A PLACE TO SIT
February 9 – May 17, 2026
A project by Philippe Battikha and Martín Rodríguez
SIGHTINGS is located on the ground floor of the Hall Building: 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West, and is accessible weekdays and weekends from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. The program is developed by Julia Eilers Smith.
What happens when a door is left open to a place that is normally off limits?
Can I come in?
Should I stay?
Or
Should I go?
Marrying history, identity, and environment in their collective work, Philippe Battikha and Martín Rodríguez are interested in the détournement of social norms to steer towards unlikely engagements with those norms. Concerned by the fetishization of art objects, they are driven by the notions of dismantling and de-preciousizing, as a means by which to see and hear differently.
Battikha reoriented his music practice towards sculpture and installation, converting objects and spaces in order to draw attention to the impact and importance our environments play in our lives.
As a transmission and sound artist, Rodríguez’s work emerges from his Xicanx upbringing along the Arizona-Mexico border. He employs performance, intervention, and installation as a process for deciphering aural histories and entangled identities.
February 26 to April 25, 2026
Labour
Curator: Ingrid Jones
With the participation of Natalie Asumeng, La Tanya S. Autry, Tony Cokes, Chantal Gibson, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Martine Syms
Inspired by Claudia Rankine’s scholarship on microaggressions in Citizen: An American Lyric and themes of perceptibility, Labour seeks to unveil the invisible labour of the colonized. The exhibition challenges societal racial biases through the lens of Blackness and Indigeneity, exploring, among other concerns, how unseen labour might be unburdened and shifted onto the dominant. The evocative works of Natalie Asumeng, La Tanya S. Autry, Tony Cokes, Chantal Gibson, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Martine Syms examine white supremacy’s manifestation in institutional power paradigms and its corrosive effects on Black and Indigenous people and people of colour (BIPOC). In so doing, this exhibition operationalizes and reveals unseen labour while activating alternative teachings from Black and Indigenous perspectives. Labour asks, what are the motivations for our inclusion in institutional spaces? Who has the right to tell our stories? What is our right to rage in the face of microaggressions and discriminatory acts? And how can we employ much-needed rest as a form of resistance? By reimagining how the colonized perceive, engage with, and ultimately challenge the forces that shape our world, Labour becomes a powerful site of defiance.
Inspired by Claudia Rankine’s scholarship on microaggressions in Citizen: An American Lyric and themes of perceptibility, Labour seeks to unveil the invisible labour of the colonized. The exhibition challenges societal racial biases through the lens of Blackness and Indigeneity, exploring, among other concerns, how unseen labour might be unburdened and shifted onto the dominant. The evocative works of Natalie Asumeng, La Tanya S. Autry, Tony Cokes, Chantal Gibson, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Martine Syms examine white supremacy’s manifestation in institutional power paradigms and its corrosive effects on Black and Indigenous people and people of colour (BIPOC). In so doing, this exhibition operationalizes and reveals unseen labour while activating alternative teachings from Black and Indigenous perspectives. Labour asks, what are the motivations for our inclusion in institutional spaces? Who has the right to tell our stories? What is our right to rage in the face of microaggressions and discriminatory acts? And how can we employ much-needed rest as a form of resistance? By reimagining how the colonized perceive, engage with, and ultimately challenge the forces that shape our world, Labour becomes a powerful site of defiance.
Toronto-based curator and creative director, Ingrid Jones examines the intersections of decolonial curatorial practice, transnational solidarities, and the politics of museum representation. Her research engages themes of marginalization and refusal through installation, media, and collaborative projects. Recent initiatives address liberatory practices of the African diaspora (Liberation in Four Movements, 2024), the unseen labour of BIPOC artists and cultural workers (Labour, 2024-25), and nostalgia for racialized communities framed through white supremacy (Nostalgia Interrupted, 2022).
Read moreJones co-founded Poor But Sexy (2009–2012), an independent art magazine recognized internationally for its collaborative approach, and Mutti (2018–2022), an artist space fostering community-based interdisciplinary project. She has curated exhibitions and programs for the Doris McCarthy Gallery (Toronto), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), and the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. She has also lectured and created masterclasses on photographic best practices and design for Toronto Metropolitan University and Sheridan Institute, respectively. Her work has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Reesa Greenberg Fund, and featured in Vice Berlin and Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, among others.
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