The Choreography Within A Dancer Reclaims His Body by Finally Sitting Still WORDS BY MARTIN AUSTIN 07-Nov-22 ​ ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Continue reading in Issue 10 One hemisphere of my pelvis is above and in front of the other. I imagine it floating there in my body, untethered, out of my control. Every morning I sit at the edge of my bed and grip my right knee to “pop” my leg back into the socket; as my pelvis always wiggles away from me while I sleep. I wasn’t born this way. In my first year at The Ailey School, I was invited to audition for the junior touring company, Ailey II. I was so eager to impress that I brought my arabesque much higher than my body could accommodate. A sharp pain shot through my body, one that I ignored without a second thought exactly as I had been trained to do all my life. Looking back, I wish I had heeded my body’s warning. But how could I have known? At that time, considering the possible consequences, or even considering anything beyond the world of dance, proved difficult. In fact, my world outside of dance – anything outside my own body – had always... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Colleen Hennessy DENVER — AiR TOUR — Issue 9 Art by Colleen Hennessy Colleen Hennessy sM | How do you think this artist-in-residence program fits into the artist community in Denver? CH ── As a Denver native, I have observed growing artist opportunities because of this exhibit. The Lighthouse Immersive residency experience is a unique and very special one. Many galleries here come and go, have very high rent to pay, and artists often have to pay to hang work in their space, which leaves out many talented artists due to finances. The Lighthouse Immersive exhibit is a beautiful opportunity for people to enjoy the work of famous artists, such as Vincent van Gogh and Frida Continue the AiR tour in print: ISSUE 9 | ISSUE 10 Sign Up to K eep Up! Our newsletter brings you the best in the visual and performing arts. Exclusive interviews. Global coverage. Local perspectves. Kahlo, and our local artists as well. Hopefully it will inspire people to visit other venues and support local artists on a regular basis. sM | What do you find most exciting about the current atmosphere in Denver's visual arts community? CH ── The Mile High City has a vibrant creative community, with neighbourhoods being rejuvenated and galleries popping up all over Denver. I love driving past all the murals, attending openings, and meeting new artists. Our city has stepped up with monetary aid, such as the Urban Arts Fund for murals. There are a lot of creative outlets here. We have numerous arts organisations, opportunities, and venues for taking classes. sM | What inspiration do you get from artists around you? CH ── I love to make photographs of architecture, faces, and landscapes and work on a couple of pieces simultaneously. I come from a photography background, and looking at other photographers’ and painters’ works often generates ideas. It is great to see how different artists approach the same subject. Other artists’ work can be a wonderful way to learn, get inspired, get ideas, honour an influence you love, and create something new. All art is a mashup of ideas, and we can all influence one another, so long as we are creating and sharing from a place of honesty and transparency. PREVIOUS NEXT

The DNA of the TSO As the Toronto Symphony Orchestra celebrates 100 years, a new vision takes hold WORDS BY ARLAN VRIENS | TORONTO | PERFORMING ARTS THE smART Ensemble MAR 07, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Gustavo Gimeno and the TSO - Photo by Allan Cabral ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Gustavo Gimeno - Photo by Allan Cabral Gustavo Gimeno and the TSO - Photo by Allan Cabral In 2020, Spanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno took up a new post as Music Director at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). The timing could not have been more challenging; the COVID-19 pandemic immediately disrupted any kind of consistent planning, even as the TSO geared up to celebrate its centennial in the 2022/23 season. But under the leadership of Gimeno and his artistic team, the TSO has returned triumphantly to the stage, combining world-class orchestral quality with a series of initiatives which respond to this unique cultural moment. The TSO’s renewed joie de vivre is on full display in the Celebration Preludes , a set of ten three-minute orchestral works commissioned from Toronto-area composers to commemorate the orchestra’s centennial and its beloved home city. Speaking with smART Magazine , it’s clear that the Celebrations project is an evolution of Gimeno’s love for Toronto’s vibrant cultural scene. “As we searched for these works, we wanted a variety of styles and backgrounds because that’s what’s faithful to Toronto and to Canada,” he reflects. “We started this project from a desire to hear different voices, and especially those who are under-represented. And from that starting point, by definition, you also get contrasting styles of composition, especially where composers choose to bring in folk music influences. For example, in Luis Ramirez’s Mi Piñata there was a clear influence of Mexican folk music, and Iranian folk music came through in Afarin Mansouri’s Mithrā .” But the Celebration Preludes also represent a different facet of the TSO’s mission: even as audiences encounter new repertoire that is beginning to better reflect the cultures of Toronto’s kaleidoscopic streets, the composers of the Preludes are entering the TSO’s layered ecosystem of support for new music. “The Celebration Preludes are a way of getting to know composers for more substantial plans in the future. As well as the Preludes, we have our ongoing NextGen Composers project, where we select three composers per season to have pieces premiered on multiple concerts. Then we also commission works from established Canadian composers like Gary Kulesha, or our affiliate composers Emilie LeBel and Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, and of course we also highlight international contemporary composers.” The TSO’s Explore the Score series looks at contemporary music from another angle, giving public audiences a rare window into the process behind composition and rehearsal. “ Explore the Score lets us publicly perform a composer’s short piece, workshop it for twenty minutes, and then play it again. As we work, we dialogue directly with the composer: ‘how short do you want this articulation,’ or ‘this doesn’t work, cross it out.’” While the process gives audiences a new appreciation for the work and artists behind new music, it’s also an invaluable practical opportunity for the composers themselves. “Composers have ideas, emotions, and challenges, and they search for sounds and ways to notate them. But hearing the performance is sometimes a shock for them; after months of work, it’s all over in five minutes. So, after the public portion on stage, we keep talking about what worked well and what could be further developed. Yes, these composers get the chance to have their music played by a top orchestra and learn things you cannot learn in a conservatory classroom. But it’s also about the TSO simply being there and showing a great welcoming attitude to a young composer and their music. I feel very proud that we do this. It keeps us inspired and challenged every day.” One key to success for the TSO’s contemporary music programs is their inclusion within the orchestra’s core concert series. Gimeno describes an approach which pairs contemporary music with classics and emerging composers with established historical figures. “We bring all of those elements together. I think it’s great for the audience: maybe they wouldn’t choose, at first, to go to a contemporary music concert. But they come for Beethoven’s Ninth, and then they discover that the piece they loved most was the contemporary one. We want to create sonic challenges and maybe a little bit of provocation.” With a hint of glee, Gimeno describes an upcoming concert from the 2022/23 season: “People love Ravel’s Bolero. You hear it everywhere. You can hear it at the hairdresser. So we’ve programmed Bolero , but on the same program, we will play Henri Dutilleux’s Symphony No. 1. It’s never been played by the TSO; it seems like nobody knows it. But it’s an absolutely wonderful 20th century work, and those who come for Bolero will also listen to Dutilleux.” Ever aware of the orchestra’s impressive history, Gimeno continues, “this multidirectional, layered approach to newer music is already in the DNA of the orchestra. But we are taking new chances to create even more opportunities for composers and audiences.” The Toronto Symphony - Photo by Jag Gundu As much as orchestras develop their own valuable sonic DNA over the decades, classical music as a whole is questioning its history: what traditions and tendencies of the classical music world perpetuate harm instead of good? Who has been left out and what do they have to say? For Gimeno, the TSO’s growing work with emerging and under-represented composers is a model for widening the orchestra’s circles of inclusion and musician development. One initiative in this direction is the Women in Musical Leadership program. A partnership between the TSO, Tapestry Opera, and Pacific Opera Victoria, this provides female and non-binary conductors with mentorship, performance, and networking opportunities at the highest levels. “I want to create a bigger space for women. Our participation in the Women in Musical Leadership program is a first step, and a declaration of intent. Officially it’s only existed for two years—during the pandemic, no less. It’s less developed than the composition programs, but I want it to grow. Right now, I coach the participants’ conducting while they conduct pianists playing orchestral reductions, but in the future I want to get them on stage with the TSO—the same way that we do Explore the Score.” Of course, one of the greatest strengths of the TSO — and Toronto in general — is the ability to lure some of the world’s leading artists to perform in the city. Given free rein to choose his favourite artists of the moment for the TSO’s 2022/23 Spotlight Artists, Gimeno chose with immediate confidence: one artist who scarcely needs introduction, and one sorely overdue for a Toronto debut. “No one is like Yuja Wang! You realise she’s spectacular within a couple of seconds of hearing her. When I met her, she was already a really prominent soloist for obvious reasons. We played concerts together first in Amsterdam with the Concertgebouw Orchestra — Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 — and then went on tour to so many places together. She is a unique human being with a concrete stage presence, and she had a longstanding relationship with Toronto predating my arrival, so it made perfect sense for her to be a Spotlight Artist.