Trinity Square Video

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Join us on March 23rd for our latest workshop: I Want to be Famous!

You’ve made the video, now you need to promote your work and circulate it. Learn the promotional strategies from those that have experience in our sector.  Instructed by Keith Cole. $40 Non-Members / $10 Members / Free for Skills Members To register email [email protected] or call [phone] Visa and Mastercard accepted via phone, cash or debit accepted in-person.

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Morehshin Allahyari's Material Speculation @ Trinity Square Video (401 Richmond):

Material Speculation: ISIS is a digital fabrication and 3D printing project focused on the reconstruction of selected (original) artifacts (statues from the Roman period city of Hatra and Assyrian artifacts from Nineveh) that were destroyed by ISIS in 2015. Material Speculation: ISIS presents a practical and theoretical proposition for the preservation of artifacts while also proposing 3D printing technology as a tool for resistance and documentation, and the repairing of history and memory. Material Speculation: ISIS, goes beyond metaphoric gestures and digital and material forms of the artifacts by including a flash drive and a memory card inside the body of each 3D printed objects which contains information, maps, and images gathered about the artifacts. Like Time Capsules, each object is sealed and kept for future civilizations.

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Toronto's Finest: Zeesy Powers

I’m on Zeesy Powers’ email list. The Toronto performance artist sent out an email recently entitled “Death Notice.” Before even opening the email, I actually thought she died. I was wrong. It was a dry performance piece. In the email, a gif featuring Zeesy at an office desk in mom garb disappears from her desk – as to be ignored. It was chilling. To me, the piece came as a big surprise because to me, Zeesy was, at one point at the heart of the Toronto art scene. And now she is doing a funeral piece. Is it true every young artist has 5 years to prove themselves?

Why are art careers so short lived? Do we have a deadline before disappearing into a day job and kissing our dreams goodbye? Or should we persevere? To me, the piece is kind of upsetting because I know Zeesy’s ideas are amazing and that she has so much more to give than a funeral piece – her work is lively, colourful and wildly entertaining. If anything, this piece (to me) represents the funeral for the Toronto art scene (in that it is dead). But I could just be making this up. I talked to Zeesy through email about her piece and what it means to her.

NADJA: Do you remember the first time i interviewed you? we were in the beaver and you were eating oysters. What happened there again?

ZEESY: I’m still eating oysters. I remember that day, we had a nice chat, but I haven’t been to the Beaver in a long time. It’s not so much the Toronto Art Scene, as just beginning to accept Adult Life. Right now is a shitty time for people who are in the process to becoming adults, you have to fight every step of the way. This world wants us to stay children, because children are easier to abuse. Like Picasso said, art is an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy. Funeral art is probably trite, and definitely a cheap way to shock, but also real and necessary because death is a necessary aspect of life. We all have a deep, personal relationship with death. Every therapist I’ve ever talked to very strongly encourages grieving (that’s the word and the process) over any real loss.

The Beaver will never be the place it once was, and neither will the Toronto Art Scene. But the new can’t become anything if the old doesn’t get out of the way. That was a real bummer when it hit me. It’s never coming back, whatever It happens to have been. The nice thing about funerals, shivahs, wakes, histrionic performance art, whatever grieving process you’ve got, it’s not for whatever died, it’s for the people (or person) who remain. Being alive is growing, changing, discarding whatever is dead and gone and picking up whatever you’re left with and just going, so hopefully when you’re gone you’ve left something behind. I’m actually relatively comfortable right now, so there’s some emotional space to deal with the dispiriting hustle that is everyday life for pretty much everyone who is trying to be a good person and have a fulfilling life. It’s just been a bit of a shock to realize that it will never stop, it will never get easier, the questions will never be answered and, terrifyingly enough, that’s probably what makes life worthwhile in the end.

NADJA: Are you in trouble?

ZEESY: No, I just realized that Life Is Hard and Sometimes you Don’t Get What you Want Even If You Worked Really Hard For It. Also, Success Is Not Necessarily Satisfying. All pretty Normal Things that are a part of each person’s life. I guess we all just need to grieve at some point.

NADJA: I see. So you’re kissing goodbye your childhood (your life?) & saying hello to adulthood (your afterlife?). I remember Alex Shimo wrote an article for the Globe called the generation of underachievers (I can introduce you to her if you want) of our entire generation being ‘behind’ our parents - still living in the suburban basement at 29, no job or money or whatever else claims you as an adult. So if you really do go ahead and start becoming an adult now (unless I’m misunderstanding it all), how would you live your life differently?

ZEESY: Oh Nadja, so, about 12 hours after I last wrote to you I got a text message that my mom had been taken in an ambulance to the hospital. The past week has been putting into practice the theory I had written to you about. It is not easy to accept that life is a series of catastrophes held together by disappointments, successes and the mundane shit of just getting by.

The major changes so far have been accepting that plans are good and useful, only so far as your ability to change and adapt those plans as necessary. I’ve also started wearing rings, as for some reason those are the presents I have been given. Also, older, wiser men who are unaware of my earlier art project telling me “congratulations, you’re an adult now.”

NADJA: Yeah, that sucks. I had to do that (buy a flight home) when my dad ended up in H-town after a stroke knocked him down. Anyway. It is interesting the way life & art intertwine (timing especially too considering the piece you are doing). !! Are men really telling you Congrats? Are they for real? How does it make you feel?

PS - this is what I’m working on in Berlin: figuring it out http://artstarstv.com/newberlinpainters

ZEESY: Ah! Painters! Life! Before all this happened I was setting myself up for a summer of painting. Still going to do it, just going to happen in Mom’s garage now… . I was planning it as some kind of art therapy, so really the timing couldn’t be better. I’m dating a painter, such an appealing craft, “sorry, I’m busy painting now.” For my brother, it’s religion. I’ve been looking for something to believe in, or at least a good excuse at the ready.

Here’s a link to a higher-res gif:

http://i.picasion.com/pic54/70ace542af62b7b29133efe0fa92fe20.gif

The men congratulating me were my uncle and my boyfriend, who both had to be primary caregivers to their parent at some time, so it was actually quite reassuring, sort of like “at least this isn’t your kid you’re in the hospital for.”

I hope your dad is doing better. Keep me posted.

http://www.zeesypowers.com/

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Stills from ‘Mirror Mirror’ by Zeesy Powers, July 29th 2015 at Trinity Square Video as Part of Testing Grounds.

[trinitysquarevideo-blog]

Upcoming Workshop: Video Bootcamp for Youth 

March 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 / 9am-3pm / $99 Non-Member / $10 Member / Free for Skills Member /  with Pamela Matthews and Zeesy Powers

This is a five-day video production and post workshop for 13-19 years old!
 From the initial idea right through to a finished video, all aspects of making your own movie will be covered. Learn how to use film-making equipment and technology and construct a story.  All equipment, supplies, and materials will be provided.

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To register email [email protected] or call [phone] Visa and Mastercard accepted via phone, cash or debit accepted in-person.