DESIRE LINES. DISPLACED NARRATIVES OF PLACE

From January 20 to March 25, 2023.

Desire lines are paths that are created as people move through open urban areas. Well-worn tracks in the dirt show us an every day that is determined by overlapping drive and intent, spaces carved out in collectivity and in defiance of the structural forces invested in infrastructure and landscaping greenery. Similarly, arts magazine publishing in Toronto, from the 1970s onward, has been a space criss-crossed by lines of desire for access to print as a communication medium with political effect; for organizing labour through mentorship and kinship structures; and for new forms of representation through an analysis of gender, class, and race. 

Curated by Felicity Tayler, the exhibition Desire Lines. "Displaced Narratives of Place" highlights these lines, bounded by metadata describing three magazines published in Toronto between 1978 and 1987 : Fireweed, Border/Lines, and Fuse (formerly known as Centerfold), as well as their network of artists and writers who have mobilized around them. If little distinction is made between magazine founders or attention accorded to the fame of their contributors; the emphasis is instead on connectivity through accumulated co-publishing relationships. These relationships, however, are an incomplete representation of the multiplicity of communities from which these writers emerged; and to wish for comprehensiveness is an expression of desire that looks toward a utopian horizon.

With artworks and contributions of Luis Jacob, Tomasz Neugebauer, Pamila Matharu, Clive Robertson, and Felicity Tayler.

A must-see exhibition, open from Wednesday to Saturday, from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m.
- Opening on January 19, 2023, at 6 p.m.