“ Gustavo Gimeno and the Toronto Symphony - Photo by Jag Gundu Yuja Wang is joined in the spotlight by Jean-Guihen Queyras: although a star in his own right, this French-Canadian cellist has never performed with a Toronto orchestra. “Jean-Guihen is one of the greatest musicians I’ve ever met. I worked with him on the Schumann Cello Concerto and I immediately realised that his is the best possible interpretation I could imagine. Incredibly, even though Jean-Guihen was born in Montréal, when I ask people in Toronto he’s not very known here. Well, that’s a mission for me. I think Toronto is going to love him very much.“ “I'm really thrilled about keeping the TSO’s old relationships,” continues Gimeno, “but also about building new relationships for the future. I think introducing new great artists to Toronto is our duty—but not just a duty, because it’s really fun to put these people together.“ Even as orchestras catch their breath after the pandemic and continue to address heavy issues of systemic discrimination, Gimeno’s use of the word “fun” is a welcome reminder of classical music’s positive possibilities. There is a sense of excitement in his words, and it shines through the orchestra’s performances from the Celebration Preludes through to the familiar strains of Dvorak’s New World Symphony . “There will be more excellent musicians coming to our stage soon,” says Gimeno with a smile. “They will be people that Torontonians don’t know, but absolutely brilliant musicians who they’ll be excited to know.” ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Greater Toronto Art 2021 MoCA’S take on contemporary art WORDS BY TASH COWLEY | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS SPACES NOV 11, 2022 | ISSUE 7 Art by Pamila Matharu, Photography Courtesy of MoCA ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Art by Kareem-Anthony Ferreira, Photography Courtesy of MoCA Art by Walter Scott & Julia Dault, Photography Courtesy of MoCA From September 29, 2021 to January 9, 2022, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Toronto exhibited a survey of diverse artists from around the Greater Toronto Area, working with a plenitude of contemporary or skewed traditional techniques. The exhibit reflected the intersecting identities of the diverse demographics and artists who call Toronto home, especially as the pandemic has put new and ongoing crises in starker relief. In the spirit of solidarity and common-purpose, GTA 2021 represented the city with embroidered (Raina) and projected (Chun) poems, a rusting installation (Siddique), hockey ready-mades (Oluseye), and an excellent documentary about a town’s chrome cow (Anoushahpour, Anoushahpour, & Ferko). The exhibit was divided into three themes ascending MoCA's three floors: Mutation Featuring works which engage with and imagine the changing world, featuring Native Art Department International, Oluseye, Jagdeep Raina, Jennifer Rose Sciarrino, Kara Springer, and Sahar Te. Inheritance Featuring works which reckon with memory and the intersection of the personal and the cultural. Participating artists include: Nour Bishouty, Jesse Chun, Julia Dault, Azza El Siddique, Kareem-Anthony Ferreira, Alexa Hatanaka & Ashoona Ashoona, and Pamila Matharu. ​ Ambivalence Featuring works which evade easy answers in an unsteady moment; artists include: Common Accounts, Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Tom Chung, Julia Dault, Aaron Jones, and Walter Scott. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Pablo Gonzalez LAS VEGAS — AiR TOUR — Issue 8 Art by Pablo Gonzalez Pablo Gonzalez sM | What is the one social issue that your art speaks to the most? PG ── It’s no secret that our world is divided. The pandemic created a disconnect. As an artist, I am bringing society together one painting at a time. Each brush stroke symbolizing a piece of humanity. One’s own relative truth shines through in this inclusive environment. My art dives deeper into the intrinsic thoughts of humans and our primal emotions. Not only are we disconnected from each other, but from nature as well. My use of zoomorphic art creates a beautiful fusion of nature and humanity. Through my piece New Fire , I witnessed emotions overflow. We are Continue the AiR tour in print: ISSUE 9 | ISSUE 10 Sign Up to K eep Up! Our newsletter brings you the best in the visual and performing arts. Exclusive interviews. Global coverage. Local perspectves. innately connected to nature, and I intend to be a key to unlock these primal feelings. sM | What have you accomplished in your residency? PG ── I have created a new form of artistic expression known as Interactive Painting. I believe this will connect people to art in a new way. This process starts with the artist selecting the idea and color patterns. The painting then begins with their brush stroke, and is followed by the guest taking it into their own interpretation with their own brush stroke. Through this interaction, the guest is connected to the painting in a way that has not been experienced before. A finite moment that evolves as it progresses with each new interaction. Each individual experience is captured through digital photography and displayed on Instagram (@aromasofvangogh_vegas). sM | What is your takeaway from the experience working in-studio at Immersive Van Gogh Las Vegas? PG ── I take with me the lived experiences of the emotion that was invoked in the people I met. I am grateful to each and every one of the hundreds of people who interacted with my painting. We created irreplaceable moments while exploring new ways to experience art. I am also thankful to the Immersive Van Gogh (IVG) Exhibit for allowing me this space to create. By incorporating my idea of Interactive Painting, we have created a far-reaching interconnection; one that others want to replicate in their community. Finally, I would like to thank the team that made this all possible: IVG Las Vegas. Each and every one of them made this the most wonderful experience for me, and I am truly grateful. IG: @pablo.gonzalezflores PREVIOUS NEXT

Monetta White and the MoAD “Our artists and institutions are expected to stand up and speak out towards injustice." WORDS BY MILES FORRESTER | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS SPACES NOV 11, 2022 | ISSUE 8 Monetta White by Kalya Ramu ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Since the pandemic began, the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) has stacked its online programming calendar with film clubs, book clubs, workshops, forums, an open mic night, family art events, and discussions with authors. In a variety of ways, Executive Director Monetta White has been growing the reach of MoAD in the Bay Area’s arts and culture landscape since 2019. Including establishing a new studio residency program in partnership with San Francisco Art Institute, expanding the Emerging Artist Program, and forging a new partnership with the African American Arts and Cultural Complex (AAACC). She’s also served as Vice President for the City of San Francisco’s Small Business Commission and continues to sit on multiple non-profit boards and advisory boards. With $200 million reallocated from law enforcement set to be reinvested in historically underrepresented communities and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art selling off a Rothko for $50 million in order to acquire more works by female artists, artists of colour and LGBTQ+ artists, there’s something of a sea change occurring at the intersection of civic policy and culture in San Francisco. This is epitomized by MoAD, which White describes as a hub of thought, art, and dialogues that offers an inherently politicized art viewing experience. sM | Do you see online programming continuing to have a role in reaching out to communities outside SF? MW ─ What a great question, because obviously COVID took us by surprise and we had to end up doing online programming. And what we learned was that we had this extension to our audience. Our online programs have extended our global audience significantly, so we are absolutely going to continue that. MoAD’s website launched seven years ago and has been the open door to visitors around the world and around the clock. MoAD’s audience has increased more than 300% since we began to shelter-in-place with webpages staying open 16% longer than the previous average. In the first two weeks of June 2020, visitors joined our online programming from countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, France, Italy, England, Jamaica, even Japan, and throughout the United States. So we really believe that online digital programming is a way to touch our global community. We are in the process of reimagining our website so make the digital experience even more accessible to our virtual visitors. sM | Given that there is such an overrepresentation