It’s been 10 years since Alastair MacLennan’s rigorous and unique style of performance installation has been presented in Toronto. FADO is once again pleased to present a new performance work (and other activities) by one of the UK’s most respected performance artists.

Alastair MacLennan will perform a new 5-hour performance installation DONE NODE on Wednesday May 12, from 3-8pm in Butterfield Park at the Ontario College of Art & Design.

In 1997 Alastair MacLennan represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale with an inter-media work commemorating the names of all those who died as a result of the Political Troubles in Northern Ireland from 1969 to date. During the 1970s and 1980s he made long, non-stop durational performances in Britain and America of up to 144 hours each, usually neither eating nor sleeping throughout. Subject matter he deals with in his work addresses political, social, and cultural malfunction.

He was a founder member of Belfast’s Art and Research Exchange and since 1975 he has taught at the University of Ulster and for 11 years he ran the Postgraduate Fine Art programme in Belfast. He travels extensively in Eastern and Western Europe, America, and Canada, presenting actuations (his term for performance/installations) and he has been a member of Black Market International since 1989. MacLennan is currently an Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at the University of Ulster, Belfast, N. Ireland, UK, an Honorary Fellow of Dartington College of Arts, Devon, England, UK and an Honorary Associate of the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

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A primary function of art is to bridge our spiritual and physical worlds. Through crass materialism we have reduced art to cultural real estate. Actual creativity can be neither bought nor sold, though its husks, shells and skins often are. It is possible in art to use meta systems without over-reliance on physical residue and attendant marketplace hustling, jockeying and squabblings. Art is the demonstrated wish and will to resolve conflict through action, be it spiritual, religious, political, personal, social or cultural. To heal is to make whole.

As well as ecology of natural environment, there is ecology of mind and spirit. Each is a layer of the other, interfused, three in one. The challenge for us today is to live this intergration. Already we are late. Time we have is not so vital as time we make.

ISSUES REMAIN:
ETHICS - AESTHETICS
THE 'OUTSIDER' - POLITICAL/SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
RELIGIOUS/POLITICIAL BIGOTRY - INCLUSIVE TOLERANCE
'DERELICTION' AND PUBLIC/PRIVATE RESPONSIBILITY
OPPOSITIONAL OR CONSENSUS MEANS OF POLITICAL/SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT

DEATH - DECAY
NEW LIFE AND MUTATION
TRANSFORMATION

 ~Alastair MacLennan

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Image Credit: Done Node
for 10th Open Performance Art Festival,
c/o Open Realisation Contemporary Art Centre
798 Art Zone, Beijing, China.
18 Sept 2009
2.00 PM to 6.30 PM

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FADO is proud to be supporting and a part of the team of people responsible for hosting Alastair Maclennan’s activities while in Canada. These include:

Present Response
Curated by Paul Couillard
Performances by Paul Couillard, Alastair Maclennan, Margaret Dragu, Aiyyana Maracle
Gallery Lambton, Sarnia
May 6-8, 2010

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A Symposium on Teaching and Learning Performance Art
Speakers include: Alastair Maclennan, Margaret Dragu, Marilyn Arsem, Tanya Mars, Johanna Householder, Paul Couillard, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Jess Dobkin.

Presented by FADO
OCAD, 100 McCaul Street, Toronto
10am – 4pm (FREE, all welcome)
May 10, 2010

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FADO presents DONE NODE by Alastair Maclennan
Butterfield Park at OCAD (100 McCaul Street, Toronto)
3pm - 8pm
May 12, 2010

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Hamilton Artists Inc. & FADO present
NO NOU ME NON by Alastair MacLennan
During the James Street North Artcrawl
Hamilton Artists Inc.

161 James St North, Hamilton
7pm – 10pm
May 14, 2010

www.hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca