The past isn't even past – and the present is tense with conflicting desires and untold stories. What brings clarity to this setting is Shani Mootoo's limpid prose, clean and bracing. Polar Vortex is an honest, but also moving, exploration of true intimacy. – author Amitiva Kumar In Giller Prize-nominated writer and visual artist Shani Mootoo’s highly-anticipated new novel Polar Vortex, couple Priya and Alexandra move to a picturesque countryside town, only to have their quiet lives upended by the reappearance of a figure from one of the woman’s pasts. Seductive and tension-filled, Polar Vortex is a story of secrets, deceptions, and revenge. In light of having to postpone the Toronto launch of Polar Vortex and conversation between Shani Mootoo and author Catherine Bush, the Koffler’s Mary Anderson, Manager of Literary & Public Programs, asked Shani to record herself reading the opening pages of her new book from her home in Prince Edward County, Ontario. https://kofflerarts.org/Events/Books-Ideas/Book-Reading-Polar-Vortex-by-Shani-Mootoo

Koffler.Digital Audio Programs

Book Reading: Polar Vortex by Shani Mooto

The Koffler’s Books & Ideas series presents the launch of curator Catherine Clement’s book, Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow. In conversation with author and Associate Professor at York University, Lily Cho. Chinatown Through a Wide Lens showcases the once-hidden photographs of Vancouver’s first and most prolific Chinese photographer, Yucho Chow. He operated a commercial studio in the heart of Vancouver’s Chinatown from 1907–1949 and chronicled life during a tumultuous and transformative time in Canadian history. https://kofflerarts.org/Events/Books-Ideas/Catherine-Clement

Catherine Clement & Lily Cho

The launch of award-winning fiction writer Joseph Kertes’ Last Impressions, a deeply moving yet comic novel that revels in the energy of its extraordinary characters. At the centre is Zoltan Beck, an aging Jewish-Canadian patriarch who has done his best to hide the trauma of his refugee past from his beloved children. Set in both mid-20th century Hungary and contemporary Toronto, Last Impressions is a story of lost love and newfound connections, of a father and his sons desperately reaching out to bridge an ever-widening gap... even as their time together ebbs away. In conversation with award-winning writer and humourist Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans, The High Road, and Albatross. https://kofflerarts.org/Events/Books-Ideas/Joseph-Kertes-Terry-Fallis

Joseph Kertes & Terry Fallis

Dubbed “the rising star of literary Houston” (Literary Hub), Bryan Washington is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Recipient, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, and the recipient of an O. Henry Award. His stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, Tin House, One Story, GQ, among others. Lot, Washington’s critically-acclaimed first collection of linked short stories, was released in 2019. Set in Houston – a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America – the book traces the coming-of-age of a young man growing up Black, Latino and gay. Lot captures Houston’s culturally-rich yet gritty urban landscape, revealing the vulnerable existence of communities living under the shadow of poverty and violence with raw power and tenderness. Offering rare insight into what makes a community, a family, and a life, Lot explores trust and love in all its unsparing and unsteady forms. Adnan Khan has written for VICE, The Globe and Mail, and Hazlitt. He has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and in 2016 won the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. There Has to Be a Knife (2019) is his first novel. https://kofflerarts.org/Events/Books-Ideas/Bryan-Washington

Bryan Washington & Adnan Khan

 In this first episode of Thresholds, Maria Bangash shares how she made it through her first year of college in Toronto with a physical disability, and how she confronted her fear to advocate for herself on campus and within her able-bodied friend group. Thresholds is a new Koffler.Digital podcast hosted and produced by Maya Bedward in collaboration with members of Holland Bloorview’s Youth Advisory Council. Presented in 5 parts, each episode of Thresholds explores the experiences of these youth with disabilities, as they transition into the adult world. https://kofflerarts.org/Exhibitions/Digital/Digital-Projects/Thresholds 

Thresholds: Episode 1

Erika DeFreitas, Gunilla Josephson, Heather Nicol, Shellie Zhang, Gord Peteran, Iris Häussler, Carmela Laganse, with Curator Mona Filip and Art Director Nicolas Fleming A conversation with seven artists featured in the Koffler Gallery’s fall 2019 exhibition, Undomesticated. Each offer insights into their artistic practice, and how their featured works relate to the theme of domesticity. The artists are joined by curator Mona Filip and art director Nicolas Fleming to discuss how the exhibition considers the psychological, political and emotional layers that shape our sense of home and belonging. https://kofflerarts.org/Exhibitions/Gallery/Gallery-Exhibitions/Undomesticated

Artist Talk: Undomesticated

Presented in association with Karen Tam's solo exhibition at the Koffler Gallery, the chrysanthemum has opened twelve times, Tam is joined by Toronto-based artist Shellie Zhang for a gallery conversation to discuss the exhibition, Tam's work, and their shared interests as artists.    

Artist Talk: Karen Tam & Shellie Zhang

The Koffler is thrilled to present the Toronto launch of Abby Stein’s Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman. Abby will be joined in conversation by Rev. Jeff Rock, Senior Pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, Toronto’s LGBTQ2+ Church. Trans activist Abby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe. As the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, Abby was poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. However, from a young age, Abby felt certain that she was a girl. In her groundbreaking memoir Becoming Eve: My Journey From Ultra- Orthodox Rabbi To Transgender Woman, Abby traces her extraordinary coming-out story, from suppressing her desire for a new body, to looking for answers in forbidden religious texts, to orchestrating her final exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity – a radical choice that forced her to leave home, her family and way of life. Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be? kofflerarts.org

Abby Stein

The Koffler’s Books & Ideas Series is proud to present the Toronto launch of a powerful debut collection of poetry by Francine Cunningham in conversation with Jennifer Brant, co-editor of Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada. Francine Cunningham is constantly reminded that she doesn’t fit the desired expectations of the world as a white-passing, city-raised Indigenous woman with mental illness. In her debut poetry collection On/Me, Cunningham explores, with keen attention and poise, what it means to be forced to exist within the margins.