of the African diaspora in American prisons, what is your assessment of how sharing their artwork reminds us of their humanity? MW ─ Well, Meet Us Quickly: Painting for Justice from Prison is a digital exhibition of the work of twelve artists incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. We gave a platform for each participant to include accompanying statements written by the artist, allowing these men to speak for themselves to share their vision and perspectives in their own words. The twenty-one works of the exhibition included linocut prints, acrylic paintings, ink drawings on paper and collages, showing their eclectic influences and the ways these artists maintain significant artistic practices spanning diverse techniques and subjects. It was really important for us to be able to exhibit and show that; for me personally, sharing their artwork was an honour, and we hope that people take a second to reflect on the unfortunate circumstances of these incarcerated artists while meditating on their art and statements. sM | Can you speak to why it’s so important to maintain space in MoAD for LGBTQ+ artists and their history? MW ─ Black lives can’t matter if all Black lives don’t matter, which inherently includes the LGBTQ+ communities. We also must particularly support and protect Black trans women who disproportionately experience violence and oppression. We strive to think through the ways we can create space for LGBTQ+ individuals and artists in our community. An example is Sam Vernon’s Impasse of Desires , coming to MoAD this summer, which addresses just that. It’s about the ways in which there are frictions and failures in representing queer expressions. We look forward to continuing this important work, uplifting the vision and work of LGBTQ+ artists in the future. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Kate Lorenz Executive Director of Hyde Park Art Center WORDS BY MADELEINE KANE | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS SPACES APR 11, 2023 | ISSUE 6 Kate Lorenz by Kalya Ramu ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ For Kate Lorenz and her team at Hyde Park Art Center, the transformation that began in 2020 has inspired tremendous generosity. From granting more than $560,000 to emerging artists, to creating accessible online classes–they are seeking to revive Chicago’s art-scene, one project at a time. The Hyde Park Art Center has always been recognized as a welcoming communal space for artists and activists alike. Lorenz joins smART Magazine to discuss her organization’s mission on diversity, inclusion, curation, and their plan for community outreach. sM | What actions will Hyde Park Art Center be taking to advocate for equity and diversity in the arts? KL ─ Will be or have been? That’s what we try to do every day and 2020 really highlighted that. When 2020 happened, our reflex was around how we can continue to offer the support people are used to having from us. We have an audience of 45,000 people a year, from a wide variety of artistic backgrounds. These people use the space as a neighbourhood hub; a place to be. We nurture about 150 creative High School students in developing as artists and activists. Our teams have been very active in the activist movement and use this as a platform to speak up about the issues of inequality. sM | Does the Hyde Park Art Center have a plan for reaching youth in low-income neighbourhoods with their programming? KL ─ It’s been so traumatic for students and families to have gone without in-person school for so long. We’ve been able to continue our teen programs throughout the pandemic, virtually and as a result have been able to run everything as we did before. About 1200 students participated and a third of them didn't pay a dime. This helps with their mental health and allows them to participate through the loss of jobs, or difficult situations to begin with. What suffered the most are the things that require equipment and studios, we’ve had to get very creative. One student collected art supplies which she delivered to artists and students who don’t have access to such things. Another hosted a public community day with lots of activities–that happened in an abandoned school building nearby. We have also been working with students from Kindergarten to Grade Eight in the Southside of Chicago, doing virtual programs with them, and trying to support with what they need the most during this time. I used to say “we do everything except give money away,” but now we do that too. We distributed $560,000 to working artists, particularly those who are working inside of their homes. The “Artist Run Chicago 2.0” show highlighted artist-run activities in Chicago with 50 artists participating . We were able to get support to actually give them cash to do their work and weather the storm. So each person who participated in this will receive $8000 in order to do their work and the remaining funds will allow 20 more artists to receive the same amount. The second round of Artists Run Chicago Fund grants will prioritize artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a person of colour; women; LGBTQ+ artists; and artists with disabilities. In total, 70 spaces got $8,000 grants which allows them to do a lot of incredible things. sM | I can’t help but notice the diversity of your staff members, was there a conscious effort from leadership to achieve this diversity? KL ─ We have a long way to go. Yes it has been a conscious effort, but it also makes our work better, period. It’s very simple. We have a lot to do, you never finish, you’re always working at it. You have to be able to make it a core value and part of your culture, then it can follow. This is not something that lives with one person or one department, it’s an organizational value, and we learn from our mistakes and try to do better. Part of where it can fail is when it’s a checkbox. Instead we need to build an environment and culture where people can thrive. Our board is about 45% leaders of colour. Hyde Park Art Center is very racially and demographically diverse. We aim to be a literal community hub, and to support the artistic ecology city-wide. Our audience demands that kind of diversity, it’s who we are, who uses us, and who wants to come and claim the space. It grows organically from there. We want to have a board that can understand the experience of our artist and of people from the community. We are situated in an old building in the University of Chicago, which historically was a white-led institution in a very diverse community. Our intention and effort to live our values of inclusivity moving forward is more important than ever. sM | When going through artist submissions to curate an exhibit, what are you looking for? KL ─ Our primary focus is on Chicago-based artists but we also have an International Residency program where we allow international artists to live and work in Chicago. We are also able to create exchanges for our Chicago artists to live and work internationally in order to gain international experience. Our space is quite large so when looking for new work by Chicago-based artists, we are looking for artists who can take on very bold projects. Essentially we want to provide a platform to offer a pivotal moment for artists to allow them to do something they’ve never been able to do before. We also have a large two-story, 2500-square-foot gallery space with a garage door allowing the gallery to become a public plaza. About once a year we invite an artist to take that whole space over and create a solo show to invite people in from the street. Very interesting projects have come from this. Our curatorial team has a very diverse background in art, allowing them to seek out artists from all over Chicago. We also have an open submission program for artists to submit their work for the review of our curatorial team. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Lan Florence Yee Destabilising “Chinatown” Narratives with Text and Embroidery WORDS BY GEORGIA GARDNER | TORONTO | LIGHTHOUSE IMMERSIVE STUDIO SESSIONS NOV 18, 2022 | ISSUE 7 A Legacy of Ethnography by Lan Florence Yee ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE "Proof: Community is Easy to Romanticize Darren Rigo" by Lan Florence Yee "Proof" Detail Toronto-based artist Lan Florence Yee’s work centres on the fusion between text and labour-intensive creation. Yee’s art presents a stumbling block to linear narratives of intergenerational knowledge. Through the intensive process of embroidering text onto fabric, Yee showcases experiences of dead ends, futility, failure and repetition. It seeks to deromanticize queer and racialized experiences. As both a visual artist and curator of Chinatown Biennial , a digital exhibit, Yee explores the purpose of taking a closer examination into what we think we know. sM | Your recent works that challenge racialized and gendered expectations often involve the intersection of text and embroidery textile. How did you arrive at this unique cross-section, and what other possibilities would you like to explore with it? LFY ── I come to text mostly through the media of signage, templates, and forms. They are everywhere and yet invisible to those who have normalised the ways they guide people’s behaviour. Everything from the font, size, colour, placement, but especially the repetition, are taken for granted. Growing up in Montreal as a trilingual person, the hierarchy of language was a prominent feature in my environment. At the same time, I was doing research into early Cantonese history in so-called Canada. From the nineteenth century onwards, the conditions of economic and political survival for Cantonese migrants were tied to their labour. As “hard work” became a measurement of value, I got interested in the contradictions of recognition and desirability. I became interested in “working” through the restrictive