a landscape hosts something
Referencing a line in Ada Smailbegovic’s Descriptions of Invisible Objects, the title of this workshop series a landscape hosts something lingers on the idea that landscapes don’t exist a priori but are created through acts of imagination. Together and independently, we’ll reflect on “landscaping” — how we as artists and writers of various mediums re-present ecological systems and environmental situations through processes of abstraction based on deep listening and responding with place.
Participants engage in facilitated discussions around this theme, semi-structured fieldwork activities, and sharing of one’s own work. Each session prompts participants to play with a pair of related verbs — collecting & describing, imaging & imagining, moving & migrating, etc. Participants leave the workshop with new and evolving connections, ideas, and practices.
Facilitated indepedently in Bickford Park in West End Toronto over three weeks during July 2024, the pamphlet zine contains select material created by workshop participants. Contributors include: Christie Wong, Eric Francisco, Erin Storus, Farida Rady, Lizzy Shipman, and Marisa Estrada.
Edition of 75 printed at Vide Press. Risograph Green and Bubblegum.
Reprised at the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art, the workshop offered in creative activities in dialogue with the Rajni Perera’s sculpture Vimana (N1 Starfighter) at Toronto Sculpture Garden. A pair of postcards designed by the artist with prompts on migration were created as part of the commissioned workshop.
Interested in booking this workshop? Contact the artist at darian.razdar@gmail.com.
Order the zine and postcards here:
a landscape hosts something zine
a landscape hosts something postcard - toronto
a landscape hosts something postcard - cdmx
(above) Migrations postcard - cdmx(below) Migrations postcard - toronto
(below) Migrations postcard - back
Ada Smailbegovic in Descriptions of Invisible Objects :
“She appears almost entirely outside of narrative, as if standing outside of the river she enters it only transiently making a slight invisible movement inside of it.
A landscape hosts something.
She does not see through the geometrical optics of reflection.
Brittle stars don't have eyes; they are eyes, she thinks.
What if your whole body were able to see.”
“She appears almost entirely outside of narrative, as if standing outside of the river she enters it only transiently making a slight invisible movement inside of it.
A landscape hosts something.
She does not see through the geometrical optics of reflection.
Brittle stars don't have eyes; they are eyes, she thinks.
What if your whole body were able to see.”