A vibrant, illustrated guide to over 100 common and charismatic mushrooms, with storytelling that explores the connection between humans, fungi, and contemporary art.
Automatisme Ambulatoire Catalogue
Based on the exhibition including works by Diane Borsato, Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz, Claire Cunningham, Brendan Fernandes, Every Ocean Hughes, My Barbarian
Automatisme Ambulatoire, or ambulatory automatism, is an expression that conjures notions of the compulsive traveler, while simultaneously implying irresistible urges and movements, such as grimaces, tics, and gestures, often linked with corporeal pathologies. This term inspires the title and theme of the exhibition Automatisme Ambulatoire: Hysteria, Imitation, Performance, which includes six new works focused on performance, choreography, and installation. The exhibition takes as its departure point an essay by scholar Rae Beth Gordon, which focuses on unconscious imitation and spectatorship in French cabaret and early cinema. In Gordon’s essay, she seeks to find a correlation between the movement that was staged in early cinema with that of the movement of hysteria, epilepsy, catalepsy, and other contractures of the body. Gordon felt that hysterical gesture and gait were “important inspirations for the style of frenetic, anarchic movement” that was present in early French film comedy, which had as its predecessor a clear inspiration of nervous pathology in cabaret and concert performances, both on and off the screen.¹ Indeed, Gordon suggests that these shaking, convulsing, agitating movements of the lower order of the body symbolized the body taking over reason and thus leading towards an essential loss of control. It is this pathological notion of loss of control, popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which Gordon surmises came to be almost synonymous with “modernity” itself. Artists and poets, in addition to cabaret performers, actors, and film-makers, all came to be deeply influenced by “hysteria.” Surrealist artist Andre Breton described it this way: “Hysteria is a mental state … characterized by the subversion of the relationships established between the subject and the moral world … It can, from every point of view, be considered as a supreme means of expression.”²
The six artists in this project have been invited to consider ideas of “automatisme ambulatoire,” “hysteria,” and “epilepsy” as a performance style, and to consider how these gestures can work to subvert, undo, transform and re-imagine the body and language, both real and imagined. Through their diverse and established choreographic practices, which always already embrace hybrid performance-based gestures, these artists aim to question, challenge, and complicate the ethical and moral boundaries of “imitation,” and how the so-called “pathologized” body might be considered under new, contemporary social and cultural contexts. Through their work, they demonstrate and so chart an evolution of the moving corpus since modern times. It is especially through the performance and portrayal of queer, disabled, and gendered subjects that the ambulatory hysteric will and can be reclaimed, rethought, and revitalized within a social justice context.
¹ Rae Beth Gordon, “From Charcot to Charlot: Unconscious Imitation and Spectatorship in French Cabaret and Early Cinema,” in The Mind of Modernism: Medicine, Pscychology, and the Cultural Arts in Europe and America, 1880-1940, Mark S. Micale, ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), 94.
Published in conjunction with the exhibition Automatisme Ambulatoire: Hysteria, Imitation, Performance, curated by Amanda Cachia, and presented at the Owens Art Gallery from 6 September to 6 November 2019.
This publication features essays by exhibition curator Amanda Cachia and Jane Dryden, Department of Philosophy, Mount Allison University.
Publication Coordination: Emily Falvey
Editing and Copyediting: Ellen Chang-Richardson
Photography: Roger J. Smith (installations) and Mathieu Léger (performances)
Design: Mark Timmings
Image preparation: Trevor Mills
Printing: Andora Graphics Inc.
Scarborough Foray at University of Toronto - with the Doris McCarthy Gallery, Fall 2021
Here are a few of the great shots taken by Peppercorn Imagine. for our UTSC Foray in Scarborough, in 2021
Foray led by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell - of Outdoor School
New Vanitas series for St Michael's Hospital permanent collection
I was commissioned to make two new works for the St Michael's Hospital permanent collection, for a permanent exhibition at the Barlo Centre for MS in Toronto. See the two images below. Contact the artist for further details, editions, or new commissions from the series.
Vanitas 1 (Stone and bone), 2021
Print size 26" x 32.7"
Vanitas 2 (Flower crown), 2021
Print size 28.5" x 36"
Vanitas 1 (Stone and bone), 2021
Print size 26" x 32.7"
Vanitas 2 (Flower crown), 2021
Print size 28.5" x 36"
Diane Borsato
Edition of 3, +AP.