belonging we may seek from labour, language, and family with hand embroidery and other kinds of intensive creation processes. Through embroidery, the text that I add onto fabric becomes texture. It mirrors the embodiment of my process by logging the time spent with the object. That heavy marker of time narrows the chasm I often feel between myself and the viewer, who spends a relatively short moment in front of it. It’s a willfully inconvenient method of working because I want to slow down. "The Artist's Studio" by Lan Florence Yee sM | Along with Arezu Salamzadeh, you co-founded the Chinatown Biennial in 2020. What differences and similarities between being an artist and a curator inspired your journey into the latter? LFY ── The Chinatown Biennial is part actual biennial and part parody. Doing both at the same time needs the consideration of curation for ourselves and other artists at the same time as keeping in mind the intentions of emerging arts in the uncertain landscape that is “Toronto.” The large-scale, international events of biennials have their historical roots in the 19th and 20th centuries’ World Fairs, hosted by colonial empires that demonstrated the reach of their annexing powers and wealth. Similarly, they are now synonymous with art world establishment, status, and multinational sponsorship. By using the prized label of a “biennial,” we want to question for whom we reserve such titles. We were inspired by a legacy of institutional critique that involves the creation of alternatives, both through playful mimicry and transformative reimaginings. This is why the Chinatown Biennial’s inaugural theme was “furtive.” Biennials generally have a default of grandiosity; in contrast, we wanted to encourage the artists to ask themselves: If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Lan Florence Yee The roles of artist and curator should be bound by an awareness of place. In our case, Chinatowns and other ethnic enclaves are often maligned as decrepit and dirty (a caricature which has worsened with the pandemic). However, they are also tokenized as festival spaces and venues of touristic entertainment. Rather than contributing to Chinatown’s perceived defaults as both archaic and exotic, the Chinatown Biennial aims to highlight a complex web of narratives tied to these neighbourhoods. They are sites on Indigenous lands, sites of labour movements, mutual aid, sex work, undocumented lives, fights against rapid gentrification, and so much more. Arezu and I are currently thinking that the 2022 version of the Chinatown Biennial will be a retrospective publication about the 2020 one. We want to prioritise our current goals of slowing down, reflecting, and seeking humbler ambitions for contemporary art. ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Quinn Rockliff Self-Portraiture and Healing WORDS BY NAVYA POTHAMSETTY | OAKLAND | VISUAL ARTS STUDIO SESSIONS MAR 03, 2023 | ISSUE 10 "STILL HERE JUST WAITING" by Quinn Rockliff ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE "MINE" by Quinn Rockliff Photography & Illustration by Quinn Rockliff Over the last decade, social media has become a platform for sharing experiences, and in turn, a tool for healing. Quinn Rockliff , a multidisciplinary feminist artist from Toronto who’s work focuses on nude portraiture, understands the challenges of authenticity, and managing vulnerability online. Quinn spoke candidly about reclaiming her body after trauma through the repetitive act of self-portraiture, and how she hopes to help others do the same by creating spaces for ownership, self love, and empowerment. By confronting the shame surrounding womanhood and sexuality, she advocates for the unlearning of society's misogyny, and the practice of moving through the world thoughtfully. sM | In what ways do you think women can and have been using social media to reclaim female sexuality? What do you think is missing? QR — We, as millennials, grew up in an interesting time because we got social media right as we were coming of age, which means that we were the first to explore learning and playing with the boundaries of ourselves, our bodies and our sexuality. That also came with a really heavy price tag, which was the expectation to look a certain way, and feed into desirability politics that I feel that women can never win at. There is a never ending double edged sword of sharing your body online but also not sharing too much. There is a narrative that we have always been told by adults and teachers that everything we post online will be out there in the world forever so we had better be careful with what we post. At the same time, all of our social value is being placed on likes and social media. At the time in my life when I stopped posting filtered selfies, and started posting nude drawings, it was my way of challenging these expectations of our generation. If you’re going to demand my sexuality and my nudity from me, I am going to be in charge of how you perceive me and how I share that. There was this looming threat that when you share nude photos of yourself privately that they would then all of a sudden become part of the public sphere. So, by taking those nude photos of myself and painting them I was kind of saying, sure, you can threaten to leak my nudes, but I’m going to leak them first in my own way. When we were younger, there was a lot of shame and no reality from adults about the ways in which the young men around us were invading our bodies and distributing them to others. At first I didn’t really know why or what I was drawing when I started my art process. I just found myself drawing my body again and again. Now I know that it was a means for me to really see and reclaim my own body after trauma, because I felt as though I had lost control over who got to see my body and how it was perceived by others. Through drawing myself naked I was able to spend time with my own body and appreciate it. There was a wave initially of people online who were being honest and vulnerable. It was quite a new concept for women to be using an online platform in that way. However, there has definitely been a big shift as social media has become industrialized, where it has been commodified into a business. I think it's tricky when we see brands and influencers using honesty and vulnerability alongside product placement and branding. I feel as though these posts can be untrustworthy. Is that what they really mean, or are they just being paid to say that? Personally, what I try to focus on when talking about my experiences and about these issues of confidence, being a survivor, being a woman and being a growing feminist online is that I’m really only talking about myself as a cisgender white woman. I cannot, and do not want to be the mouthpiece for any sort of agenda because I don’t experience what other people experience. I think it's really important for us to remember that when we are talking online and beginning to brand and commodify these ideas about self love. I think we need to be very careful of who is being involved in these conversations and who is being left out. sM | In what ways do you think healing is not linear, and how do you measure progress on a daily basis, especially on the bad days? QR — So much of my healing is found through my art. That can be tough when you start to do art as a career because there is an expectation that you should continue to create your art on bad days. Something I’ve been working on a lot lately is taking a week or a day off and not painting anything on bad days. Even though art is my mode of healing, sometimes that break can be really restorative for me. Then I can return to the studio and really work through the things I was reflecting on, because it can take a bit of time to work through, and it allows my thoughts to catch up to the pen and paper, or the paint and canvas. For me, progress has been about accepting that there will always be things that will sit with you for your whole life but you have the capacity to give yourself the grace to work through them and be patient with yourself . That is what growth looks like for me. There was a time where I thought if I just worked through this everyday one day I would be better, and I wouldn’t be sad anymore. But I don’t think that is realistic. I think you have to keep showing up and being gentle and kind to yourself. Our bodies are not changing drastically from one day to the other but for some reason our minds play tricks on us and it is easy to be influenced by the content that you see online, or the people that you surround yourself with. The act of drawing my body everyday is a good way to battle any body dysmorphia that I might be feeling because when I abstract my body in these line drawings, I am able to see them in a new light, and not be so focused on the small aspects of myself in real life that I have decided to hate that day. When I decide to draw them I have to see them in a new way. That can be refreshing. "THAT'S BETTER" by Quinn Rockliff When I first started posting online the things that I was most scared to say, that I was really nervous to post about, were always the things that people resonated with the most. As women we have been taught to be afraid and shameful of things that most of us have experienced, things like body hair, body fluids, sexual desire. We have so much shame around all of these things and we don’t know why. I love talking to women about things they’ve realized just aren’t true. What are the lies you’ve been told about your body? Or the ways that we desire or feel? I don’t feel that much fear about what I post anymore, because most people tend to feel the same way. When I first started talking online, no one was talking about how healing isn’t linear, no one was even talking about experiencing trauma. Now I hope we have become more sensitive about the ways we talk about these things online. Trauma is so