HELD is a multi-sensory exhibition by Anna Camilleri and Wy Joung Kou, composed of multiple works within a shared ecosystem including: ceramic and glass mosaic, installation, pebble mosaic sculpture, video, audio, and interaction. Reimagining the gallery as a co-created and invitational space, HELD asks: What futures await our queer, disabled bodies? What sustainable futures can we co-create together?
Presented by Tangled Arts + Disability in partnership with ReDefine Arts. Supported by the Ontario Arts Council & Toronto Arts Council.
On at Tangled Art + Disability (401 Richmond St) from November 17, 2023 - January 26, 2024.
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about
Wy Joung Kou is an interdisciplinary artist based in Treaty 13 Territory, Toronto. Their body of work spans mosaic, video, sound, movement, performance, poetry, and installation. Grounded in a disability justice framework centering accessibility, relationship and interdependence, their artistic practice intertwines the digital and the analog; the public and the personal; the sensory-based and the story-based.
Kou’s educational trajectory as a professional artist has followed a path combining mentorship and community-models of learning, skill exchange, and collaborative process. Their independent mosaic work has exhibited at The Gladstone Hotel, the ArQuives, Critical Distance Gallery, Harbourfront Centre, DesignTO Festival, and Tangled Arts + Disability Gallery. Permanent public art credits include a mosaic commission for the North York Women's Shelter in 2020 and lead design for a permanent outdoor mosaic mural, produced by ReDefine Arts, at Street Health in 2018. Kou has created and presented interdisciplinary collaborative work online, in-person, and through hybrid means with Nightwood Theatre (The Transformations Project), Caminos Festival (The Mermaid Project), Toronto Queer Film Festival, and Creative Users Projects (CRIP INTERIORS). Over the course of a decade (2015 - 2024), they had the great privilege of working in many capacities as an artist and arts worker with ReDefine Arts in the realms of community-engaged art, public art, installation, video & audio storytelling, theatre, mosaic, and more.
Kou has been drumming with RAW Taiko since 2017, performing regularly with the ensemble both locally and internationally. Embracing taiko as a catalyst for self-discovery, they have been curiously finding their footing as a taiko teacher and emerging composer.