Diane Borsato is a multi-disciplinary artist who often collaborates with other artists, scientists and naturalists in works that explore the culture of nature and our relationships with it, and experiential ways of knowing. In these new works made especially for the Barlo MS Centre the artist drew from the historical still-life form known as Vanitas - where images including skulls, flowers, and other objects point to the ephemerality of life. Using the artist's partner and young son as models, the figures in the photographs are posed in relation to objects from nature - exploring the body's shared materiality and relative expression of passing time - with stones and wildflowers.
Falconers in progress
Here are some production shots from a new piece I'm working on with Valerie Calam for ProArteDanza, with fearless dancers Sasha Ludivicous and Christopher Valentini, and Falconers and birds... on a beautiful day for dancing in the field.
See here for the final work, premiered first in the fall of 2021.
Artist's Cookbook
I was pleased to be able to contribute to this project, by Carrie Perrault, along with several other Canadian artists including Geoffrey Farmer, Derek Sullivan, Barbara Lounder, Lisa Neighbour, Linda Duval, Patrick Howlett, and many others. In addition to the publication - I also contributed to the Shared Plates charity auction - with benefits going to Food Share in Toronto.
See more about the project here: https://www.theartistcookbook.ca/
Cloud Collection - Diane Borsato
See the virtual companion to the publication with audio recordings and other interactive and accessibility features: https://www.cloudcollection.ca/
This publication is now available for free - to be mailed around the world - from the Owens Gallery. See the virtual companion to the project, including audio and interactive elements at: cloudcollection.ca
In Cloud Collection, Diane Borsato invites us on a cloud-watching expedition through the Owens Art Gallery collection. Taking the form of a printed field guide, the project features twenty-one works with accompanying texts that describe lightning, sun dogs, and various atmospheric effects. At once playful and critical, Cloud Collection highlights the wonder of museum collections and the infinite ways that they can be combined, recombined, and mined for new meanings.
Cloud Collection changes not only how we might look at art, but also the sky. Encouraging us to look up and attend to the world around us, it also asks us to consider the “climate” of our times.
Cloud Collection was commissioned by the Owens Art Gallery while the museum was closed to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021.
Cloud Collection was designed by JP King. The full-colour, accordion-fold publication extends to become a 56” skyline.
Free copies are available on request. Published in both English and French. Request a copy →
Reviews of Outdoor School
There have been several reviews of Outdoor School, edited by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell - in the Journal of Curatorial Studies, in C Magazine, and the Femme Art Review - See some links for recent reviews below:
AGO INSIDER: OUTDOOR SCHOOL by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell
OUTDOOR SCHOOL: Edited by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell
We are happy to announce it's here! Our book Outdoor School, edited by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell, is available anywhere fine books are sold. (From May 1st in Canada, or from Indigo around the world).
If you are in the Toronto area - order from our friends at Flying Books for free delivery! See the link below.
The book includes work of contemporary environmental art by Alana Bartol, Jacqueline Bell, Diane Borsato, Bill Burns, Carolina Caycedo, Jen Delos Reyes, Sameer Farooq, Fastwurms, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Ayumi Goto, Maggie Groat, Karen Houle, Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed, Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill, Ann MacDonald, Rita McKeough, Peter Morin, Amish Morrell, Public Studio, Genevieve Robertson, Jamie Ross, Aislinn Thomas, Vibrant Matter, Georgiana Uhlyarik, Jay White, Tania Willard, Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson, and D'Arcy Wilson.
Cloud Collection: Diane Borsato
JP King and I (Diane Borsato) are proofing this new project we have been working on together for months and months - CLOUD COLLECTION - an observation of clouds (and sun dogs, ice crystals, and eclipses!) in the permanent collection of the Owens Art Gallery, while the museum is closed to the public during the pandemic. The book will be like a small museum on your desk, of paintings and writing and skies... to be printed and distributed for free, coming soon!
OUTDOOR SCHOOL: Edited by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell
We are in the final stages of preparing our book for print this month, and are very excited about the cover - with images from Swimming with Mathematicians by Diane Borsato, and Bush Gallery by Tania Willard.
For more than a decade, the Outdoor School project has provided a framework for interdisciplinary artists to come together and share projects that reimagine ways of relating with the landscape.
The experiential and community-based art projects described in Outdoor School present an alternative to scientific, commercial and colonial conceptions of land and nature in the face of climate change and mass extinction. These art practices include activities like mushroom foraging, water witching, trespassing, pumpkin-boat sailing, cloud identifying, ravine running, honey extracting, spell conjuring, rabbit hunting, coyote walking and more. The project calls attention to creative, counter-cultural works that are focused on education, community and place, and blur the boundaries between art and life, nature and culture.
