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Alumni Feature-Paula Imirzian Aug ’15

Paula Imirzian, "Body Alteration" (2014) Lab Book 3.5x5.5, acrylic, gouache, ink. Photo Chip Rutan

Paula Imirzian, “Body Alteration” (2014) Lab Book 3.5×5.5, acrylic, gouache, ink. Photo Chip Rutan

Research “Lab Book” (2014) on eugenics inspired by “The Black Stork” by Martin Pernick

Paula Imirzian, “Below the Skin” (2014) installation

Research articles and images mapped to the body on Mylar (2014)

Research image of brain MRI

Paula Imirzian, “Yellow Growth” (2015) digital art

Paula Imirzian, “P2498” and “Bio-Xform” (2015) installation. Photo Martin Castaneda

Paula Imirzian, “Bio-Xform” (2015) still of interactive digital image application

Paula Imirzian, “P2498” (2015) still from 3 minute stop motion animation

Paula Imirzian, “Below the Skin” (2014) still from 2 minute stop motion animation

 

My work resides at the intersection of biotechnology and art as I investigate the body and its environment, with a focus at the molecular level. I am concerned with how we humans – as well as the organisms around us – can be manipulated and controlled at the cellular level without our full knowledge and perhaps changed beyond repair.

By relying upon information that is often diluted and diminished through mass media, our view of complicated scientific information is at best simplistic. The complex nature of science leaves us in a grey area of not having complete information about our world. Nevertheless, while we remain uninformed, amazing scientific advances take place. Perhaps some of these advances wouldn’t happen if we were truly informed? Or perhaps they might happen in ways that could be more productive or responsible?

Many artists influence and provide direction to my research and art: subRosa, Critical Art Ensemble, Anab Jain, and VCFA faculty Faith Wilding. Museum collections, medical imagery,  historical writing as well as current writing from Richard Lewontin, Donna Haraway, and Evelyn Fox Keller provide perspective into scientific endeavors. I also review scientific research and collate articles to create notebooks (Lab Books) to track my research. As I do so, I am reminded that we aren’t so far removed from the eugenic practices of the past, as we proceed to categorize, and alter ourselves and our surroundings at a microscopic level. I am also aware of the difficulty of using art to critique and inform about science and medicine. With this in mind, I try to balance scientific intrigue with various artistic techniques to engage, attract, repel and enlighten.

 

 

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Faculty Portfolio of Recent Work-Luis Jacob

Luis Jacob, “Spirits of the Grotto” (2012), public art at Dufferin underpass, Toronto.

Luis Jacob, “Spirits of the Grotto” (2012), public art at Dufferin underpass, Toronto.

03.City of Toronto Archives City Hall Conditions of Competition 1957

City of Toronto Archives, “Site of City Hall (from Conditions of Competition, City Hall and Square)” (1957), RG Reports, Box 9.

04.The Demonstration.2013

Luis Jacob, “The Demonstration” (2013), two-colour silkscreen print

05.Jack Chambers.photo study c.1970

Jack Chambers, “Untitled photo study” (c.1970)

06.Broken statue in Rome

Broken statue representing a theatre actor, photographed in Rome by Luis Jacob.

07.Sphinx.2015

Luis Jacob, “Sphinx” (2015), installation with sculpture and library of books, Children’s Conservatory, Allan Gardens, Toronto.

08.Sphinx.2015

Luis Jacob, “Sphinx” (2015), installation with sculpture and library of books, Children’s Conservatory, Allan Gardens, Toronto.

09.Sphinx.2015

Luis Jacob, “Sphinx” (2015), installation with sculpture and library of books, Children’s Conservatory, Allan Gardens, Toronto.

10a.Sphinx.2015

Luis Jacob, “Sphinx” (2015), installation with sculpture and library of books, Children’s Conservatory, Allan Gardens, Toronto.

I feel that contemporary artists are under constant pressure to conduct their practices in accordance with a cosmopolitan definition of art, privileging artistic languages that are legible within the art capitals – at the expense of the multitude of artistic languages spoken in the peripheries (that is, in most of the planet).

My work stems from an intuition that, as artists, the diverse places where we live and work are not incidental to the work we make.  I want to explore the conscious and unconscious ways in which these places shape our self-images and our cultures.

Toronto is the place I call home.  Researching the colonial relations between settlers (like me) and First Nations people allows me to grasp why life in this city is perceived to happen as if on a vacant lot.  Exploring the example of local artists like Jack Chambers, Greg Curnoe, Joyce Wieland and General Idea, instructs me about their engagement with these questions of place, regionalism, nationalism and mediation.  Travelling to other places exposes me to artistic languages unfamiliar to me, and to the ways in which people in different contexts engage the reality of colonization, globalization and resistance.  Riding my bike around town, reading local narratives, auditing a course on the history of urban planning at the University of Toronto, attending a seminar on the history of Toronto filmmaking at the Bloor Cinema – these activities help me develop a more nuanced sense of the city I live in.

I have heard people say, “Toronto has no history.”  In my work I refer to this fantasy of ‘the blank canvas’ as a perfect allegory for the chasm in Toronto between the richness of local history and the pervasive vacancy of local memory.  I make work that ‘looks back’ at the viewer in an attempt to summon the spirits that haunt this place I call home.

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