Who's TUFF? We're TUFF.
Art for Commuters
Art for Commuters (A4C) is a curatorial collective formed in response to an exceptional new opportunity for the public dissemination of media art, through a partnership with ONESTOP Media Group (OMG). As our partner, OMG has agreed to broadcast our curatorial undertakings on their network of over 200 LCD screens on the subway platforms of the TTC.
Mandate:
• offer an unprecedented, new audience of over 1 million people weekly to contemporary media artists
• engage a general, urban populace with contemporary art
• initiate outstanding, thought-provoking projects that address this unique public space
• respond to the challenge of curating a venue with obvious and inescapable restrictions
Background:
A4C’s first project with Onestop Media Group was a CONTACT 2007 exhibition. Transit Stories was curated from photo-stories gathered through a digital open call. It featured 1 photographer a day, screening 6 times an hour throughout May.
A4C Collective members:
Sharon Switzer – Administrator, Creative Director & Curator
Jean-Paul Kelly – Administrative Assistant & Assistant Curator
Lori Newdick – Assistant Creative Director
Patricia Griffith – Coordinative Liaise to Onestop Media Group
Collective Member Bios:
Sharon Switzer was born in Lethbridge, Alberta in 1966. An artist and curator, she has been exhibiting her media art in Canada and the U.S. since the early 1990’s. The first curatorial collective that she formed, Clamorous Intentions, was active in the early 1990’s, producing 3 large-scale, multi-media public events in 2 years. Sharon taught new media and visual art in Ontario Universities for 8 years, and is actively involved in the Toronto arts community, presently serving as Vice President of Gallery TPW’s Board of Directors. Her work is currently traveling to museums across Canada as part of ‘18 Illuminations,’ and a catalogue of her work was just produced by McMaster Museum of Art. Sharon is a recent Graduate of the CFC Media Lab at the Canadian Film Centre, and is represented by Corkin Shopland Gallery in Toronto. She recently formed the collective Art for Commuters.
Jean-Paul Kelly is an artist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His practice is primarily focused on moving images, specifically single-channel video production, but also includes still images and objects created through drawing, photography, installation, and print. His most recent videos incorporate a hybrid vernacular of digital compositing, animation, onscreen performance, and home video documents that examine anticipation, anxiety, and loss in storytelling. His work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals in North America, Europe, and Japan. Kelly received a Masters of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto in 2005. He is currently an instructor in the Visual Studies Department at the University of Toronto and at the Chang School of Continuing Education, The School of Image Arts, Ryerson University. Kelly is member of the Pleasure Dome programming collective, an experimental film and video exhibition group. Jean-Paul Kelly’s video works are distributed through Vtape.
Lori Newdick specialized in Philosophy and Contemporary English Literature at the University of Toronto from 1988-89 and graduated with Honours from the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto in 1999, winning the Medal of Excellence in Photography that year. She graduated from the Master of Fine Art Program at the University of Guelph in 2001, having been awarded 8 scholarships during her 2-year degree. Newdick’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally since 1999, garnering attention early on in her career with reproductions in Italian Photo in 2000. Museum venues include the Centre for Photography at Woodstock in Woodstock, New York, The Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the Kamloops Art Gallery in Kamloops, B.C. Her work can be found in the collections of the Macdonald Stewart Art Gallery, Guelph, ON, the National Portrait Gallery, Ottawa, ON, and the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Photography Collection. Newdick presently lives and works in Toronto.
Patricia Griffith has worked in the film and television industry since graduating from York University in 2001 with a BA in Fine Arts Cultural Studies. Kal Ho Na Ho, a Yash Johar production, was the first feature film Patricia worked on as an office coordinator, followed by several children’s television shows. Patricia has participated in the 48-hour film challenge and the 24-hour film challenge; both are team based film competitions in which she co-wrote the scripts and designed the sets. In 2005 Patricia also shot and edited a short film for Toronto’s Dog Film Festival. Currently Patricia is working for ONESTOP Media Group as a Network Coordinator for various digital out-of-home networks. Part of her role is helping to develop arts related content for the networks, the first of which was assisting in the collaboration between Art for Commuters, ONESTOP and Contact, Toronto’s annual photography festival, to allow photographers to exhibit their work on the TTC network of screens.
ONESTOP media group
Onestop Media Group (OMG) is an internationally recognized, award winning, Out-of-Home Digital (OHD) media company. OMG is a world leader in the development, operation, and innovation of OHD networks for the mass transit, retail, hospitality, education and conference industries.