Associate Professor Mary Lou Lobsinger, Assistant Professor Charles Stankievech, Instructor Scott Sørli, and MVS student cheyanne turions are featured participants in the event Furnishing Positions: Conversations on Saturday, November 22, from 1:00 - 6:00pm at the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Blackwood Gallery.

Curated by artist, designer, urban theorist (and former Daniels faculty member) Adrian Blackwell, the exhibition Furnishing Positions explores the paradoxical relationship between publics and space through three different structures: a sculpture consisting of thirty pieces of furniture, reconfigured over twelve weeks to test the social effect of different spatial forms; a broadsheet series that interrogates six paradoxes of public space through artwork and texts by twelve contributors from diverse disciplines; and now, a set of conversations that test these ideas with an assembled public in the sculpture.

Described as part colloquium, part workshop, and part experiment, Furnishing Positions: Conversations brings together the contributors to the broadsheet series in order to test the ideas developed within its artworks and texts in dialogue with other contributors and an assembled public.

To register for this FREE event, email blackwood.gallery@utoronto.ca by Thursday November 20th. A shuttle bus will depart Mercer Union (1286 Bloor St. W) at 12:30pm, and return at 6:30pm. Snacks and refreshments will be provided.

Lobsinger, Sørli, and Stankievech also contributed 18”x18” broadsheets to the exhibition. Each broadsheet consists of an artist’s project on one site and text on the other. Stankievech partnered with U of T Professor Eric Cazdyn (from the Centre for Comparative Literature and the Department of East Asian Studies) to create a broadsheet titled “Privacy / Publicity: Is private thought the necessary corollary of public space?" Lobsinger and Sørli will be releasing their broadsheet titled “City / Urbanization: How do public spaces combine to make cities?” on November 24.

For more information on Furnishing Positions, visit the Blackwood Gallery website.