Artist
Kinga Araya

b. 1966, Poland / Toronto

An artist originating from Poland, Kinga Araya has lived and worked in Ottawa, Toronto and Montréal since 1990. She has participated in several installation exhibitions, video festivals and performance events in Canada and abroad. Her most recent work addresses the themes of travel and communication. She attempts to examine her nomadic and evolving identity, usually in the context of geopolitical/cultural issues. Questions such as, “Who am I?” and “Why am I where I am?” make up her artistic language. “The phenomenon of walking ad talking in between diverse cultures, countries and languages became a condition sine qua non of my artistic practice. I often question my belonging to one group or the other I encounter during my journeys. How much of my ‘self’ is still ‘Polish’ and how much has already become ‘Canadian’? I believe that the driving force behind my art works lies in an impossible desire to be in total control of who I am and who I would like to become.”

Performance
Diaspora curated by Sonia Pelletier

ARTISTS
Constanza Camelo
Kinga Araya
Myriam Laplante
The Two Gullivers (Flutura & Besnik Haxhillari)
Vessna Perunovich

FADO is pleased to present Diaspora, a performance art event that examines the experiences of dispersed and exiled populations. The event will feature five performances followed by a public discussion. Diaspora presents artists from various cultures, now living in Canada, whose performances consider their ‘foreignness.’ Developed by Montréal curator Sonia Pelletier and touring with support from CALQ, Diaspora features performances modified from an initial event presented in 2003 at Galerie Clark in Montréal. A fifth project featuring local artist Vessna Perunovich will be included for this Toronto version of Diaspora.

In consideration of the project, Pelletier writes:

Performance art [is] surely the most immediately expressive way to depict survival, resistance and the accommodation of differences. This commingling, driven by the artists’ concerns with identity issues, leads us to consider how the precarious state of the artist in a foreign land reverberates on one’s own culture, as well as the status of the artist in general…

A major portion of the project is devoted to reflection, with a focus on the identity issues of cultural transformation, hybrid cultures, belonging and cultural transference. …We are also attempting to refashion and re-view the word ‘Diaspora.’ Performative acts convey cultural evidence, but to what extent can one assert one’s belongingness in a world so polarized between Western and non-Western culture? And in the art world, haven’t the concepts of globalization and internationalization gotten confused as well?


Presented in cooperation with Blank Slate with support from the Conseil des art et des lettres du Québec.

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