Exhibition
Over my time as a Community Artist, I've had the immense priviledge of being mentored by folks such as; Naty Tremblay, Alanna Fennell, Sonya Reynolds, Lydia Hernandiz, and Sarah Couture-Mcphail. They have encouraged my multi-discplinary art's practice, and have been integral as supports along with one of my key collaborators; Ammarah Syed.
BUT, WHEN?
Acrylic Medium – 4ft x 4 ft
Phase 1: The Journey – 2020
Phase 2: The People
Phase 3: The Impact
Dusk and twilight: They feel like the queerest natural thing that soars above me. It’s warm, and when I lived in a small town I thought about cities and communities with queers everywhere seeing skies like this one — other twin flames or soul mates hoping for belonging, or to thrive, or love. As a kid, who like many grew up playing Mario Kart — I was also obsessed with Rainbow Road, and I just imagined my own life like this big race to adventure that we as queer people get (—hope) to go on. Even when faced with the lowest lows, obstacles, legality, prejudice — we still find all the celebrations, hope, shifts, changes into thriving! Our resilience is one of the most brilliant things that humbled me and makes me so proud of my queerness!
So much of my 2020 pandemic feelings are layered into this thing. This is just Phase 1 of what I’m envisioning as three different phases of this piece that span over time! Chi Miigwetch, Tyler J Sloane
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Currently Exhibited at Friends of Ruby
Fruit Basket
Fruit Basket; is inspired by the song ‘Apples and Bananas’, as I sometimes have been referred to as an Apple (because of my Indigenous background), or Banana (because of my Asian background). Fruit Basket is a photography and video series that highlights 2SLGBTQIA+ mixed race individuals who are mixed with South East or East Asian backgrounds. The project explores the complicated relationship mixed-race folks have with their racial identity as they navigate both Asian and Queer spaces. Symbolically the fruit was paired with their own styling and objects of choice that reminded them of their ancestry and lineage. The piece features; Aidan Morishita-Miki, Alexi Pedneault, Babia Majora, and Bellamie Beastly
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Invisible Footprints 0.3– Life to Art: Retracing Footprints Across Generations – Fruit Basket
‘Invisible Footprints 0.3: Life to Art – Retracing Footprints Across Generations’ features a brand new group of youth artists. In their research, the artists reached out to look at archive materials and hear individual stories from the generous members of this community. The videos in this series showcase a range of art forms, including poetry, drawing, animation, photography and film. By taking these multimedia approaches, the artists have found ways to integrate their own artistic expressions with what they've learned from community members.
Featuring; Amanda Ann-Min Wong, Becca Wijshijer, Dinaly Joyce Tran, Kaythi, Rui Liu, Vale, and Tyler J Sloane
This iteration of IF, “Invisible Footprints 0.3: Dig Deeper”, expresses our hope to keep going, push further and “dig deeper” for the voices of those within this community who are frequently underrepresented. The artists of IF 0.3 reflect a diverse range of backgrounds and growing concerns. They’ve looked at the history of Queer Asian women in Toronto. They’ve thought about the identities, genders and heritages of people who are on the margins of an already marginalized community. By connecting with “elders”, they’ve been able to see those who lived through these experiences before them. With a tender and thoughtful tone, the artists' works ask us to remember a fuller picture when we imagine who Queer Asians are today and who they have been throughout our history.
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Facilitators; on Siu, En Tze Loh, Aries Cheung, Ryan Tran
Light Our Bodies
Light Our Bodies is a Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer photography exhibition featuring four Two-Spirit youth; Otsíkh:èta/Candy Blair, Sasha Rehaume (whose featured in two ways), Sophie Dow, and Em Farquhar-Barrie. Two photographs were made of each youth participant. Light Our Bodies details the intersection of bodies as land and white-proximity symbolized by the white styling of each subject.Behind each subject is a collaboration with the Visual Arts Community Mural project by SKETCH Work Arts (which was co-facilitated by; Tyler J Sloane, Ammarah Syed, and Jess DeVitt). This exhibition was made possible by Planned Parenthood Toronto's 2018 LGBTQ Youth Initiative
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Background Models; Bilal Baig, Olive Grey, Sasha Rehaume, and Xavier Lopez
Project Support: Daniella Leacock
QUEER CAB
–Queer Cabaret(featuring; Ashley Cooper, Colette Habel, Diana Sauss, Grave, Natalie Liconti, and Nevada Jane Arlo), Buddies in Bad Times, March 6th, 2019
Colin's Influence – Self in Response to Influence (of Violence and Community)
‘Colin’s Influence’ is a sculpture and photo exhibition embodying the way my own identities have bled alongside the community whose helped the healing through the character of ‘Colin Eyes’d’. The wounds and duvet mirror the wounds of violence that have impacted me: Wounds on Colin’s torso representing the impact of three acts of violence in time. The Church/Wellesley murder victims; Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi, Dean Lisowick, Skandaraj (Skanda) Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam. Indigenous youth deaths; Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine, Wounds on the neck as a homage to Colten’s own wounds, and duvet as a homage to how they found Tina (Also symbolizing how something for healing and violence can be found in the most comforting thing). Colin’s existence is a physical manifestation of my own ‘existence in resistance’ to the violence enacted upon my intersecting communities, and how someone moves towards supportive healing.
