Pluriversal Entanglements by Adolfo Ruiz Tosar
SITE #1:
Sir Winston Churchill Square
Adolfo Ruiz Tosar
Pluriversal Entanglements
This exhibition presents a large-scale mind map derived from philosophy and scholarship, as well as community-based research and teaching. Visitors will also encounter a machined steel piece. Drawing from the modernist tradition of the found object, this item was removed from the life cycle of industrial production and recontextualized as artwork. Together, these works provide a visualization of complexity and entanglements between various areas of knowledge and material production.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“My engagement with media is informed by multifaceted experiences in the graphic design industry, with expertise in illustration, art direction, and moving image production.”
I am an artist, researcher, and educator, investigating issues of contemporary entanglement and human-environmental relations through drawing, installation and film. My engagement with media is informed by multifaceted experiences in the graphic design industry, with expertise in illustration, art direction, and moving image production. My practice is also informed by arts-based research projects co-created with various urban and northern communities (including collaborations on Tłı̨chǫ Dene lands since 2012). My largescale works and installations are made through the use of everyday material such as fabric, string and book board, as well as collage, graphite and ink—leading to dynamic compositions that draw from several Modernist traditions, including Surrealism. The use of this material leads to malleable structures, landscapes, and maps that serve as counterpoints to reductive ways of knowing in philosophical and socioeconomic contexts.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Adolfo Ruiz Tosar was born in Barcelona, Spain and lives in Edmonton (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Canada. His practice is informed by arts-based research projects that he co-creates with various urban and subarctic communities. Since 2012 he has worked with elders, educators, and youth from the Tłı̨chǫ Dene region, Northwest Territories, in ongoing cultural initiatives involving oral history and land-based learning. Ruiz Tosar draws from these experiences in the creation of work that challenges reductive or colonial frameworks of knowledge. His work in the north was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. His film work has been screened on the Franco-German cultural channel, Arte, and writing published in the Journal for Artistic Research. He holds degrees in Design and Human Ecology from the University of Alberta, as well as an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is Associate Professor of Design at MacEwan University in Edmonton (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Canada.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adolfo_ruiz_tosar/
Website: https://www.adolforuiz.org/