Tuesday, May 21, 2019
6:30-8:00pm
In conjunction with Patrick Cruz's current exhibition Board Room, Forest City Gallery is pleased to present an open Townhall to discuss Board of Directors politics, privileges, shortcomings, dynamics, issues, and topics relevant to arts and culture institutions in London, ON. Light refreshments will be served.
The event will be an open-floor discussion with moderated questions and opportunities for audience to engage and dialogue with participants.
Boardroom examines the political framework, social role and aesthetic structure of creative and administrative labor and the strategies deployed through the production of culture within artist-run spaces. Cruz invited the Board of Directors of Forest City Gallery as participants, collaborators, and artists in this project as a means of decolonizing and examining their ascribed roles within the schema of cultural spaces and artistic production in Canada. Through this creative exercise, Cruz performs as the curator of the exhibition to position himself as the interlocutor and catalyst to reimagine power relations and inquire aspects of bureaucracy related to notions of artistic freedom.
Boardroom aims to problematize the often-complex relationships negotiated between institution and the public, artist and curator, inclusivity and exclusivity and, solo and group show configurations. The temporal demarcation and symbolic collaborative gesture not only reveal the practices of cultural producers who work behind the institution; it also enables a shift in engagement between the public and Forest City Gallery's Board of Directors to directly engage and converse with the public through an exhibition, publication and a community town hall gathering. Most importantly, this conceptual project lends itself to FCG’s goals to strive as an alternative art venue that focuses on community engagement, open access and an ongoing dialogue with community members, partners and cultural workers.
Forest City Film Festival Representative Norman Debono
LOMAA Representative Marla Botterill
LondonFuse Representative Katie Wilhelm
Judith Rodger
City Art Centre Representatives Jennifer Peralta and Diana Hodgson
Forest City Gallery Representative Ruth Skinner
Photograph by Sam Fleury