War at a Distance

Stephen Andrews, Richard Johnson, Allyson Mitchell, Andrew Moodie, Greg Nelson, Suzanne Opton, Louie Palu, Adam Pettle, Jason Sherman, Francesco Simeti, and Graeme Smith

Curated by Blake Fitzpatrick, Karyn Sandlos and Roger Simon

October 24 to November 21, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, October 30, 2009, 7:30 – 9:30 pm

The War at a Distance Symposium is co-presented by The School of Image Arts, Ryerson University and the Centre for Media and Culture in Education, OISE/UT

Symposium: Friday, Oct 30 – Saturday 31, 2009, The School of Image Arts, Ryerson University

In association with The School of Image Arts, Ryerson University, Gallery TPW is pleased to present War at a Distance. A group exhibition of diverse works by both Canadian and international artists, War at a Distance explores practices of representation implicated in how Canadians are struggling to make sense of the war in Afghanistan. While war has always been mediated through image and narrative, new technologies and forms of documentary and artistic practice are continuing to alter the range of impressions available to a civic culture. Representations of the Afghani conflict have appeared in forms as diverse as contemporary art practice, television news reportage, documentary film, radio docudrama, personal YouTube videos, illustrated blogs and social media platforms. This new cultural landscape is embroiled in setting the terms for public conversations about Canada’s on-going involvement in a conflict that is taking place within a culture very different from our own. Blurring distinctions between art and journalism, documentary practice and aesthetics, galleries and broadcast media, war artists and combatant-diarists, The War at a Distance exhibition, gallery discussions, and symposium at Ryerson University, look at the mediation of war and grapples with questions that emerge when artistic and journalistic forms are brought into relation.

Curator Biographies

Blake Fitzpatrick is a Professor in the Documentary Media Program (MFA) and Program Director, Photographic Studies Option, School of Image Arts, at Ryerson University.

Karyn Sandlos is Assistant Professor of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute (SAIC), Chicago, IL.

Roger Simon is a Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto) in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies, Director of the Centre for Media and Culture in Education, and Director of the Testimony and Historical Memory Project at OISE/UT.