Graphic design by Josie Spalla.
Desire Lines: Mapping the metadata of Toronto arts publishing
Speaker series in coordination with the Art Gallery of York University, Artexte, and SpokenWeb
February to May 2021
The trajectory of arts magazine publishing in Toronto from the 1970s onward has always been a space criss-crossed by lines of desire. This speaker series takes an algorithmically produced network diagram of publishing metadata as a jumping off point for story-telling around personal memories. Can the metadata describing the people and organizations producing magazine issues work as a narrative prompt to uncover hidden connections? What stories can we tell by reading the nodes (the dots representing either people or single magazine issues) as nouns, and edges (the links between these nodes; the desire lines proper) as verbs?
An oral history series organized by Felicity Tayler, Interim Head Research Support (Arts and Special Collections) at the University of Ottawa Library, and Michael Maranda, Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of York University. Graphic design and promotional support are provided by Josie Spalla.
The series’ uniqueness comes from stimulating an older generation of artists’ recollections through archival objects. As a research assistant on the project, I selected a multi-disciplinary, inter-generational team of respondents, each assigned to a conversation, who wrote on the illuminations of their respective panels from their perspectives as contemporary practitioners. I also undertook editorship on the responses, which appeared on the Art Gallery of York University’s website, and is forthcoming partner platforms. An accompanying exhibition will debut in January 2023 at Artexte Information Centre in Montreal.
The background to the series comes out of a metadata analysis of three magazines from the seventies and eighties, Fuse, Border/Lines, and Fireweed, that Tayler put together with Tomasz Neugebauer of Concordia University.
Published responses, edited and curated by Faith Paré:
Klive Walker, “A Lit Fuse Ignites the Word” (Riddim an’ Resistance, with Lillian Allen and Clive Robertson)
Britta Badour, “in desire lines” (Riddim an’ Resistance)
Joy Xiang, “Question/Speculation” (Access to Print, with Kass Banning, Will Straw, and Rinaldo Walcott)
Faith Paré, “marginalia: an experiment in critical fabulation” (Setting a Tone, with Makeda Silvera, Pamila Matharu, and Andrea Fatona)