Wednesday October 9, 12 pm
401 Commons, 4th Floor, 401 Richmond Street West
Sponsored by Vtape
In conjunction with God Play, Vtape’s video exhibition featuring Tanya Mars and Andrew James Paterson (this year’s 7a*11d Éminences Grises), join us for a conversation between Tanya Mars and Shannon Cochrane (director of FADO Performance Art Centre and TPAC alumni). Mars will share anecdotes from her personal history as a key contributor to Canada’s artist-driven culture and talk about the works in the exhibition, running from October 1-19 at the Bashir Yerex Presentation Space.
Tanya Mars is a feminist performance artist who has been actively involved in the Canadian art scene since 1973 doing many different things. She has lived and worked in Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Since the ’70s Mars’ work has focused on creating spectacular feminist imagery that places women at the centre of the narrative. Since the mid-’90s her performances have included endurance, durational and site-specific strategies. Her work is political, satirical and humorous. She has worked both independently and collaboratively to create both large-scale as well as intimate performances in Canada and internationally. Ironic to Iconic: The Performance Works of Tanya Mars, was published in 2008 by FADO, edited by Paul Couillard. She is the recipient of a 2008 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. Recently retired from teaching at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Mars lives off-grid in Nova Scotia. She has one daughter and 3 grandsons.
Shannon Cochrane is a Canadian performance artist, curator and writer. Her performance work has been presented in museums, galleries, festivals and in all kinds of events across Canada and internationally in 25 countries. Shannon’s performance practice is primarily concerned with illustrating and working through the tensions between process and strategy, context and perception, and authorship and repetition. Recent proclivities include swan songs, covers and call-backs, and performers who have died on stage. Recent performances in 2024 were presented in the context of Rencontre internationale d’art performance (RiAP) in Montréal (co-presented by Clark Gallery) and Québec City; and Écart’s Biennale d’art performatif (Rouyn-Noranda). Over the last 25 years, Shannon has contributed to the development of the Canadian performance art ecology through curating, programming, producing and supporting performance artists and their work. She is a co-founding member of Toronto’s 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, and from 1996–2022 co-curated and organized 14 international performance festivals with the collective. As the current Director of FADO Performance Art since 2007, she has curated and produced the work of hundreds of performance artists from around the world for Toronto audiences.