Intersecting both Indigenous, Mixed, and Queer communities and having folks I identify with die, plays a huge toll on how I mourn in my communities, the violence inflicted – the feeling of absence – and how I choose to remember violent traumas of community members passing. My response to Self in Response is Self in Response to Influence (of Violence and Community) where I take this sculpture of Colin Eyes'd with photos of queerness exploding outward from a place of healing. Colin wears a denim outfit (The ‘Canadian Tuxedo’) with keywords associated around articles about Tina, Colten, and Indigeity, and from his arms, legs, and head is a material that highlights queerness with 'shards' of photographs which showcase community as an influence. The photographs include photos of individuals (Yolanda Bonnell, Maddie Bautista, Usman Khan, Josh Murphy, Babia Majora, ImogenQuest/Miranda Warner, Aggie Sems, Jord Camp, Daniel Carter, Rohith Ashokkumar, Ammarah Syed, Usman Khan, Elizabeth Staples, Tony Tran, Bilal Baig, Alexi Pedneault and Sasha Rehaume) who have influenced, inspired, and guided healing me as an Indigiqueer/Two-Spirit person through the murders I’ve witnessed in both my Indigenous and Queer communities...
In this piece I hope to show the full weight and energy community support and violence through murder impact one individual as an act of solidarity and healing, and hopefully with this piece and continued iterations that they too influence your own self and intersections.
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"Self In Response" An Exhibition of Community Artists
–Group Exhibition (featuring; Rubaiyat Ashna, Jenny Chen, Tasneem Dairywala, Nigel Edwards, Jason Julien, James Malekzadeh, Ammarah Syed), Ryerson University, November 8th, 2018
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Breath on One Land
Breath on One Land is a one-off art installation that begs the question how do we acknowledge the land, how do we engage with Dish One Spoon Wampum, and what do we know about it? In the Art Installation Tyler J Sloane brings together their understanding of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum and Land Acknowledgements into a live and active art installation as part of SKETCH Working Art's RAD GRAD event in 2018
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The physical installation incorporated textiles, lights, yard tools, medicine, and masks. On the south side of the space a textile mosaic of sky (accompanied with clouds and blue lighting) and water to frame the central space for folks to smudge with on top of a tree stump. Just north of the stump, textile cut-outs of the Great Lakes, with one wooden dish and spoon representative of the Dish With One Spoon. On the north side, to juxtapose the blue-green water imagery was red, warm, and grey textiles, pitch forks, white masks with bellowing cooper textiles. This was to symbolize the white colonial nature of settlers, forks to juxtapose the storytelling of the spoon, and textile bunched in snake-like configurations. What's not pictured above, was a projection of the medicine wheel in the direction of the four directions, center in the middle of the exhibition space. The space was utilized for performances, while audience sat either immersed in one of either north or south sides, or on the east and west sides of the space.
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Tyler noticed a stark contrast to when Indigenous people introduced, acknowledge, and welcomed folks onto the land, versus settlers, and wanted to symbolically show how that hung in the air. Ty took land acknowledgements from settlers and institutions printed on white paper as an image of land acknowledgements hanging in the air, but not grounded in action. Contributors (with texts from 2018); Ali Joy Richardson, Alia Rasual, Amanda Christie, Bilal Baig, Brandon Crone, Daniel Carter, Brent (Franco) Saccucci, Júlia Matias, John CJ Murphy, Lisa Alves, Luke Reese, leZlie Lee Kam, Maddie Bautista, Polly Phokeev, Buddies in Bad Times, SKETCH Working Arts, University of Toronto, York University, and University X.