TORONTO
Tuesday January 15, 7:30pm, Write Club Toronto, The Garrison, 1197 Dundas Street West
4 pairs of writers face off with two opposing ideas each in this challenge. The winner gets a donation made to the charity of their choice. Featuring Broken Pencil’s own fiction editor A.G. Pasquella vs. Jackie Valencia, Jennifer McKinley vs. Andrew Sullivan
Monica Heisey vs. Gerard Harris and Jeremy Greenberg vs. Alex Nursall.
A group of Toronto’s finest comic book artists – including Brian Evinou, Rodrigo Bravo and Megan Kearney – will be on hand to sketch whatever your heart desires for a fee. All proceeds will go towards the development of the Quinntessential Comix Introduction Series, a new web series about comics hosted by T.DotComics’ Alice Quinn.
MONTREAL
Wednesday January 16, 7pm, Creative Resistance Skillshare, Co-op Sur Genereux, 4518 rue Papineau
Come teach and learn in a safe, non-hierarchical environment what it means to use creative actions for positive social change! This discussion group is our chance to share questions, concerns, principles, history, and theories regarding tactics and methods which foster creativity and imagination within a social/environmental justice framework. However, this is also a tactical laboratory – we will have the opportunity to practice these skills in participant-led rehearsals and experimental scenarios.
Potential topics include: storytelling for change; transformative theatre; freeskool; clowning/bouffon; street art/imagery; radical cheerleading; culture jamming; etc. Action planning will ideally come out of ongoing discussions.
Retrofictions is an experimental and collaborative artist’s publication featuring six photographic works by John Latour with six short works of fiction by Jennifer Allen, Marina Endicott, Cynthia Imogen Hammond, Lea Nakonechny, Eduardo Ralickas and Jean-Éric Riopel. Anonymous figures from vintage found photographs have been “whited out” by the artist, and this erasure of the past creates a space for new stories to be imagined.
VANCOUVER
It’s Gray Publication’s first issue launch party and fundraiser. Issue one focuses on “emergence”: presenting visual and text-based works from Soledad Muñoz, Jules Francisco, professor Caroline Bellios of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Alexander McQueen Savile Row. GRAY will be celebrating with sculptures and performance by Soledad Muñoz as well as jewellery and embroideries by Cecilia Gibson.
Wednesday January 16, 5:30-7:30pm, BIG MOUTH: A Speaker Series about Art and Education, Buchanan Penthouse – Buchanan B, 1866 Main Mall, UBC, free
Big Mouth is an evening dedicated to redefining the relationship between the arts and education. Seven speakers from various creative industries will give seven short speeches, sharing their life experiences, perspectives and passions with a crowd of UBC students. Throughout the evening, students will hear speeches by Nigel Prince, executive director of The Contemporary Art Gallery, Sarah Macaulay of Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, Omer Arbel, founder of the boundary-breaking creative firm Omer Arbel Office (OAO), Bruce Haden, principal at DIALOG, an award-winning architecture firm, Graeme Berglund, founder and creative director of The Cheaper Show, an annual one-night art show that showcases emerging artists and affordable art, Vanessa Richards, Community Engagement Manager at the Arts Club Theatre Company, and collage artist Office Supplies Incorporated. After all seven speeches, there will be a 20 minute-long Q & A session.