Dear Friends of OCAF,
I hope this message finds you well and filled with anticipation for the vibrant cultural experiences that lie ahead this month. As we step into crisp and colourful October, I am thrilled to share with you some exciting events!
This month, Ontario Culture Days continues to immerse audiences across Ontario in creativity and community engagement. Opening later in October is the Iraqi Canadian Festival, showcasing the rich and diverse heritage of Iraq and fostering cross-cultural connections. Additionally, the Gardiner Museum’s “Magdalene Odundo: Objects in Diaspora” exhibition will captivate with its exploration of identity and belonging.
As always we at OCAF continue to support and champion cultural tourism and the arts, recognizing their power to unite, inspire and attract new audiences to our communities. Please join us in discovering brand new experiences in Ontario this fall!
Warm regards,
Kathleen Sharpe
Executive Director
Events On Now: Opening
Magdalene Odundo: Objects in Diaspora
Toronto: October 19 – April 21
Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects opens at the Gardiner Museum this October and features the exquisite sculptural vessels one of the world’s most renowned ceramic artists, Dame Magdalene Odundo. Her first exhibition in Canada and the largest ever presentation of her work in North America, the show brings together works spanning the artist’s career, including new pieces directly from her studio.
Odundo’s work will be in dialogue with art and artifacts from many time periods and cultures, ranging from ancient Mediterranean figurines to monumental Abstract Expressionist painting, to explore the connections that unite us as humans. These dialogues, and Odundo’s practice, model working trans-culturally in ways that are neither colonial nor extractive, while interrogating the role of museum collections of historical objects as well as hierarchies of Western art.
Learn more.
Vintage Film Festival 30th Anniversary
The 30th anniversary edition of the Vintage Film Festival, brought to the screen by the Marie Dressler Foundation, celebrates the “page-to-screen” journey with a program of 13 classic movies, providing a weekend of fascinating and enjoyable cinema!
Immerse yourself in beloved favourites including The Wizard of Oz and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, box office hits From Russia with Love and Rosemary’s Baby, and the renowned silent films Broken Blossoms and The Phantom of the Opera (both with live accompaniment).
There’s something for everyone – musicals, drama, suspense, comedy, film noir, horror, family fare and action movies – in cinema spanning seven decades, from 1919 through 1972.
Learn more.
Iraqi Canadian Festival
Ottawa and Toronto: October 22-30
The Iraqi Canadian Festival is on this month from the Iraqi Canadian Society! Discover Iraqi art and culture in Toronto and Ottawa. Learn more about Iraqi cultural traditions and practices through performances and exhibitions. It promotes intercultural understanding and showcase our rich and diverse culture. Meet up and coming and established Iraqi musician and artists and immerse yourself in Iraqi culture and art. From musical performances to dance and theatre, there are performances and experiences for everyone.
Learn more.
Events On Now: Ongoing
Ontario Culture Days
Ontario: September 22 – October 15
The Ontario Culture Days Festival is an annual celebration of arts, culture and heritage taking place each fall across the province. Each year organizers and artists of all disciplines produce this province-wide festival with shows, exhibits and activities throughout Ontario. Culture Days programs invite the public to get hands-on and behind-the-scenes to highlight the importance of arts and culture in our communities.
Festival Hubs
From regional galleries to your local culture department, festival hubs are friendly faces during the Festival. Visit the hub partners for cutting-edge arts programming, get connected to the local community, and start your festival adventure.
Events On Now: Closing Soon
Aga Khan Museum: Rumi
Journey through the life and timeless legacy of Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi (d. 1273), known as Rumi, in an inspiring exhibition celebrating one of history’s most famous poets on the 750th anniversary of his passing. Join Aga Khan Museum to explore Rumi’s enduring impact through an examination of artifacts, manuscripts, and contemporary art.
Rumi will take you on a visual voyage through his early life in Central Asia, his experiences with displacement and migration, and his transformation into one of the most important mystical poets of the Persian-Islamic tradition. The exhibition will take a deep dive into the ways in which his words have inspired arts and culture, both past and present.
McMichael Canadian Art Collection: The Uses of Enchantment: Art & Environmentalism
Visit McMichael Canadian Art Collection to experience the illuminating The Uses of Enchantment: Art & Environmentalism exhibition. In a time when our human relationship to the natural world is rapidly changing, this exhibition pulls together artists who are registering their experience in ways that intrigue, caution and entrance.
The exhibition takes its title from the classic work by Austrian psychologist and scholar Bruno Bettelheim, who posited that children’s fairy tales provide for children an imaginative space in which to process their deepest fears and dread: the death of a parent, abandonment etc. Borrowing this paradigm, curator Sarah Milroy explores how contemporary artists use the strategy of enchantment to explore our contemporary experience of climate change, species and habitat loss, and environmental degradation.
Artists in the exhibition include Shary Boyle, Carrie Allison, Shuvinai Ashoona, Qavavau Manumie, Bill Burns, Sara Angelucci and Winnie Truong, working in such various media as clay, pencil drawing, audio art, performance and sculpture.
Learn more.