Clarissa Tossin: Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan

May 15–August 3, 2024
Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall
Guest Curator: Noa Bronstein

Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan positions moving images of nearly identical Ford Motor Company towns in dialogue with one another. The left side of the video moves across Belterra, a rubber plantation village in the Amazon forest, while the right shows Alberta, a sawmill town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Both were built at the same time in 1935 for the purposes of producing rubber and wood for the manufacturing of the Model T in the United States. Depicting the two towns in parallel, the work focuses in and out of residential buildings, tree harvests, moments of daily life and natural landscapes. Articulating the tensions between simulacrum and authenticity that inform these pre-planned communities, Tossin’s use of mirroring across disparate but deeply linked geographies both establishes and unsettles a sense of space and place. Ultimately, Streamlined offers a subtle inquiry into the histories of globalized production and their material and social residues.

Public Programs

Special Exhibition Tour: Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan
Noa Bronstein
Wednesday, July 10, 2024 | 6 pm

All events take place at The Image Centre (33 Gould St., Toronto) unless otherwise noted.

Fig. 1

Clarissa Tossin, Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan (still), 2013, two-channel video. Courtesy of the artist

Fig. 2

Clarissa Tossin, Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan (still), 2013, two-channel video. Courtesy of the artist

Fig. 3

Clarissa Tossin, Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan (still), 2013, two-channel video. Courtesy of the artist

Fig. 4

Clarissa Tossin, Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan (still), 2013, two-channel video. Courtesy of the artist

Biographies

Clarissa Tossin (Artist)

Clarissa Tossin (Brazil, b. 1973) is a visual artist who uses moving images, installation, sculpture, and collaborative research to engage the suppressed counternarratives implicit in both the built and natural environments of extractive economies. She has had solo exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington (2023); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado (2022); and La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France (2021). She has also participated in the 14th Shanghai Biennial (2023); the 5th Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023); and the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2020). Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Fundação Inhotim, Brazil.

Noa Bronstein (Curator)

Noa Bronstein is a curator and writer based in Toronto, whose practice focuses on the social production of space and thinking through how artists disrupt and subvert social, political and economic systems. Bronstein is currently the Assistant Director of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Previously, Bronstein held roles as the Executive Director of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Executive Director of Gallery TPW, and Senior Curator at the City of Mississauga. Bronstein has curated and programmed projects and exhibitions at institutions across Canada and her writing has appeared in publications including Artforum, Border Crossings, C Magazine, Canadian Art, esse art + opinions and The Journal of Curatorial Studies.

Installation Shots