Throughout 2020, performance for online audiences (via livestream, Zoom, and other social media channels) became increasingly common. Unseen viewers tuned in on laptops and smartphones, from anywhere in the world. The presence of a camera—for artists and audiences alike—dictated the frame. 

The prompt to invited artists in this first project in FADO’s Emerging Artists Series for 2025 was minimal: “You are on view.” Performances will take place in the glass cube meeting room located at The Commons @ 401 which is visible from the corridor. Simultaneously, the performance will be streamed in the adjacent screening room. Audiences are free to take up whichever view suits them.

For the artists, the camera takes up a position in the performance space, but this is not a performance for the camera. Is it possible to be oblivious to (or to obliterate) the presence of the camera? How might the camera inform considerations for movement or activity (or perhaps lack thereof) that you engage in for the performance, while not performing for this all-seeing eye, the camera?

An additional intention for the curator was to develop new collaborative relationships and dialogues with artists working in performance through this project. Toronto is generally seen as an inhospitable metropolis, and as housing costs as well as operational costs rise, challenges for artists committed to creating performance also increase. The Emerging Artists Series is the perfect platform for a small number of artists who do not have lengthy histories of performing in Toronto to create a new small-scale work.

Artist details and specific event dates announced in early February.