Redd \ Flagg is a long-term, independent project centred on giving support to the production of inter-disciplinary art.
In addition to facilitating a shared studio space in downtown Toronto, we host workshops, lectures, performances, and other community-oriented events.
For inquiries, please click here.
\\\\\ Upcoming Events \\\\\
Redd \ Flagg Artist-in-Residence
Publication Launch + Fundraiser
Sunday, July 21: 2 pm - 7 pm
\\\\\ Featuring \\\\\
> Installation by our current artists: Fysal Amirzada & Taylor Charbonneau
> Preview of a text related to their work by Lena Suksi
> Print and video documentation of our last project: Body as Proof by Koko, with text by Fan Wu
> Musical selections by: DJ Hadara + Christophe "Bubbles" Barbeau
> Refreshments!
\\\\\ Details \\\\\
Entry is free, with suggested donation of $5 - $10 to support our print budget.
Limited copies of "Body as Proof" will be available for $25.
** Please RSVP for directions to venue. **
Accessibility: The main space of the gallery is on the ground floor, unfortunately there is a slight step at the entrance and the washroom is not wheelchair accessible.
\\\\\ About the artists \\\\\
May - September 2019
Fysal Amirzada & Taylor Charbonneau, with text by Lena Suksi
You have to live in spaces just like you have to live in bodies, but why resign ourselves to how they come? At the same time, are there good ways you can concede to laziness? The project of life pushes away the regiment of work. The cylinder is a beautifully lazy shape.
-- Lena Suksi
Since this past May, we have been working with Fysal Amirzada and Taylor Charbonneau to document their installation practice as it evolves in both a studio environment and in their home. Using a diverse collection of found materials, the artists create what they describe as "domestic landscape objects" -- functionally-ambiguous, improvised compositions that exist beyond the traditional boundaries of sculpture, performance, and interior design. In conjunction with a commissioned text by Lena Suksi, we intend to publish a booklet of their work by the end of 2019. An immersive exhibition and final presentation of the text will be held at their private home in September.
Fysal Amirzada and Taylor Charbonneau have been living and working in a shared home since 2016. Their practice integrates encountered materials into an active domestic economy. Taylor is a Leo and Fysal is a Capricorn.
Lena Suksi writes about art and pleasure in Toronto. Her work has appeared as exhibition texts and poetry read at Calaboose, Susan Hobbs, Cooper Cole, Georgia Scherman Projects, Towards, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
November - December 2018:
Koko, with text by Fan Wu
The Self is a gallery of cautious lips here given to ecstasy, there to surveillance; here to eating at the fruits of foreignness, there to sampling the endless delights of similarity; here to chaos, there to combustion. What you call your “identity” is the illegible gesture of the shapes that lie between two lines of text. Your gender falls to its knees to sing for you. Your structure of love is research toward spontaneity.
-- Fan Wu
Late last year, we welcomed Koko to begin working in our studio. Through writing, research and experimentation with a wide variety of media, Koko explored themes of personal memory, gender, presentation, and embodiment -- all the while developing a performance and installation they titled "Body as Proof." Together with a commissioned text by Fan Wu, we have reproduced 12 photographs from Koko's performance and installation.
Koko is a multimedia artist born in Lima, Peru and based in Toronto, Canada. Through a mixture of poetry, performance, painting, installation and video, Koko explores the social, cultural and spiritual regimes that intersect the human body. They are in a continuous dialogue between point 0 and 1 of the binary format, waltzing within the borders of fiction and reality.
Fan Wu is a metamorphosis-induced fantasist whose ethos’s trinity is responsiveness, surprise, and intimacy. He runs critical reading and creative writing workshops in conjunction with artist spaces across Toronto. His go-to karaoke songs include “Dancing in the Dark” and “Chop Suey!”.
\\\\\ About Redd \ Flagg \\\\\
Redd \ Flagg supports artistic practices by providing regular studio rentals and access to space for workshops and community-oriented events.
Since 2018, Redd \ Flagg’s artist-in-residence program supplies a local emerging artist or collective with free studio space for one month. Through facilitated collaboration, studio visits and group critiques, the artist is given the opportunity to develop their work in a formal environment while receiving feedback from their peers. The structure of the residency is determined in close consultation with each artist or collective, dependent on their individual needs and capacities. A public exhibition or performance is optional. In conjunction with each residency, Redd\Flagg commissions a piece of critical and / or creative writing, composed as an evolving response to the artist’s work. With photographs and other documents of the artist’s practice, the commissioned text is then published, available in print and online.
