artist lecture: sunny kerr

Art and Art History Presents

Sunny Kerr on Student Exhibitions at University of Toronto Art Centre

Tuesday 22 September 2009
12:30 – 1:30 p.m.


Sheridan Annie Smith Mezzanine

Sunny Kerr is an artist, curator, and occasional educator living and working in Toronto. After completing his BFA at NSCAD in Halifax, he moved to Toronto in 2001 and became managing editor of the art and culture journal Public for three years. Kerr was also involved in the experimental film and video community as a member of Pleasure Dome collective where he created audio scores and experimental video pieces.
Kerr earned his MFA at York University in 2006 focusing on video installation. He is a member of the curatorial/artist’s collective wayupwaydown along with artist Yam Lau and architect Tania Ursomarzo. He has also worked as a Teaching Assistant at OCAD focusing on both media art and artists’ writing.
He currently manages student and educational programs at the University of Toronto Art Centre, which has given him the opportunity to support and facilitate exhibitions of students’ art, publications, and curating. This position has also allowed him to curate the 2009 Chancellor’s exhibition of Student artwork, and to participate in various U of T art juries and planning groups.
Kerr is a member of the Board of Directors of YYZ Artist’s Outlet, helping with programming and with an effort to re-imagine its publishing arm.

Kerr’s art practice engages different media in an investigation of the everyday nature of illusion. His work has expanded from video installation to include book works, laser-cut vinyl projects, and relational and pedagogical happenings. Upcoming exhibitions include spring 2010’s Stantec Window piece.
Kerr has recently exhibited in the 2008 Nuit Blanche, where he initiated and carried out a large-scale collaboration with an automotive club, as well as in Titles, a wayupwaydown bookstore intervention project, which has toured to bookstores in the U.S. Montreal, and London, Ontario. Its final stop is opening September 26th at Art Metropole in Toronto. Kerr is presently co-curating an exhibition, history project, and free-school happening at the U of T Art Centre in the spirit of Toronto’s seminal Rochdale College.


Image: Sunny Kerr and Esther Lee with Yasunori Aoki, Meet (2008), collaborative project with Toronto Subaru Club at the University of Toronto Art Centre during Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2008