Open Critique

Free event

Dreaming of a constructive space for some feedback on your art? Whether you are an emerging, mid-career, or established artist, our Open Critique session is for you. SAVAC has invited artist Luis Jacob and curator/writer Heather Canlas Rigg to facilitate a group critique. This session will be an opportunity to talk through aesthetic, material, or conceptual challenges, hear how others perceive your work, and identify areas to develop further. A critique allows artists to practice speaking about their ideas and intentions while providing thoughtful, generous, and generative feedback to their peers.

How does it work?

Some of the themes and topics that Luis and Heather know a lot about include: narratives of place, City of Toronto, queer, critical theory, anarchism, zine culture, collective practice, artist-run centres, contemporary art, diaspora, camera technology, opacity, materiality, film, institutional critique, sustenance, dreaming.

We encourage you to attend this session if your practice intersects with these areas. Participants are asked to attend the full session to support their peers. Keep an eye out for more critiques to be announced, if this one does not seem like a good fit for you.

Who is this event for?

• Artists who want feedback on their artwork, at any stage of their career
• Anyone who enjoys learning and speaking about art 
• No prior experience with critique needed

How do I participate?

RSVP to communications@savac.net or show up on October 2. Critiques will be organized on a first-come first-serve basis.  

Each artist is invited to bring one artwork (or small series) for critique. Please upload digital documentation of your work (five photos maximum per artist) to this google drive folder in advance. For film, video or sound art, select an excerpt to share (four minutes maximum). Include a link to Youtube or Vimeo, or upload your file to the folder directly. No zip files please. Suggested file types: JPEG, PNG, PDF, MP4, MOV, MP3, WAV. 

Accessibility: Wheelchair ramp at the east entrance of the building. There is an elevator and accessible bathrooms. A light dinner will be served. Masks are encouraged and will be provided. 

About the Facilitators

Luis Jacob is a Peruvian-born, Toronto-based artist whose work destabilizes viewing conventions and invites collisions of meaning. Since his participation in documenta12 in 2007, he has achieved an international reputation — with exhibitions at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria; Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany; and the Toronto Biennial of Art (all 2019); La Biennale de Montréal (2016); Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (2015); Taipei Biennial (2012); Generali Foundation, Vienna (2011); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); Hamburg Kunstverein and the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (both 2008).

Heather Canlas Rigg is an independent curator and writer based in Toronto. Her practice is rooted in investigating how artists employ the materiality of camera technologies to interrogate imperialist structures, and in thinking critically about institutions. Her work is currently asking: how can, and should, curators navigate the institutions they work with in order to best nourish artists and communities? She has worked with organizations and publications including Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Gallery TPW, Mercer Union, C Magazine, BOMB, and Art Papers. Canlas Rigg is half of the curatorial collective ma ma, a board member of SAVAC, and is an educator at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, where she is currently teaching a course called Curating Matters.