In Conversation: Artist Vera Frenkel and Filmmaker Atom Egoyan

Saturday June 6  |  2 - 3 PM

Koffler301 (180 Shaw St., 3rd floor)

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Vera Frenkel is a seminal Canadian multidisciplinary artist. Since the 1970s, she has created prints, sculptures, installations, videos, performances, and new media works. In 2025, Frenkel created As If By Chance..., a two-channel and print installation, on view in Koffler301. This is complemented by a lithographic print suite, Big X Window, created in 1975 for the Canada Council Art Bank's Commissioned Print Programme.

Frenkel will engage in lively conversation with Atom Egoyan, one of the most celebrated Canadian filmmakers on the international scene. His body of work includes feature-length and short films, music, theatre, opera, and art installations.

Both Frenkel and Egoyan, in their respective works, delve into issues of memory, displacement, and the impact of technology and media on modern life, among numerous other themes.

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Vera Frenkel’s videotapes, drawings, audio works, installations, photographs, writings and new media projects explore the forces at work in human migration, experiences of displacement and deracination, the resulting learning and unlearning of cultural memory, and the increasing bureaucratization of everyday life.
     Rooted in an interrogation of the abuses of power and their consequences, projects by Vera Frenkel have been seen at documenta IX, Kassel; the Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz; the Setagaya Museum, Tokyo; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Biennale di Venezia (Club Media), the Freud Museum, London; the Altaussee Salt Mine, Austria; and the Shanghai Biennale among other interesting venues.
     Recipient of the prestigious Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2006, Frenkel has received additional major prizes awarded to a living artists in Canada, including the TFVA Founders' Award (2018), Bell Canada Award for Video Art (2001), Canada Council Molson Prize (1989), Toronto Arts Foundation Visual Arts Award (1994), and Gershon Iskowitz Prize (1995). Frenkel was presented the ‘Untitled’ Art Award' for ‘Best Exhibition or Project in Virtual Space’ by The Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art (CCCA) at a gala ceremony in March 2005.

Atom Egoyan is a renowned figure in the cinematic world, lauded for his roles as writer, director, and producer. Among countless awards, six of Egoyan's films have competed for the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival—‘Exotica’ (1994), ‘The Sweet Hereafter’ (1997), ‘Felicia’s Journey’ (1999), ‘Where the Truth Lies’ (2005), ‘Adoration’ (2008), and ‘The Captive’ (2014)--where he has won five awards including the Grand Prix, International Critics Awards, and Ecumenical Jury Prizes. Also featured at Cannes was ‘Ararat’ (2002), a poignant exploration of the Armenian Genocide.
     Additionally, Egoyan's films have garnered two Academy Award nominations and 25 Genie Awards, and have been screened at international film festivals (Venice, TIFF, Berlinale and New York) and in retrospectives in major cities (Paris, Madrid, New York, Brussels, and Mexico City). He achieved similar acclaim in opera and theatre.
     In 2015, Egoyan received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement and was promoted from Officer to Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour. In 1996, the French Ministry of Culture appointed him a Chevalier (Knight) in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.