wrapped up in our everyday experience that it is hard to parcel out. I do think how trauma is handled online is important to talk about. sM | Coming out of a global pandemic, have your messages about body ownership changed since you started? Has it made you think differently? QR — At the beginning of the pandemic I had a lot of time to reflect and be really introspective. This pandemic has given me so much time in the studio. That has required a lot of reflection. Like many others, my body changed a lot during the pandemic so it has helped me strengthen my desire to show up for my body and represent it. There has been a lot of learning in terms of what it means to be a white woman in a space, so I have been doing a lot of learning and reflecting behind the scenes about how I take up space and how to create space for others. Post pandemic, I’m excited for future generations to be more informed. The next generation of women in their 30’s and the Generation Z women who are reclaiming their body and sexuality have been given access to so many people's narratives that are not their own. This new age of women are given the ability to interact with people who have had similar shared experiences, that we perhaps thought we were alone in. Once I became intentional about the people that I surrounded myself with and “unfollowed” people on virtual spaces that were not allowing for a healthy mindset, I was really able to imagine a new existence for myself. I saw women being shameless about their sexuality online. I saw men who were vocal about issues that I thought men didn’t talk about. I learned about the experiences of transgender women, and I learned and listened to women of colour. All of these voices online that I wouldn’t necessarily have had access to if I hadn’t "followed" them have really shaped me in how I moved through the world today, it is constantly challenging my perspective and requiring me to rethink how I want to talk about my body. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

JENN GRANT’S GOT CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS In her latest album, the Canadian singer-songwriter delivers a deeply collaborative post-pandemic meditation smART MAGAZINE | HALIFAX | HOMEGROWN HOMEGROWN JUN 26, 2023 | ISSUE 12 Jenn Grant “Reveal yourself. Reveal your deepest darkest truths and your bravest qualities. That is the rebellious move.” JENN GRANT TOUR DATES: TUESDAY 11 - SUNDAY 16 JULY Halifax Jazz Festival 2023 THURSDAY 27 - SUNDAY 30 JULY Calgary Folk Music Festival 2023 Prince's Island Park, Calgary, AB, Canada SATURDAY 14 OCTOBER 7:00 PM Pontypool, ON, Canada Pontypool Community Centre SUNDAY 15 OCTOBER2:30 PM Perth, ON, Canada Maberly Community Hall WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER7:30 PM Paris, ON, Canada Dominion Telegraph Event Centre THURSDAY 26 OCTOBER7:00 PM Ottawa, ON, Canada Babs Asper Theatre TICKETS AT WWW.JENNGRANT.COM @jenngrantmusic ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Jenn Grant Jenn Grant LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN sM | There’s an extra administrative component to a collaborative album like this, and as a producer on this album (alongside Daniel Ledwell), how were you able to stay in both the creative and the logistical camps without muddling both? JG ─ I had to schedule and organize it, but then when it was time to start writing in the sessions, there were no thoughts about logistics or coordination. It was all creative, and that's just the way that life is, especially as a parent. Sometimes it was stressful because I was a very busy mother of two, with a very small infant and a one-and-a-half year old. It was a lot, but I'm a project-oriented person, so for me to keep my joy up, I like to be creating alongside motherhood, which I really love – so I just didn't really stop working. PAN-CANADIAN sM | This project is ambitious in the geographical spread of your collaborators. In Halifax alone, you invited Kim Harris, Aquakultre, Bahamas (Afie Jurvanen), Ria Mae, and Joel Plaskett. You invited Toronto’s Basia Bulat and Amy Millan; on the West coast you called for Dan Mangan; and also featured Nunavut’s Joshua Quamariaq. Was there a deliberate effort to create something that is broadly Canadian? JG ─ Yes, it was completely intentional. ORGANIZING DIVERSITY sM | There are two artists of colour on this album — Lance Samson (Aquakultre), Quamariaq — which is of note in light how folk spaces can often feel exclusively white in demographic. How do you approach being intentional, without being performative, in regards to making this space more diverse? JG ─ I think that's just something that is good to ask yourself when you’re creating. Josh Q and I met when I was up in Iqaluit for Thanksgiving for a show in 2018. And there was this living room gathering where he sang and I was really moved by his voice. And I kept saying, “Oh, I just wanna sing with you.” And I don't know if he thought I was serious or whatever, because he seemed pretty shy to me. And then I just asked him if he wanted to do this, and he said yes. And I was just so excited about having someone from Nunavut on the album because it's really important to me if I'm making a Canadian collaboration project to represent as much of Canada as I can, but in an organic and natural way. So, as you said, it’s not about forcing diversity, but just having it in your life. Art represents life, and records for me represent time capsules of my life. An important thing for me as a human being - and how I raised my children - is to always be open and excited for diversity. And so it was very important to me that the record also demonstrates that. With Aquaculture, we became friends when our kids started hanging out, Lance has become one of my dearest friends, and same with his whole family. And Lance is just such an incredible talent, so it was really important to me to try to write a song with him. It was just one of the funnest things to write that song together, and I just can't wait to perform it. So I think it's just art representing life, and making your life as diverse and inclusive as possible. Cuz if not, you're just missing out on ife, you know? Jenn Grant BOYS OF SUMMER sM | Your take on Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” is a really compelling cover of that song, and it seems the subject matter seeped into Champagne Problems . The album closes with “The Closing Down of the Summer”, and opens with “Judy” (feat Kim Harris) wherein the main character drives the same car famously mentioned in Henley song. To what extent is this album in dialogue with “Boys of Summer” and to what extent did you want to make this a specifically summer album? JG ─ Take for example my album Compostela , a lot of that album is about losing my mother, and I wanted to kind of process all of my feelings around that and then create something that had lightness to it. I'm not interested in making art that is heavy and is all about the sort of dark sides of grief and then letting that be the thing that lingers forever in the world. I wanted to make something that can lift people if possible. So these stories and these songs with my collaborators were all born outta the pandemic, all written during the pandemic of course, but the after-effect of the record is to be something that is more like the summer and coming out of something dark. And I also wanted to wait to put it out until it felt like there was a space in the time that we're living in to have something like that, where we're ready to be lifted. So the timing of it is very intentional. I really like your connection with the “Boys of Summer”, because I did not know that. I did not think about that. “Judy” is a story of Kim's parents, it is a record of her family history. We decided to give her dad a Cadillac in the song, but he didn’t have a Cadillac in real life. ​ THREE’S COMPANY sM | “How I Loved You” is the result of the creative effort between yourself, co-writer Hannah Georgas, and featuring Amy Millan (Stars). What engendered this three-way collaboration? JG ─ Hannah and I wrote this song, it started to be a duet in my mind, but Hannah wanted to sing backing vocals and she didn't wanna do the duet part of it. I really wanted her to, because I love Hannah and I love her voice so much, but for whatever reason, she was like, I don't wanna make it a duet. At that time when I was trying to figure that out with Hannah, Amy texted me and said something like, “What do I have to do to get us to sing a song together?” And she didn't even mean on this record, she just was saying something cute to me because she is such a sweetheart. And then I talked to Dan [Mangan] about it and I thought Amy's voice would actually just be so perfect on this song. And it just kind of developed into something really special. And it almost seems like Kevin Drew [Broken Social Scene] is part of this song too, because even though Kevin didn't have anything to do with the writing of this song, he really loved that song and then wanted to make the video for it. And he's kind of like best friends with Amy, so this song just kind of kept becoming more and more of a collaboration, and it's one of my favorites. ​ JOEL PLASKETT sM | “Rattled by Your Love” is both a tender ballad and your only solo song on the album, but with a little help from Joel Plaskett along the way? JG ─ I wrote the song with Joel at his studio and it was a busy day because I think I was like breastfeeding my son and the other one was running around hitting stuff in Joel's studio. But somehow we managed to write a song. I knew that Joel was talking to Dan and I could hear him talking about the production direction and they were both imagining sort of like a band, and this whole other thing with guitars and stuff. And I was just feeling like it wasn't my own yet. And then when I had some time, I thought I really wanna change everything