Featuring interviews, essays and over 150 photographs, Outdoor School is an important contribution to discussions of contemporary art and ecology, foregrounding work that is marginal and ephemeral by nature.
Artists featured in Outdoor School include Alana Bartol, Diane Borsato, Bill Burns, Carolina Caycedo, Sameer Farooq, FASTWÜRMS, Ayumi Goto, Maggie Groat, Gabrielle Hill, Peter Morin, Public Studio, Helen Reed, Genevieve Robertson, Jamie Ross, Aislinn Thomas, Vibrant Matter, Jay White, Tania Willard, Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson and D'Arcy Wilson.
Outdoor School will be available in early 2021 from Douglas and McIntryre
Edited by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell, 2020.
RARE Panel on Apples - Arts and Science
Thank you to everyone who registered, shared and attended our webinar. A very special thank you goes to our facilitator, Anna Bowen from Musagetes and our lovely panelists, Dr. Brian Husband, Paul Kron, Dr. Karen Houle and artist Diane Borsato for guiding us through an exclusive apple tasting and apple conversations!
LEARN MORE: - Dr. Brian Husband and Paul Kron's research: http://www.husbandlab.ca/ - The Ontario Heritage and Feral Apple Project: http://www.husbandlab.ca/Apples/index... - Silver Creek Nursery, apple suppliers for the tasting: https://silvercreeknursery.ca/ - Diane Borsato's work at www.dianeborsato.net - Purchase Dr. Karen Houle's book, "The Grand River Watershed: A Folk Ecology" here: https://bookshelf.ca/product/view/978... - Musagetes: https://musagetes.ca/ This event would not be possible without the support of The Cambridge North Dumfries Community Foundation - Community Grant.
Diane Borsato and Georgiana Uhlyarik: In Conversation, Art Gallery of Ontario
Conversation from spring 2020, Toronto.
ORCHARD at the Small Arms Inspection Building
Apple Tasting
Busy these days tasting unusual apple varietals, planting a few test trees, and doing the slow research for the public art project ORCHARD, and YOU ARE A GOOD APPLE for the Small Arms Inspection Building and the City of Mississauga and Culture Days next fall... Hear the short podcast in which Borsato describes her fascination with apples, and describes tasting them Produced by the Toronto Biennial of Art
MST Foray: Fall 2018
We went to the York Forest foray with the MST (Mycological Society of Toronto) this fall, to brush up on our ID skills, and see what has been fruiting as we anticipate leading the Scarborough Mycological Foray with the Doris McCarthy Gallery, September 23rd. A good spectrum of gilled specimens, arranged according to colour…
Geology Tour in the Rock Shops
During the OUTDOOR SCHOOL artist residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts this summer, I co-ordinated a unique Geology Tour with Jim Olver and Susan Monteith. We led residents across the campus, down the mountain, and into the rock shops - to discuss and handle all manner of stones, gems, minerals, crystals, geodes, fossils, petrified wood and meteorites. We examined glacial erratic boulders in gardens along the way, specimens for sale and on display in the shops, and stone countertops - to learn about the formation and appearance of geological materials.
OUTDOOR SCHOOL was led by Diane Borsato, Amish Morrell and Tania Willard. Among the artists we worked with at the residency were:
Aislinn Thomas, Artur Vidal, D'Arcy Wilson, Holly Ward, Jamie Ross, Kirstie McCallum, Lili Huston- Herterich, Nicole Kelly Westman, Onya Hogan-Finlay, Tor Jonsson, Kelly Andres, Marjan Verstappen, Gesig Isaac, Hannah Rowan, Rita McKeough, Abby Hepner, and Robin Cumming.
Special thanks to Jacqueline Bell, Brandy Darouge, Jim Olver and Susan Monteith from the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Birds of Prey with Emily Rondel
I attended the spring workshop for identifying and learning about Birds of Prey at the High Park Nature Centre with Emily Rondel. Together we examined specimens from the Royal Ontario Museum collection, and ventured into the park to see hawks, owls, and other birds in the trees. As a bonus, we also identified rodent skeletons in samples of owl pellets – including complete skulls.
Lichen Workshop with TRoy McMullin
I attended a lichen workshop at the High Park Nature Centre in Toronto, led by Troy McMullin from the Canadian Museum of Nature. We discussed basic features of lichens in High Park and in eastern Canada, and their role in the environment.
Distinct from fungi, and plants - lichen are creatures that may consist of alage and fungi together, or fungi and specially adapted cyano-bacteria. They are sometimes known as the “corals” of the forest, and can speak to the quality of the air wherever they are (or aren’t) found.
