Affidamento, or “entrustment,” is one of the most important, and most challenging, practices of 1970s Italian feminism. It asks women to not only acknowledge the disparities between them—in age, experience and competencies—but to make these differences a generative force in their relationships, allowing them to support, learn from and urge one another on.

Over the course of a three-month residency at the AGO, EMILIA–AMALIA  explored the resonances of relationships of entrustment between artists, curators and writers, and experimented with modes of public engagement that activated the productive differences between feminists to ask how we can want differently together.[1]

The residency took shape around a series of related activities, including the production of a set of chapbooks that have emerged from the group’s recent programming, “How to Ask a Question”; interventions into the AGO’s library; a free public screening; and guest residencies by emerging artists Oreka James, Camille Rojas and Shellie Zhang. This new chapter of the group’s activity will investigate gestures of withdrawal, refusal, non-cooperation and abandonment as feminist strategies of resistance.

[1] We are grateful to participant Sarah Bodri for this thoughtful articulation of what we can ask from collective feminist practices.

Toronto Art Book Fair
Artscape Youngplace
16–18 June 2017

EMILIA-AMALIA’s booth at the Toronto Art Book Fair at Artscape Youngplace featured printed copies of our chapbooks, as well as artist projects, catalogues, limited edition works and books by our many collaborators, colleagues and past participants.

The Toronto Art Book Fair is a free public annual event that features curated exhibitions, 80 Canadian and international exhibitors and community programming including panel discussions, readings, talks, launches and workshops. Now in its second year, TOABF showcases hundreds of national and international artists, publishers, small presses, archives, galleries, critics, designers, curators, bookmakers, writers and performers.

Artist File Fair No. 3
Saturday, 30 January 2021
E.P. Taylor Library, Art Gallery of Ontario
1–3 PM

This 3rd edition of the File Fair will feature Artist Erika DeFreitas and Curator Lillian O’Brien Davis in conversation about the work of attempting to share space, unearth and pay their respects to Black women whose presence has been erased through the narrativization of euro-centric art history. Traces of the existence of Other lives are not deemed important enough to be included in the canon of Western art history and archaeology. Therefore, seeking evidence of these traces—of typically non-white histories—consists of looking for the smallest clues, unearthing the forgotten fragments preserved by sheer luck or chance from aging empires. Event details. 

In addition to the conversation, the library invites emerging and established artists alike to start an artist file or contribute materials to their existing file. Participants can build a file by completing an online questionnaire about their work and submitting copies of exhibition invitations, pamphlets, press releases, and any other ephemera related to their practice or exhibition history. Visit the Artist File webpage for more information on the collection and how to contribute.

Speakers:
Erika DeFreitas
Lillian O’Brian Davis

Artist File Fair No. 2
Saturday, 30 November 2019
E.P. Taylor Library, Art Gallery of Ontario
1–3 PM

This year, EMILIA-AMALIA is working within the framework of HOLES AND HOW TO FILL THEM as an organizing principle and guiding metaphor. Designed as a test-site for feminist research, commissioning, writing and exhibition-making, this programming arc takes up E-A’s ongoing interest in practices of failure, refusal, withdrawal, deliberate omission, and generative stoppages as sites for feminist organizing and conduits for lost intergenerational knowledge.

In keeping with E-A’s year-long inquiry, this File Fair event is centred on inviting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour), women and trans artists to start a file at the library, archive their contributions within Canadian art history and contribute to institutional memory. Event details.

Speaker Schedule:
Genevieve Flavelle
Courtnay McFarlane

Artist File Fair
Saturday, 8 July 2017
E.P. Taylor Library, Art Gallery of Ontario
2–5 PM

As part of their artist residency, EMILIA-AMALIA invites artists to contribute to the AGO’s collection of more than 20,000 artist files that document the practices of artists in Canada since 1915. This afternoon of free programming will invite guests to explore the existing collection, hear talks from local artists and curators, and start their own file by completing a questionnaire about their work.

Emerging and established artists alike are encouraged to come start a new artist file or contribute to their existing file. Please bring in catalogues, exhibition cards, press releases, and any other ephemera related to your practice or exhibition history. Event details. 

Speaker Schedule:
Vera Frenkel
Pamila Matharu

“Win Last, Don’t Care” is a film screening examining gestures of failure and withdrawal as deliberate political acts, performed as a necessary struggle against the capitalist patriarchy. Using humour, irony, meticulous analysis and blunt force, these films by women demonstrate the futility of fighting the status quo, while also showing us the impossibility of giving in.

Film Program:

“What Would Lee Lozano Do? Impossible Piece,” Onya Hogan-Finlay, 5 min 28 sec
A love song for Lee Lozano, the American artist who famously walked away from the art world and never came back.

“Time Passes,” Ane Hjort Guttu, 46 min
The story of Damla, a Norwegian art student, and Bianca, a Roma woman she meets in the street. An alliance that begins as both a project and mutual fascination gradually shifts into something else, as Damla realizes the impossibility of depicting complex social problems within the constructs of contemporary art.

“Strike,” Hito Steyerl, 30 sec
Writer and filmmaker Hito Steyerl approaches a LCD monitor with a hammer, a chisel and bad intentions. Using blunt violence, she destroys this tool of image production/dissemination with a gesture that is simultaneously stupid and powerfully defiant.

“The Whistler,” Camille Rojas, 6 min
A surrealist pageant, in which the artist and her dog perform as both master and canine in turn. Together, they pose, perform and show off their teeth for an imagined audience, aiming to attain an impossible standard of perfection.

“The Taxi Driver,” Divya Mehra 3 min 30 sec
The work documents a performance in which the artist casts herself as an ‘Orange Curry’ taxi driver desperate for fares. She struggles to perform the role of the typecast migrant in an attempt to relate back to her roots.

“Hold Your Ground,” Karen Mirza/Brad Butler, 8 min
Triggered by the artists’ discovery of an instruction pamphlet for pro-democracy demonstrators in Cairo, the piece works to pull apart the semantics of resistance. The resulting sounds and movements are so fragmented as to become unreadable as a coherent narrative, but through their disassembly they are also opened up to new uses.