about this. I wanna slow it down and I wanna cut a verse and I want it to be like, very intimate. And Joel was super supportive and onboard with that decision, and I just love that song and I’m really happy with how it turned out. It almost felt like I was doing a cover of what we wrote. I like that. ​ VISUAL ART Rebel Reveal by Jenn Grant sM | Your paintings “Sweet Northern Sun” and “Rebel Reveal” are currently on display at Prow Gallery in Halifax — what was the inspiration behind these two pieces? JG ── My inspiration for visual art is very similar to when I began songwriting, like very stream-of-consciousness. It's a feeling of letting go and taking risks and losing time. Like you just get lost and you're just nowhere and it's just things coming through you, it's like a physical act of love. Also I was listening to the new Feist record a lot when I was painting “Rebel Reveal”, so sometimes I think that other people's music kind of influences the direction of the painting. With “Rebel Reveal”, someone came over to my house one night when the painting was still in here and they were noticing a heartbeat rhythm in the middle of the painting that connects to a larger heart vessel. I think that it felt like a heartbeat while I was painting, but I kind of let it go and I didn't really focus on it or anything, so it was interesting to have someone else note that. And that painting is called “Rebel Reveal” because it's saying to other people: reveal yourself. Reveal your deepest darkest truths and your bravest qualities. That is the rebellious move, to reveal and kind of like let yourself be an example of artistic freedom and risk. “Sweet Northern Sun” is just in my mind, like a landscape of the bright Canadian sun kind of casting over what was a long winter, and the depths of gold and glory coming through. ​ LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION? sM | Your multifunctional studio space — which you’ve dubbed “Azalea House” — is situated in a rural lakehouse. How does this environment contribute to your steady output in both the visual and performing arts? Would this output be possible while living in a city? JG ─ I do think it'll be possible anywhere, even within a city because all of these things are kind of like inside of me, or - not to sound too flaky - on the outskirts of the universe. It's like you're trying to tap into creative sources that are beyond you and beyond the physical environment. They can come from anywhere. I remember painting and writing songs for Honeymoon Punch in a little apartment in Cairo. They were coming from the beyond, basically. We chose to move out here after my mother passed away because I always envisioned that at the end of my life, maybe I would get to a point where I would take that step and move somewhere that was near the water and surrounded by trees. So when I lost my mother, I was like I need to make a big shift. And so I kind of gave myself the gift of doing this earlier in my life. I sort of gave myself this place to work in the studio, trusting that I will be more productive and more creative because I have this space for myself. It's just the very beginning of it. Like, I've just gotten in here, and I haven't recorded any music in here yet either. But I'm doing a lot of stuff, a lot of yard work, it feels like I'm thriving doing things outside. ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

A Very Fine Art Showcasing the female perspective within the tattoo industry. WORDS BY AUGUSTA MONET | TORONTO | LIGHTHOUSE IMMERSIVE ARTS & LETTERS NOV 18, 2022 | ISSUE 7 Dani Williams ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Artwork by Kate Doucette Artwork by Madeline Audsley Like many traditional artists, tattoo artists begin their process with a pen and paper, or some modern version of that. Despite the artistic abilities and talent of these artists, they still struggle to be recognized in the same stature as more conventional visual artists. In this series, I present a selection of female tattoo artists to learn and listen to their truth about where the industry exists in the art world, and their experiences being women in the industry. Speaking from my experience, being a female-identifying person with many tattoos, I have been the target of discrimination because of my body art. I have been turned down for jobs, frowned at, cat-called, told I would be much prettier without them, and that I would never be successful because of them. Some people prefer their art on walls, and some prefer it on their bodies; either way, it is still art, and it does not make you any less. But first, let’s ask: what makes something art? Modern artists would argue it’s all about intention. If you create something with the intent for it to be art, then it’s art. Whether it’s a tattoo or an oil painting, if the objective was art, then that’s what it is. Another point to consider is that paintings are collected, and so are tattoos. Tattoo collectors have even gone as far as acquiring human skin, preserved, framed, and then mounted for all to celebrate. In 2016, the Royal Ontario Museum did an entire exhibit focused on tattoos and tattoo culture, called Tattoos: Ritual. Identity. Obsession. Art , which showcased the history and traditions of the art form. The discussion circling the idea of whether or not tattoos should be considered a fine art should, hopefully, be discarded within this decade. These women (and many others) possess an aptitude that is unmistakably that of a professional visual artist. They are experts in their craft and deserve to be celebrated as such. Tattoo collectors have even gone as far as acquiring human skin, preserved, framed, and then mounted for all to celebrate. PART ONE TORONTO Artist: Kate Doucette IG: @kate_somebody, @torontotattoohaus sM | In what ways do female artists still struggle for recognition of self-expression in the industry? KD — I, like many female tattooers, was brought up in a man's world. I wasn’t taken seriously early on in my career. I was laughed at, dominated, rejected and exposed to way too much sexual assault. It was not the same for my male counterparts—it became paramount that I needed to create a space for female tattooers to flourish in this industry. A space where we can focus on our craft and feel safe and respected—where our clients can feel safe and respected. I think that as more incredible female tattooers are emerging and staking their claim, they will continue to demand change and respect. There’s no denying the immense talent that women have brought to the industry, but with that being said, it really depends on our environment. Fortunately, mine has changed significantly in the last six years because I have forced that change by creating a space that we can feel confident and thrive in. A space to focus solely on our craft. Tattooing will thicken your skin and because of that it has shaped me into the strong, self-assured person that I am today, which allows me and others to stand out in a once male-dominated industry. My experience as a female tattooer hasn't always been easy, but I'm grateful to have been brought up the way I have so that I can make a positive difference in the lives of other emerging female artists. PART TWO Artwork by Audrey App LOS ANGELES Artist: Madeline Audsley IG: @tattoovalentin sM | How do you conceive of tattoo art as a visual art like all others? MA — One of the most special parts of tattooing is that the art can outlive the maker but very rarely is preserved beyond the life of the canvas. Which makes it basically impossible to reproduce, commodify, outsource, auction-off, or display in galleries. All of the commercialized aspects of the fine art industry aren’t applicable in this space. Art that lives on a body is subject to the same repressions that the body is subjected to. Tattooing is an ancient ritual practice of Black and Indigenous peoples from around the world. In a culture that values purity and whiteness so highly, classist and racist structures bar us from looking at tattooing as something dignified. Western cultures signify the body as a form of power, using ability, age, gender presentation, colour, and size as metrics of value. Marginalized and rebellious communities such as sailors and sex workers have used tattooing as an expression of both bodily acceptance and revolt. The body is a political site, which makes any form of art that embraces it, like tattooing or piercing, a highly contested and repressed form. The duality of the nature of tattooing as Black and Indigenous expression, and its inability to be commodified, makes it dangerous to a Western capitalist system that relies upon the commodification of nonwhite cultures and labour. PART THREE Artwork by Emma Anderson CHICAGO Artist: Audrey App IG: @audtats sM | What has been your experience of the negative stigma associated with tattoo art and how has this changed since you started as a tattoo artist? AA — I'm a 21-year-old self-taught tattoo artist who began roughly two years ago. I used to be a bit of a skeptic of the tattoo industry since all I saw was dark and grunge styles, which isn't my personal taste. I was also anxious about how the industry viewed female tattoo artists and how I would possibly be put under certain pressures. However, after I dived headfirst into this world, I quickly discovered a wide range of styles and people who genuinely cared about the art they created and the people they gave it to! Even though I still see this negative stigma—unfortunately, even in my own life—I believe the stigma linked with tattoo art has begun to relax in recent years. Tattooing is still sometimes considered as a “dark” and “evil” thing because it is a form of body alteration. I've lost friends and have had to deal with the fact that not everyone will agree with what I do. Even though it's been a little less than two years, I've watched tattooing evolve in a