For the final week of Museum Month AGOinsider connected with first-time curator Tahnee Ann Macabali Pantig, who is making her debut with the AGO’s new exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art from Across the Spanish Empire. 

Brooklyn-based artist and designer Tahnee Ann Macabali Pantig is digging deep into her Filipinx ancestry for her curatorial debut in the new AGO exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art from Across the Spanish Empire, opening June 8. Born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, Pantig has drawn much of her artistic inspiration from her parent’s immigration story and her time spent within Toronto’s Filipinx community. Her curatorial contribution to the exhibition – which features works from Latin America, the Philippines and Spain made between 1492 and 1898 – is a large installation of historical daguerreotype photographs from the Philippines. 

For our final week of Museum Month, AGOinsider connected with Pantig to get more insight about her Filipinx heritage, her upbringing in Scarborough, and how her desire to shape narratives about people from the Philippines  led to her debut as a curator.  

AGOinsider: As a first-time curator, what was your curatorial approach to Faith and Fortune? What did you draw on and what were you inspired by?  

Pantig: My curatorial approach to Faith and Fortune is very much based on my lived experiences being born and raised in Scarborough, in the Toronto Filipinx community. I’ve drawn much of my inspiration from my parents’ migration stories from Pampanga and Baguio City in the Philippines; what was it like for them coming to Canada? What stories did they see of themselves? What stories did they not see? I was also inspired by my own experiences growing up in Toronto and not feeling like I had stories about being Filipinx reflected back to me. Through this show I set out to create the type of representation I would have loved to have seen as a young person in this city.  

Read the full interview, HERE.

Faith and Fortune: Art from Across the Spanish Empire opens June 8. Join Curators Adam Harris Levine and Tahnee Pantig and Interpretive Planner Gillian McIntyre for an online conversation on Saturday June 11, at 2pm. More details about this free, pre-registered talk (which is being livestreamed) can be found HERE. Book your complimentary ticket, today.

Dear Colleagues,

What is happening?

The AGO is poised to install a bold new sculpture by acclaimed contemporary artist Brian Jungen, after many years in development. 

Site preparation will begin this week, and the sculpture will be installed in late June.

This work is the AGO’s first-ever public art commission and will be situated at the corner of Dundas and McCaul Streets – the former setting for Henry Moore’s Large Two Forms (1966–1969).

Stay tuned for information about celebratory moments in late June to welcome this important work to its new home!

 About the sculpture

• Entitled Couch Monster: Sadzěʔ yaaghęhch’ill, Jungen’s new sculpture is a monument to creative form and engineering.
• In his first large-scale work in bronze, Jungen constructed the figure of an elephant from discarded leather sofas.
• After completing construction in his studio in March 2020, the full-sized model was then transported to the Walla Walla Foundry in Washington State to be cast in bronze.
• The finished sculpture will travel to Toronto at the end of May, and we plan to install the sculpture over the weekend of June 18 and 19.

About the site

• Staff and volunteers can expect to see changes to the corner of Dundas and McCaul starting this week.
• A landscaping firm will commence with modifying the site to receive the sculpture. The area of work will be contained using protective fencing. 
• In addition to the sculpture, we will be planting three new healthy trees in the circular beds just outside the McCaul Street Entrance.
• Benches will be temporarily removed and later returned when the sculpture is in place.

We hope this refreshed corner will become a new meeting place for the surrounding neighbourhood and for our AGO visitors, staff and volunteers.

Questions?

If there are questions about this project, please reach out to Laura Comerford, Associate Director, Exhibitions. Thank you!

Laura Comerford (she/her)

[email protected]

Hello volunteers – In case you missed the live broadcast, Dr. Audrey Hudson’s conversation on How to Talk about Anti-Black Racism, a response to the continuing violence, and cross-border shooting in Buffalo last week, is now available online, to watch anytime, via the Gallery’s Youtube channel. See the link highlighted below. We encourage you to continue this important learning – Holly

Two years ago, we came together for a round table discussion on how to speak about anti-Black racism with the art in the AGO’s collection as an entry point. Sadly, the horrific impact of continued hate and systemic anti-Black racism brings us together for a part three. Join me Audrey Hudson, Richard & Elizabeth Currie, Chief of Education & Programming, as I moderate this round table discussion with community members, artist educators, teachers and activists: Freda Bizimana, Brandon Hay, Joy Martyr-Andre, Emmanuel Tabi, Sam Tecle and Laurie Townshend.

