Art School (Dismissed)

Curated by Heather Nicol at Shaw Street Public School,

Toronto, ON

May 13-16, 2010

Art School (Dismissed)  was created as a celebration of artists who extend their creative practices into the realm of education. A three-day exhibition in the spring of 2010, it included a condensed and abundant program of dance, music and performance. The event took place in downtown Toronto’s historic Shaw Street Public School. The building had been decommissioned for many years — a long period that had left it feeling frozen in time and almost forgotten.

As both makers and teachers, the artists in Art School (Dismissed) were uniquely situatied to explore and question notions of authority, history, memory and the dissemination of knowledge. Childhood and play inspired many of their works.

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Monica Tap Artist Statement:

When I was a kid, my favorite teachers were the ones who could make the walls of the classroom magically disappear, opening up worlds to us; a marvel! In the hands of other teachers, those same walls closed in, suddenly confining and restricting. Faced with the latter, I’d imagine myself outside, wondering what it would be like to be a bug or a bird. What struck me most about Classroom 9 were its windows with their marvelous treetop view. If I were a student in this room, that big tree outside would offer a handy escape.

The tree images in the installation are derived from historical engravings and 18th century landscape drawings. In scale, my drawings approach life-size, forming a connection with the real trees outside. I envisioned a drawing as big as a room – big enough to dissolve the walls, opening up to the world.

Construction paper suggested itself as a good material for this, a school project. The ripped edge reminds me of enlarged etching lines, a quality I like because the resulting picture is on the verge of falling apart. Up close the drawing is incomprehensible, but in the long view it coheres. Education is like that too – up close it’s messy and often baffling. As a teacher, I hope that the long view will prove worthwhile for my students.

Installation assistants:

Sarah Cale, MFA 2004, University of Guelph

Stephan Herda, BA, Studio Art, 2010, University of Guelph