Artist
Camille Kiku Belair

Canada

Camille Kiku Belair (they/them) is a composer, classical guitarist and interdisciplinary artist. They are interested in working with field recordings, creating handmade artist books, and exploring connections between music and art making. A graduate of OCAD University’s Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design MFA program, they previously completed a BMus specializing in composition at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, and studied at California Institute of the Arts in both the Performer-Composer and Experimental Sound Practices MFA programs. Current work involves developing handmade book-objects that function as compositional tools and generating grid-based visual patterns from melodies. 

Performance
On View | curated by Jordan King

ARTISTS
Brigita Gedgaudas
Camille Kiku Belair
Kendell Yan

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.

Kendell Yan
Performance: Saturday, February 22 from 1:00–5:00pm
Artist talk: Sunday, February 23 at 2:00pm

Camille Kiku Belair
Artist talk: Friday, February 28 at 5:00pm
Performance: Saturday, March 1 from 1:00–5:00pm 

Brigita Gedgaudas
Performance: Saturday, March 8 from 1:00–5:00pm
Artist talk: Sunday, March 9 at 2:00pm

Performance Yellow

This fragrance opens us to the question, has the show started? It's winter, the theatre is colder than the street and the room is filled with people and all their winter smells: wet faux leather, down, too much shampoo, and beer breath. The atmosphere is a trickster. Am I late, am I early?

Top Notes

yellow mandarin, mimosa

Middle Notes

honey, chamomile, salt

Base Notes

narcissus, guaiac wood, piss, beer