Guest Speakers

LUIS JACOB

Panelist
Conceptual Artist ~ Toronto, Ontario, Canada

A Toronto-based artist, curator, educator, writer, organizer and activist, Luis Jacob's practice challenges social categorization. His art production alone manifests itself as photography, sculpture, performance, artist multiples, public intervention, video and installation. Jacob's pursuits are varied, but all are unified by his thoughtful concern for the philosophical and cultural possibilities of social interaction. Specifically, he explores what it means to place art in a social context and its ability to foster non-hierarchical models of community and collaboration.

Recent solo exhibitions of his work include Habitat, Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Ontario); Just Do It!, Khyber Centre for the Arts (Halifax, Nova Scotia); Flashlight, Toronto Sculpture Garden (Toronto, Ontario); Open Your Mouth and Your Mind Will Follow, which travelled to Articule, (Montreal, Quebec), Artspace Gallery (Peterborough, Ontario), AKA Gallery (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), The New Gallery (Calgary, Alberta); and Towards a Theory, Het Wilde Weten (Rotterdam, The Netherlands). He has also shown in group exhibitions across Canada, the US and Europe.

In 2002 he was curator-in-residence at Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga, where he curated the exhibitions "My Rolodex: Janice Gurney, Chris Lloyd, Sandy Plotnikoff" and "Golden Streams: Artists' Collaboration and Exchange in the 1970s". He is also involved in the community-education collective, the Anarchist Free University in Toronto.