beautiful way. As I create what I love, I’m finding a breathable freedom that allows me to really connect with my clients and myself. I truly believe us humans are pieces of art, and because of that, we create beautiful art. PART FOUR Artwork by Haley Adams NEW YORK Artist: Emma Anderson IG: @sun.doesnt.set @somehwere.nyc sM | How do you conceive of the current state of tattoo art as a visual art? EA — I think tattooing is in the late phases of a rebirth, which started with the democratization of education via social media. Although the future of tattooing is uncertain, I see it blossoming into something it never was. We’re in a golden era of tattooing where tropes and traditions are bent and sometimes broken. I’m inspired by the tattooists that push the boundaries of what tattooing can be while still making tattoos that last for the life of the wearer. PART FIVE Artwork by Ryane Urie SAN FRANCISCO Artist: Haley Adams IG: haleyadamstattoo @castrotattoosf sM | What has been your experience of the negative stigma associated with tattoo art and how has this changed since you started as a tattoo artist? HA — I’ve been tattooing all over the United States for 16 years, and I think that tattoo stigmas have settled down since tattoo shows became popular, which was a good thing for some, and bad for others. I find it amusing to let others think I’m a ''bad boy” just because I have some scribbles on my body. On the other side of that, it can easily affect people's perception of you in relation to substance abuse. When I was 19 years old, I broke my spine. I was lying in the hospital in immense pain, and the medical professionals said to me, “I think we are going to only give you small amounts of painkillers because you look like a drug addict, you know, because you have a lot of tattoos.” Things are different everywhere, but I think it’s narrow-minded to complain about the “discrimination” you get from having tattoos because we knew the deal when we got them. sM | How do you conceive of tattoo art as a visual art like all others? HA — Tattooing is different from a lot of visual art since it’s on a living, breathing body that has the freewill to go where it pleases. We have to make sure our art looks good on all these weird 3D shapes. Is tattooing struggling to be appreciated? I think tattooers and serious collectors live in a counter-culture where we absolutely appreciate art and will fly all over to collect pieces. It doesn’t have to be mainstream to feel appreciated. I feel appreciated; I feel like my work is appreciated. Certain people definitely do fine art on the skin; there’s all kinds of styles and all kinds of appreciation. Art doesn’t have to be in a gallery to be loved and respected.” PART SIX ​ DENVER Artist: Ryane Urie IG: @ryantouchedme @thewolfdencustomtattoo sM | How do you conceive of tattoo art as a visual art like all others? RU — I have already started to see the shift in the medium of tattooing and the industry moving towards having a whole new sub-category of fine art and being recognized as that. Just like the Sailor Jerry tattoo collectors in the world exist, so do the clients that desire to wear a painting style for their statement piece, and the more artists that enter the industry of tattooing, the less “tattooers” that replicate existing art will remain, and more originality and creativity will elevate the entire community as a whole. This has already given the industry a more reputable track record, and it’s seen almost as a high fashion to wear collections by such and such artists. That can be positive while also toeing the line of creating for everyone and that everyone deserves a chance to have their story worn. ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Anis Mojgani’s Radical Empathy In conversation with the Poet Laureate of Oregon WORDS BY MILES FORRESTER | OREGON | ARTS & LETTERS FEB 28, 2023 | ISSUE 11 Anis Mojgani by Natalie Seebooth ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE ​ ​ Continue reading in Issue 11 Over Anis Mojgani's shoulder, a “Black Lives Rule” poster hangs in the Zoom frame. The Poet Laureate of Oregon designed it in collaboration with musician Laura Veirs and her young son (he created the initial drawing) to fundraise for the Portland General Defence Committee and other BLM organisations. With poems like “Shake the Dust” and “Direct Orders” — performed on stage with his uniquely spirited delivery — Mojgani has amassed an enthusiastic following over the last two decades. His prowess on and off stage has made him a winner of both national and international Poetry Slam competitions and the author of six books of poetry. When Mojgani talks about poetry, it takes a second to realise that he’s not describing a literary form, but a vital force. He regularly uses language related to cultivation in conversation: his sentences are rife with blossoms, stems, and roots. The Piano Farm (his website) describes the metonymic space for his endeavours. It began as a humble non-sequitur he misheard from a friend while attending the Savannah College of Art and Design. Although the initial short... ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Presenting Touch Guillaume Côté X Lighthouse Immersive WORDS BY MADELEINE KANE & MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK | TORONTO | DANCE IN MOTION NOV 15, 2022 | ISSUE 7 Guillaume Côté by Ella Mazur ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE Touch: Guillaume Côté x Lighthouse Immersive ​ Over the past year and a half, and amidst the waves of ongoing uncertainty, our collective relationship to physical touch has been complicated and, perhaps, forever changed. With his new dance experience, Touch, choreographer Guillaume Côté explores the delicate intimacy of human interaction in an environment that has developed hesitancy toward closeness. Embodied within two dancers, Côté’s choreography delves into the evolution of nature through the ebbs and flows of human influence. The narrative itself inspires inward reflection—especially in a period wherein we fear the mere thought of touch—how have we embraced technology in lieu of physical contact? Influenced by the legendary stage director, Robert Lepage, Côté teamed up with Thomas Payette for the fusion of dance and technology. In the final stages of development, Côté reveals how directing Touch has changed his artistic relationship to open space, as well as finding harmony between the art of the dance and innovative spectacle. sM | How did you approach customizing the performance to the Lighthouse Immersive space, balancing the expansive choreography with the logistics of fitting a large audience into the venue? GC — We’re still fine-tuning. How do we make sure that this very subtle, very delicate interaction they have with each other comes across in this massive warehouse—filled with state-of-the-art projections—and not get drowned out by all of that? We figured out a few of those challenges, but we’re still working. Things like the pillars—we’re considering mirrors on the pillars. Our ideal scenario would have the audience be free to walk around. Now we’re still in the realm of social distancing, so people can’t walk around, so we thought it was safer to have rotating chairs. Ultimately, when the mirrors are put in, the experience gets more fine-tuned. Dance is this really beautiful thing that when it’s really well-directed, it’s very impactful. It can also fall really flat when it’s not directed well. Even where we are now, we feel we could do better. We’ve successfully incorporated the element of the three-dimensional choreography, which is something that very few people try to do. Choreography very often becomes something that you watch from the front. It becomes this two-dimensional experience, as opposed to being a three-dimensional thing where you watch dancers live. So the adventure of the 45 minutes of Touch , with those two dancers, is just so intense. People will have to get used to this way of seeing dance and also being in this environment that in itself is the performance, and that is a beautiful thing. You’re coming to live in this space where these two people are having a very intimate experience within this massive world of multimedia. Some of the feedback was “I can’t see the action”, but I say “there’s so much going on around you!” If you just turn your chair, you’ll see a million little details in the projections behind you. You may not see the performers for four seconds, but you are seeing a lot of other things. It’s like virtual reality, where you have to change your mindset so you’re in charge. You as the viewer are in charge of what you’re looking at and you have to make your own experience meaningful. It’s one thing to say this show is immersive, but it’s another thing to be an audience member at an immersive show. You have to take responsibility to be the one who is curious— what else do they want me to see ? That’s part of the learning curve. I’m learning how to craft a show that is not spoon-feeding my audience with “at this moment you look here,” and “at this moment you look over there,” but giving a space an animation that’s always stimulating, with enough that the audience can always have something to look at. sM | What was the co-evolution of your choreography and the visual track of the performance? GC — Choreography came first. The people came first: the two performers and their relationship. That’s what is special about this show. Some expectations were that the show was going to rotate around a spectacle of multimedia, but it’s really not about that. It’s about the connection between two people and giving the environment around them a feeling of what they’re going through—amplifying their emotional and intellectual state. Then we looked into the dynamic of it. How does the blocking of the work go? What are we trying to say here? The Touch conversation started with two stars colliding, and