Each in their own way, the four artists presented as part of the exhibition Future Memories reflect on technology as a narrative space that is also a sharing space. By using different media, from video to textile, the artists challenge what separates the private from the public, and where the actual limit of that sharing is. All four present work about memory, or a past image, so that it survives in the future. 

Zinnia Naqvi’s installation Veena (2016) and video work Seaview (2014) reveal the complications of translating culture across time and seas. Naqvi shares her personal struggles between the ideals of Western and Eastern societies.

Presented for the first time offline, the drawings of Ambivalently Yours explore ambivalence through online sharing of pink illustrations, animations and sound sketches. Behind the anonymous persona, the artist uses her online platform to facilitate the exploration of feminist convictions through a conscious act of indecision. This way, Ambivalently Yours can better cultivate relationships of empathy within an online community.

In this current era of selfies, sharing our life with friends is common. Zeesy Powers turns this on its head in her installation The Averaging Mirror (2016), an « anti-selfie » mirror obscuring the viewer’s digital reflection. We can’t help but wonder what is happening to us outside of the lens: is our life real without it being captured?

Sophia Borowska’s project Data Excess (2016) focusses on what is considered “digital excesses”, like low-resolution screenshots or spam e-mails. Using weaving, Borowska questions the potential for control in virtual spaces.

Born in Vancouver, Sophia Borowska is a Montreal-based sculptor and installation artist. Her work emerges from a lifelong affinity for textiles, architecture and art history. Having completed the Textile Arts Diploma at Capilano University with distinction in 2013, she is now pursuing her BFA in Fibres and Material Practices at Concordia University. Borowska has exhibited in Vancouver and Montreal, promoting fibres within wider artistic communities. She also takes part in curating alternative art exhibitions as part of Carbon Collective and the Concordia Fibres Student Association.

Perpetually pink-clad and in search of a wi-fi connection, Ambivalently Yours explores ambivalence - simultaneously loving and hating - through the online sharing of pink illustrations, short animations, questionable advice, sound sketches, blog posts and anonymous notes left in public spaces. Her work has been exhibited in North America, Europe and Australia, shared virally on the Internet and featured prominently in online media publications, teenage blogs and zines worldwide.  

Zinnia Naqvi is a visual artist based in Toronto. She received a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) in Photography Studies from Ryerson University in 2014.  Her work has shown in Toronto at a solo exhibition at the Ryerson Image Centre, and group exhibitions at Gallery 44, Gallery TPW, and Regent Park Film Festival. She has also shown internationally at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Argentina and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival in Germany. Her practice addresses issues of globalism, trans-nationalism and identity.

Zeesy Powers is an artist working with performance, image and text. She has performed and exhibited at venues including PS 122, The Power Plant and the Art Gallery of Ontario, and her videos and animations have screened internationally. In 2014, her first collection of short stories was published by WAAP in Vancouver. As Artist in Residence at the Toronto Public Library for 2015 she produced “Children’s Story”, a complex multimedia projection performance based on the stories and drawings of local children. She is a nominee for the 2016 K.M. Hunter Award. Powers lives and works in Toronto.

Exhibitions  

Participating Artists: Ambivalently Yours (Montréal) Sophia Borowska (Montréal) Zinnia Naqvi (Toronto) Zeesy Powers (Toronto)
Curator(s):
Credits: Ambivalently Yours, installation view