This round table discussion is for teachers, parents and anyone who wants to have these brave conversations.

Watch the latest episode, Part Three, HERE.

Please also see Parts one and two of this ongoing conversation. – Audrey.

Hello everyone,

This past weekend there were three mass shootings in the US: one in Buffalo, one in Dallas, and one in Orange County. Hearing of targeted mass shootings is demoralizing. It is clear these acts were brought on by racism and hatred. Buffalo is quite literally our neighbour. The people murdered were our neighbours.

We must confront systemic racism and take action to impact change. This Thursday, May 19 Dr. Audrey Hudson will bring together a panel of artists and educators to continue the conversation about anti-Black racism. The talk will be made available for our audience as well as employees and volunteers, and it will also be recorded. More information on the talk is available here: https://ago.ca/events/how-talk-about-anti-black-racism-part-three.

This is the third panel that Audrey has convened in recent years and coincides with the 2^nd anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. I am grateful to Audrey and others involved for making space for this important conversation.

I also want to acknowledge the emotions and trauma that some of you are experiencing as a result of continued acts of hate and racism in our world. Please reach out to colleagues, your manager or LT member or access any of the resources provided at the bottom or this email for support.

Thank you,

Stephan

• Mental Health Resources:
  • WellNest Therapy offers services with diverse therapists at a sliding scale available by request and need.
  • Black mental health resources in Toronto
  • Hoog Fook Mental Health Association serving Asian communities in Ontario.
  • What’s Up Walk in Clinic offers free virtual mental health counselling for children, youth and young adults.
• Article: Becoming Trustworthy White Allies by Melanie S. Morrison
• AGO Learning: Raising Awareness: Anti-Racism 101 – Moving from Not Racist to Anti-Racism by Letecia Rose, Principal Consultant – Skill Market Watch here – Passcode: AGOd&i2

Many thanks to Melissa Smith for passing this volunteer opportunity along, through her work with Access. Full details below:

• 

The White Cane Week Experience Expo is a fantastic opportunity to not only make a great impact in our community, and a day to learn about living with vision loss, but also to meet new lifelong friends!

• Date: Saturday, May 28, 2022
• Time: 11AM until 3:30PM
• Location: Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, Main Gym (750 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2J2)
• Directions: Corner of Spadina and Bloor Street West

A whole day event consisting of an expo, forum, and community social, it is one of the most important events for the organization and they can’t do it without the help of the wonderful sighted guides and support staff to keep things running!

Lunch and dinner are provided for all volunteers Please see the links to our website, the event website, and the volunteer sign-up sheet below:

Canadian Council for the Blind Toronto Visionaries Chapter Website:

http://www.ccbtorontovisionaries.ca/

White Cane Week Experience Expo Website:

https://ccbnational.net/shaggy/experience-expo/

Volunteer Sign-up Form

https://forms.gle/dqr4Htw4Vih67Ebq8

The CCB Toronto Visionaries is a local Toronto chapter of the Canadian Council of the Blind, a national registered charity.

Established in 2013, the CCB Toronto Visionaries is dedicated to breaking the isolation that so often accompanies vision loss. We encourage our members to be inspired by their peers, to build supportive social networks through sharing information, and to engage in a wide range of social and recreational activities.

Featuring lost-and-found home movies from the Prelinger Archives, alongside celebrated artworks by the likes of David Hockney, Patti Smith, Claes Oldenburg, Annie Pootoogook, Arthur Jafa and Mary Pratt, as well as snapshots, photo albums, letters, television, grocery lists, and social media, I AM HERE brings together a broad range of personal records from different time periods and locales to explore the shared human impulse to document life as it happens.

Join Alexa Greist, (the exhibition’s Co-Curator) for this training session, via ZOOM:

(A reminder, you can’t register for this talk in advance, simply click on the link below the night of to join us):

Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83368788793

Meeting ID: 833 6878 8793

We look forward to seeing you there!