how the universe was created. That’s how iron was made, and essentially that’s how life was created. In so many ways, it’s the coming-together and the falling-apart that give our lives meaning. Everything from cells splitting, to atoms splitting and coming together— it’s all about push and pull. A lot of the visuals, especially in the first half of the show, started to come into this idea of nature, sand, trees, water, and elements informing that. Then we go into this place, this digital world. Sand turns into pixels. It turns into the ones and zeroes that we base our lives on. This is the tricky moment in the show, when the digital element enters and you can feel them growing apart. You feel them split up, until the end when they find each other again through this peace, this cleansing. I don’t want to say that big, bad technology is tearing us apart—that’s not what the show is about. The visuals came from the experience and what we were doing with the dancers. Thomas [Payette] is very much the one who created the visuals. He’s to be applauded because he has this beautiful restraint on how he uses technology. It’s very sophisticated, and he’s not trying to make a spectacle with gimmicks, he’s made something that has great integrity. The transitions are key. This comes from us working with Robert Lepage. He is, of course, a genius, and we’re not pretending to be at his level, but we are people who have admired him through working with him. We use his approach in order to craft the visuals around the performance, so they are not casting this tidal wave upon the performers and what is truly important. sM | It’s been a long process of devising this piece from scratch, what has changed the most, and what have you insisted on maintaining over the last year? GC — Our proposition needs to be dance. It needs to be movement. All of the projections, everything that rotates, everything that happens, needs to revolve around the idea of movement, dance, push, pull, and negative space—the idea of constant movement because that’s what life is. That’s what I liked with the first idea of Touch . The idea of touching can be very positive; it can be very negative as well. It can have contagion attached to it, depending on who’s touching and how. Touching has become more and more precious, too. We’re still in this situation where “touch” is sort of tricky. I wanted to keep it very much about dance. It’s not always easy to make sure that dance triumphs because it is the most fragile of the art forms. Opera and singing is really in your face and in your ears. Music can get very loud, but dance is very fragile. It’s ephemeral. It’s a play on geometry, space, and emotion. Many people are quick to dismiss anything that has multimedia and dance together. They want to dismiss it as “not a dance show,” and I push back on that. When they came out with drum machines and electronic music, I’m sure people said that wasn’t real music, but now there’s nothing else. From Kanye West to Drake, it’s considered amazing. I feel the same way about finding the balance of fragility and spectacle. I’m not willing to sacrifice the dance by any means, and I think we’re getting closer to something that will please dance lovers and those not usually into dance. sM | What are some of the trajectories that you’d like to see unfold in this unique experimental presentation of dance in Toronto and beyond? GC — This is just the beginning of a beautiful way of using this kind of technology and multimedia. It’s about trying to find the right seed of an idea. The space in itself that Lighthouse Immersive allows has opened my eyes to how much there is to do when you animate a three-dimensional space in its entirety. Even in previews, it was clear to me that this became an experience that we all shared. It wasn’t a show—it’s a creation where everyone is living within it. I’d really like to explore that further. So many amazing things are happening in dance, from Yoann Bourgeois in Europe, to working with architects, to working with different types of artists and collaborators. What the space is showing me is that there’s so much potential in opening up our minds to dance and movement that can be developed beyond a formulaic proscenium stage. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture

Transgressions : A Ceramics Exhibit On the Border Between Artistic Bravery and Bravado WORDS BY TASH COWLEY | CHARLOTTE | VISUAL ARTS SPACES APR 10, 2023 | ISSUE 7 "Fuga" by Rosa Cortiella ​ ​ Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily LISTEN NOW https://loveinexile.lnk.to/preorder Cody Fry LISTEN NOW www.codyfry.com Víkingur Ólafsson ON TOUR NOW www.vikingurolafsson.com Samara Joy LISTEN NOW www.samarajoy.com Bruce Liu ON TOUR NOW www.bruce-liu.com Disney Animation: Immersive Experience TICKETS ON SALE NOW CLICK HERE "Under the Daisies" by Sophie Aguilera Lester "Banquet of Death" by Xavier Toubes This past summer in Barcelona, the city’s Design Museum presented Transgressions , a contemporary ceramics exhibition celebrating the exemplary transformations happening in the world of clay. Ceramics is the art of the four elements: earth, water, fire, and air. Artists working in this medium challenge themselves by exploring and altering any of these elements to reach new effects and share unique perspectives never before seen in ceramic art. From Tradition to Innovation There have always been progressive artists working with clay, but the current global trend of ceramicists pushing this traditional craft into the experimental realms of modern art is unprecedented. Barcelona’s Design Museum is keeping up with the movement by updating their existing ceramics collection of over a thousand artworks from 230 different artists, including Llorens, Artigas, Picasso, and Miró. The Transgressions exhibit added contemporary works from artists like Madola, María Oriza Perez, Xavier Toubes, Ángel Garraza, Nuria Torres, Sophie Aguilera Lester, Corrie Bain, Yukiko Kitahara, and Roger Coll. The curators sought out “creators who are not confining themselves to repeating processes and formulas, they’re contributing to new knowledge and experiences.” Center for Barcelona’s Institute of Culture The Barcelona Design Museum is the result of merging several previously existing local museums. Located in the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes, the modern building acts as both a museum and a laboratory with a focus on four branches of design: space, product, information, and fashion. The building’s expansive architecture brims with daylight and reflections from the fountains outside. At the front door were selections from a recent exhibition on biomimicry in fashion—surprising guests with outfits that included upcycled materials and drones. Transgressions was located downstairs, in a large, open exhibition space with artworks ranging in scope—from pieces that fit in the palm of your hand to Rosa Cortiella’s large-scale sculptures that spread halfway across the room and wandered up the walls. Material Transgressions The first exhibit space encountered was titled “Material Transgression”, displaying works by artists experimenting with forms, textures, and dimensions. With a background in architecture, Roger Coll’s sculptures were “constructed” not modeled or carved. Coll explained, “In my works, I use segments that I put together to create the final shape. The same way you use bricks to build a wall I guess.” María Oriza's Espacio Espiral highlighted the sculptor’s ability to manipulate space and physical limits through optical effects. Her use of form as an agent projecting an illusion — one that was not necessarily implicit in real space — invited the viewer to interact with her sculpture in unexpected ways. Likewise, the dripping glaze on a vessel by Albert Montserrat and the rough textures on Carles Vives Mateau’s Llocs de Syracuse sculptures practically called out to be touched by viewers. At the "Transgressions" Exhibit Conceptual Transgressions If experimenting was the name of the game in the first exhibit space, the pieces highlighting “Conceptual Transgressions” asked visitors to expand their imagination even more. Symbolism, rather than materiality, was the main attraction—pointing out issues such as gender roles or immigration, reexamining concepts through satire or humour. Measuring over a metre long, vibrant colours caught one’s eye in Sophie Aguilera Lester’s Under the Daisies, where the remnants of a woman peeked out from under a patch of flowers, begging the viewer to ask, “What happened here?” Meanwhile, on other sculptures — such as Get Out by Jordi Marcet i Rosa Vila-Abadal and Ruth Cepedano’s Low Tide Echoes — no colour was needed at all. The forms spoke for themselves. "Ressons de baixamar” by Ruth Cepedano Subtlety and Transgression Finally, the third exhibit space swung to the opposite end of the spectrum, towards simplicity and austerity. Vases exploring nature, which were designed by Martín Azúa and produced in collaboration with the ceramist Marc Vidal, showed the beauty of unrefined objects. As described by Azúa, “Craftsmanship and nature converge in one object without artifice where materials and craftsman gestures are equally honest.” Artwork by Ana Rosenzweig Ceramic Art as Rebellious Art Written on the walls of Transgressions were the words: “It’s part of human nature to rebel, become curious about the unknown and seek to expand our limits beyond those established.” The works presented at this exhibition were similarly surprising and unexpected, made by artisans who are alchemists and explorers in their own way. Aware of the imperfections and unpredictability that comes with clay, they negotiate endless possibilities on the border between artistic bravery and bravado. ​ ​ ​ FIND US IN PRINT 2-ISSUE PACKAGE | 3-ISSUE PACKAGE | 5-ISSUE PACKAGE Supported by Nominated for Best Magazine: Art, Literary, & Culture