadian who graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her artistic practice includes video, installation, and performance. She has been an active contributor to the arts community in Toronto for 10 years and is currently the Artistic Director at Reel Asian.