Hello Everyone,

For the last few months, managers have been back on site for at least 3 days a week. It is really great to have so many of you back. We are in a much better place than we were in the winter – all provincial COVID health restrictions are now lifted, which means some of the protocols that were previously in place, such as social distancing, are no longer required.

At this point, with our immunization policy in place for all returning and new staff and volunteers, as well as our encouraged mask wearing, the AGO continues to be a safe environment for all of us and our public.

Going forward, the vast majority of remaining staff will be returning to work for a minimum of 3 days a week as of June 1st. This gives everyone a couple of weeks to plan for coming back onsite. If you have any questions about what this means to you, please speak to your Leadership Team member. It’s really important that we have opportunities to engage with one another face-to-face – this will help us communicate better and be more efficient and productive. 

Take care, Stephan

For the second in our series of chats with curators for Museum Month, we sat down with the City of Toronto’s new Chief Curator to discuss a shared love of Robert Houle, the tyranny of the object and how museums can further social equity.

It was a surprise and delight for residents of Toronto, when the news broke last week that beginning this month, general admission will be permanently free at all City of Toronto History Museums. There are ten museums, providing home to a collection of more than one million archaeological specimens, 150,000 artifacts and 3,000 works of art, and the move to free admission is only one of several new initiatives the city is undertaking to advance greater diversity, equity and inclusion, and confront the colonial legacies of its sites.

Leading the charge is the city’s new Chief Curator, Armando Perla, who assumed the job in January. A trained human rights lawyer originally from El Salvador, he comes to Toronto following stints as an international advisor on museums, human rights and social inclusion for the City of Medellin, Colombia and at the University of Toronto. AGOinsider caught up with him to find out more about his vision for change and what excites him about Toronto. Read the full interview, here.  

Hello Folks, 

I have to say that a couple of days of nice weather does put many of us in a good mood!

Something else that puts me in a great mood is food – which I often enjoy at the AGO Bistro. In many ways the Food & Beverage team faced some of the largest impact of the pandemic. It is heartening to see them rebuilding the business. Carlos tells me that demand is increasing for having events at the AGO and guests are coming back to enjoy the Bistro. 

If you stop and think for a moment – the complexities of what our team does is truly astonishing. On average a guest uses 3.5 pieces of cutlery, 1.7 glasses, 3.7 plates. We have had 2,800 guests served in the last 10 days – that is a lot of dishes to be washed – so thank you to the dish washers! Have you ever thought about how all the food actually arrives at the AGO and gets transformed into a delicious meal? I just want to take a moment and say thank you to the entire F & B team.

I also want to mention that Chef Renee is great at linking the menu to the exhibitions. This summer the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire will be the inspiration.

Stephan

This June, the Gallery is hoping to begin hosting in-person talks again. You can register for FREE for these upcoming presentations (note: if, in addition to being a volunteer, you are a Member or Annual Passholder, please register as such). If you are neither, you can register by clicking on the Adult ticket (there are no staff or volunteer categories). Talks upcoming, include:

Faith & Fortune: Curator’s Talk

Saturday June 11, 2pm in Baillie Court Reserve tickets, here.

Join Curators Adam Levine and Tahnee Pantig and interpretive planner Gillian McIntyre for a conversation about Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire.

Prior to becoming Assistant Curator of European Art in 2020, Adam Harris Levine held various curatorial roles at the AGO and conducted extensive work with the Thomson Collection of European Art. He is currently finalizing his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, where he has also taught extensively. Levine’s area of specialty is medieval and renaissance sculpture and decorative arts.

Gathering Colour: Anong Migwans Beam

Monday June 13, 7pm in Baillie Court Reserve, here.

Join Artist and paint maker Anong Beam for a talk about her love of pigment, paint, colour, and innovation.

Anong Migwans Beam is a painter from Mchigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island and is inspired by the physical history of place, the natural landscape, and the relationship between water and memory. Anong was born to artist parents, Carl Beam and Ann Beam, who encouraged her to develop as an artist. She was raised with a meaningful connection to both her artistic familial roots and rich ancestral heritage. Beam’s large format oil paintings incorporate a multitude of image making approaches, including photo transfer, printmaking and collage.

Presented in partnership with the Colour Research Society of Canada: AIC 2022 Toronto Sensing Colour.