Francine Cunningham

Jenny Heijun Wills was born in Korea and adopted as an infant into a white family in small-town Canada. In her late twenties, she reconnected with her first family and returned to Seoul. In her breathtaking new memoir, Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related, Wills traces her heartrending journey of reunion with her Korean mother, father, siblings, and extended family. Delving into gender, class, racial and ethnic complexities, the book describes in visceral lyrical prose the painful ripple effects that follow a child’s removal from a family and the rewards that flow from both struggle and forgiveness. Jenny will be in conversation with author Carrianne Leung.

Jenny Heijun Wills

  Complex Weaves: Middle Eastern Stories of Identity and Politics through Textiles Since the earliest periods of Islamic history, textiles have functioned as markers of cultural and regional identity as well as political allegiance and conflict. In modern times, artists and craftspeople across the Middle East and Central Asia and in diaspora communities have continued to express their personal and collective experiences through textiles. In this talk, Dr. Fahmida Suleman will explore a number of historic and contemporary examples in their regional and political contexts. Presented in association with the Koffler Gallery exhibition Nevet Yitzhak: WarCraft. 

Talk: Fahmida Suleman, Royal Ontario Museum

Since meeting at art school two decades ago, Japanese/British painter Christian Hidaka and French sculptor Raphaël Zarka have sustained an ongoing dialogue around common interests in the connected histories of scientific, philosophic and artistic invention that drive various traditions of understanding and representing reality. In this conversation at the Koffler Gallery, the artists will discuss the ideas and visual vocabularies that inform their work. They will also address their recent collaborations that explore notions of perspective, formal innovation and spatial perception, subverting linear histories and disrupting prescribed canons. Presented in association with the Koffler Gallery Summer Exhibition, Peter’s Proscenium: Christian Hidaka & Raphaël Zarka, June 20 – August 18, 2019.

Artist Talk: Christian Hidaka & Raphaël Zarka

The Koffler Centre of the Arts is thrilled to present American journalist, film critic and podcast host Wesley Morris, in conversation with Canadian broadcaster and writer Amanda Parris. Wesley Morris is critic-at-large at the The New York Times and a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, where he writes about film, television, theatre and media, often with a focus on social justice, race, politics, and black and queer representation in American popular culture today. Morris also hosts the Timespodcast Still Processing with Jenna Wortham. For three years, he was a staff writer at Grantland, where he wrote about movies, television, and the role of style in professional sports, and co-hosted the podcast Do You Like Prince Movieswith Alex Pappademas. Before that, he spent 11 years as a film critic at the Boston Globe, where he won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. Amanda Parris writes a weekly column for CBC Arts, hosts three CBC television series (Exhibitionists, The Filmmakers and From the Vaults), and is the radio host of Marvin’s Room on CBC Music. She also writes stories for the stage and screen. Parris is the co-founder of the award-winning alternative education organization Lost Lyrics, and worked with The Remix Project and the Manifesto Festival.

Wesley Morris & Amanda Parris in Conversation

The Koffler Centre of the Arts’ 2019 Books & Ideas Series continues with award-winning author and journalist Amitava Kumar, in conversation with award-winning novelist and visual artist, Shani Mootoo. Award-winning writer and journalist Amitava Kumar is the author of several books of non-fiction, poetry, and his most recent novel, Immigrant, Montana — one of President Obama’s favourite books of 2018. Immigrant, Montana was also selected by the New York Times and the New Yorker as one of the top titles of the past year.  Born in Ara, India, Kumar grew up in the nearby town of Patna, famous for its corruption, crushing poverty, and delicious mangoes. He lives in Poughkeepsie, in upstate New York, where he is Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College. In 2016, Amitava Kumar was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as a Ford Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists.

Amitava Kumar in Conversation

The Koffler Centre of the Arts is thrilled to present writers Joshua Whitehead and Arielle Twist together in conversation. Joshua Whitehead is a Two-Spirit, Ojibwe-nêhiyaw otâcimow from Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017), shortlisted for the Inaugural Indigenous Voices Award in Poetry and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, and Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp 2018), shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award for Fiction and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He is currently a doctoral student in the University of Calgary’s English Department (Treaty 7) where he focuses on Indigenous Lit and Cultures. Arielle Twist is a writer and sex educator from George Gordon First Nation, Saskatchewan, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is a Cree, Two-Spirit, trans femme supernova writing to reclaim and harness ancestral magic and memories. Her debut collection of poetry Disintegrate/Dissociate will be released in spring 2019 from Arsenal Pulp Press.

Joshua Whitehead & Arielle Twist in Conversation

Koffler.Digital Audio Programs is a stream that encompasses all of our downloadable audio content. Including artful audio walks, intriguing radio plays, thought-provoking podcasts, artist interviews and more! Koffler.Digital is a platform for 100% free, original digital arts experiences digital arts available 24/7 on your smartphone, tablet, or desktop, that uses the vigorous application of art, thought, and imagination on digital medias to explore the ideas that are shaping Toronto. We work to provide a nourishing alternative to the daily click-bait diet (hey, we like Buzzfeed, too). We work with Toronto’s emerging artists, thinkers, and leaders to provide you with the best content, for free, year-round. We prioritize an uncluttered, crisp aesthetic that highlights the content, and let’s you explore without distraction.

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