Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence
Curator
Helen Yung leads the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence and is an inter/transdisciplinary artist-researcher. Her practice ranges from bold experiments in What Art Knows, to creating, designing, and curating installations, interactions, interventions, exhibitions, and performances.
What Art Has To Offer Immigration has successfully helped new immigrants and refugees become employed full-time in their fields of interest in Canada. What Art Has To Offer Astronomical Thinking is an ongoing collaboration with theoretical astrophysicist Dr. Gurtina Besla and New York-based artist Samita Sinha. What Art Has To Offer ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies) is her latest project, which began with a collaboration with medical director Dr. Chaula Mehta.
For over twenty years, Helen has contributed to civic actions and cultural policy thinking at the municipal, provincial, national, and international levels. She is a published researcher, and consults on projects for public and private funders, community organizations, and others. Much of this is institution-adjacent work, which is good or bad depending on how you feel about neighbours.
Curatorial Statement
The Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence brings diverse artists and artistic methods into parts of society where more imagination is needed.
We specialize in reimagining how things work in the world using artistic intelligence.
We emphasize artistic methods: The world’s intangible wisdoms are collected and passed on through artistic and cultural practice. As technocratic values continue to shape and drive contemporary life at exponential rates, we are mindful of what art knows.
Our work includes new immigrants and refugees in engineering, financial, education, scientific, and other non-artistic professions. Working in collaboration with multi-sectoral professionals, the Lab’s artists work to generate new or alternative ways of approaching and understanding public and social joys and challenges.
We work from pluralist bodies of knowledge, embodied, translated, transformed and transmitted by people with diverse lived experiences. We disrupt, transform, appreciate and critique, with the overarching intention to (re)balance, (counter)point and (re)invent. As inter- and trans-disciplinary artists, we are informed by the values, wisdoms, and preoccupations of improvisation, performance, community arts, decolonizing/precolonial praxis, non-Western cultural practice and avant-garde arts.
The Lab has worked with many groups such as the Saagajiwe Centre for Indigenous Research Creation, Dancemakers, Atlantic Filmmakers Coop, University of Arizona, UC Santa Cruz, Social Impact Storytelling Summit, Ukai Projects, Luminato Festival for Arts & Creativity, Centre for Social Innovation, TO Live, University of Toronto Scarborough, and others.
The Lab was officially formed in 2019, based on an earlier format created in 2016 as a relational art project funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Working Class Lab
A 6 month talk about money, class and the “isms” that work for and against us.
Online
Feb 13, 2023 – Jul 13, 2023
Cycles
Ange Loft leads a cyclical research process through natural time, annual rhythms and Kanien’kehá:ka cycle of ceremonies.
The Railpath Arts Centre
Apr 12, 2023 – Apr 13, 2023
Accessibility in Dance
This session offers a deep dive into creating accessible-affirming experiences within movement-based practices.
The Citadel
Jul 3, 2023 – Jul 3, 2023
Working Agreements
What is a working agreement? Why and when are they useful?
Online
Jul 4, 2023 – Jul 4, 2023
Abolition in Dance
The Black Widow, offers methods drawn from her burlesque and artist-activist practices to root and give life to the abolitionist in you.
The Citadel
Jul 5, 2023 – Jul 5, 2023
Re-imagining An Institution: Cinq A Sept
Join us for mock-tails and real talk.
The Citadel
Jul 7, 2023 – Jul 7, 2023
Sensing, Being, Holding Choice
A workshop focused on resourcing our ability to cultivate one’s inner sense of consent and attend to conflict as a generative force in our everyday lives.
The Citadel
Jul 12, 2023 – Jul 14, 2023