The artist-in-residence program could not exist without the financial and organizational support of the artists who work full-time at Redd\Flagg. Thank you to all of our past and present studio tenants / friends / collaborators: Johnathan Adjemian, Basil AlZeri, Faraz Anoushahpour, Parastoo Anoushahpour, Victoria Cheong, Adrienne Crossman, Ryan Ferko, Oliver Husain, Felix Kalmenson, Katie Kotler, Jennifer Laiwint, Valerie Soo and Pöny.
\\\\\ Past Events \\\\\
2019 >
July 9 - August 27: Neurophenomology Reading Group
Organized by Isaac Flagg.
June 30: Dress to Sweat w/ DJ /ˈɒktəpəs/ + Special Guests
Organized by Wolfgang Nessel.
May 25: Dress to Sweat *40th Birthday Edition* w/ Valeroo, Vibrant Matter, Hadara, Isogon, + DJ /ɒktəpəs/
Organized by Wolfgang Nessel. & Brenden Jensen.
April 14: Dress to Sweat w/ DJ /ˈɒktəpəs/ + Special Guests
Organized by Wolfgang Nessel.
February 24: Dress to Sweat w/ DJ /ˈɒktəpəs/ + Hadara + Isogon
Organized by Wolfgang Nessel.
2018 >
December 8: Artist in Residence: Performance and Installation by Koko with Text by Fan Wu
Presented by Redd\Flagg
May 27: Dress to Sweat w/ DJ /ˈɒktəpəs/ & DJ New Chance
Organized by Wolfgang Nessel and Victoria Cheong.
April 8: Press Reset: Possibly Fun Aerobics w/Alicia Grant & DJ New Chance
Organized by and Victoria Cheong.
April 1: ANXIETY :sOCIAL facilitates . . . quoetry.
Organized by Pòny co~hosted by Fan Wu
March 18: ANXIETY :sOCIAL facilitates . . . badgering.
Organized by Pòny co~hosted by Laura Rafferty
Febuary 11: ANXIETY :sOCIAL facilitates . . . ¿pǝlzznd/puzzled?.
Organized by Pòny.
January 21: Dress to Sweat w/ DJ Valeroo and DJ /ˈɒktəpəs/.
Organized by Wolfgang Nessel and Victoria Cheong.
January 14: ANXIETY :sOCIAL facilitates . . . mani~care.
Organized by Pòny.
2017 >
November 29: The Assembly w/ Ruth Kaplan, moderated by Andrea Leigh Pelletier and Christie Pearson.
Organized by Monica Terrero, Alex Kwok, and Benjamin Freedman.
October 22: Beginner's Embroidery Workshop w/ Stacy Sproule.
Organized by Victoria Cheong.
September 27: The Assembly w/ Isabel M. Martinez and Liana Schmidt.
Organized by Monica Terrero, Alex Kwok, and Benjamin Freedman.
August 24: The Assembly w/ Jeff Bierk & Brendan George Ko.
Organized by Monica Terrero, Alex Kwok, and Benjamin Freedman.
May 4 - 21: Home*.
Group exhibition w/ Sarah Kelly, Luke Maddaford, Lee D’Angelo & Bethany Rose Puttkemery.
Curated by Adrienne Crossman.
For photography by Natalie Morgan, click here.
For a review by Philippe Pamela Dungao, click here.
April 20 - 23: I See You And I Love You.
Solo exhibition of banner and printworks by Mary Tremonte.
March 4: Anti-Object w/ Anastasia Kristensen, Kaz_Kandy, Widdows 95.
Also including video projection by Fran Riley, installations by Maddi Hadley and Mary-Dora Bloch-Hansen, furniture by Fysal Amirzada and Taylor Charbonneau.
For a retroactive poem by Fan Wu, click here.
March 12: ANXIETY :sOCIAL facilitates . . . sing~a~long w/ Alex Samaras & Ghislain Aucoin.
Organized by Pòny.
February 14: Canvassers.
Solo exhibition of video by Veronica Mockler.
Curated by Christophe Barbeau.
For photography by Felix Kalmenson, click here.
January 22: ANXIETY :sOCIAL facilitates . . . brain farts.
Organized by Pòny.
2016 >
December 11: ANXIETY :sOCIAL facilitates. . . the drawing room.
Organized by Pòny.
For a poster designed by Robynne Redgrave (with research by Katie Stemeroff), click here.