EXHIBITION OVERVIEW
The Community Gallery is currently home to The Hand Eye Society’s Torontrons. The Torontrons are rescued, classic arcade cabinets that have been updated to play contemporary videogames by local artists. The Torontrons have a physical, public presence that creates a spectacle, attracting a community of players, supporters, and interested passersby.
AGO: Artsy Games Organizing was conceived by Jim Munroe, current artist-in-residence, Jim is a self-described “indie culture maker” who produces science-fiction novels, designs indie video games and makes lo-fi sci-fi films. In 2009 he co-founded The Hand Eye Society, a not-for-profit video game arts organization that helps people make games, connects game makers with each other and with audiences offline, and promotes diversity in game creation and public perception of games. His co-founders were Raigan Burns, Jonathan Mak, Jim McGinley, Mare Sheppard and Miguel Sternberg.
The Artist-in-Residence Program fosters new connections between the AGO and Toronto-based artists, encouraging new forms of expression and audience engagement. Projects can happen anywhere in the AGO and can take any number of forms, including performances, pop-up exhibitions, gallery interventions, events and programs.
ABOUT THE COMMUNITY GALLERY
The Community Gallery in the Weston Family Learning Centre is an exhibition and project space which provides a platform for artistic experimentation and dissemination. Focused specifically on the processes of making art, and those ideas that feed into contemporary artistic practice, the gallery seeks to take risks and push the boundaries of how work is traditionally represented within formal institutions. The space draws also on the voices of those groups, regardless of age, sex, profession, and socio-economic constraints, who are at once represented and marginalized within normal institutional channels. In doing so, the Gallery steps away from conventional definitions of what is meant by the word "Community", seeking new interpretations and evolutionary paths for the possibilities of art-making. The Community Gallery is comprised of the main space and a smaller space called The Nook.