Release party for Prefix Photo 27 and
opening reception for The World Over: Thursday, May 2, 2013, 7–10pm
Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 124
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 3A8
Gallery hours: Wednesday–Saturday 12–5pm
Admission is free.
Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the release of the twenty-seventh issue of Prefix Photo magazine. On the subject of world affairs, editor Scott McLeod writes: “The artists and writers represented herein engage with the state of the world in the early twenty-first century. Many of the artists approach their work through artistic strategies of mapping. Unlike traditional cartographers, they employ these strategies in creative and unexpected ways that challenge the assumptions of cartography and critique the cultural biases inherent in map-making. In so doing, they pave the way for a more flexible and open understanding of the world.”
Contributors to the magazine include the following:
Kenneth Hayes examines a new photographic series undertaken in Sudbury, Ontario, by senior artist Geoffrey James. Differing from previous photo-essays on the city, this body of work extends beyond the depiction of mining and the fixation on its environmental consequences, attempting instead to represent Sudbury qua place. In other words, this work seeks to grasp the totality of Sudbury’s social, cultural, urban and economic development.
Earl Miller analyzes the cartography-related films, videos, works on paper and installations of Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander. Into the rational frame of traditional cartography’s configurations of the continents and the globe, Neuenschwander inserts the irrational and unpredictable, using insects, slugs and snails, water and wind to challenge the fixity of and ideological notions implicit in maps and map-making. Referring to vernacular and modernist aspects of Brazilian culture and implicating the viewer in world-making, her shifting, drifting and evolving continents serve as foils to conventional map-making and map-reading.
Dot Tuer reflects upon a photograph of Josefina Villaflor, a photograph that has haunted her for many years. Villaflor was an Argentine citizen who, in 1979, was abducted, imprisoned, tortured and eventually “disappeared” by the military. This photograph is one of the few extant images that document losdesaparecidos after they were captured but before they were murdered. Critiquing her own early reading of this photograph, Tuer assumes the challenge of writing about the photograph—and those like it—as traces of a collective commitment to remember the past and to shape the future.
Other contributors include Donna Conlon, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Flavia Gandolfo, Bouchra Khalili and Glenda León, with book reviews by Vid Ingelevics, Robert Linsley, Sarah Munro and Amanda Rataj.
On the occasion of the release of the magazine, Prefix is proud to present The World Over, an exhibition curated by Scott McLeod and featuring the work of Donna Conlon, Glenda León and Rivane Neuenschwander. The release party for the magazine and the opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Thursday, May 2, from 7 to 10pm at Prefix ICA, located at 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 124, Toronto. Admission is free. The exhibition continues until June 22.
Prefix Photo is published by Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Inc., a registered charitable organization that fosters the appreciation and understanding of contemporary photographic, media and digital arts. Prefix Photo is available by subscription and in fine bookstores and newsstands in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Prefix Photo acknowledges its Supporting Sponsor Steam Whistle Brewing and its Official Catering Sponsor à la Carte Kitchen for their assistance with the release party held for Prefix Photo 27 in Toronto.
Prefix Photo acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Prefix Photo also acknowledges the assistance of its staff, volunteers and patrons, as well as the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. The Ontario Arts Council is an agency of the Government of Ontario.
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