Akin Collective
~pale breeze over soft mist~
Pale Breeze Over Soft Mist is a multimedia dreamscape which exists in an ecosystem on the borders of science fiction. One enters the work and is immediately engulfed in its glittering volumes, marshmallowy architectural aspect, its seductively synthetic membranes and floaty, dreamy synth music. The experience in itself is so heady and disorienting that one is unsure whether the effect comes from within or without. The space itself is simultaneously so familiar and so foreign that it exists somewhere between a mirage and a hallucination. Holographic glitter and party streamers, pearlescent paints, and sculpting foam have all been liberated from their quotidian prisons in party supply depots and craft bins, and here are celebrated for both their familiarity and their revolutionary potential.
The materials as they have been assembled evoke everything from 1980s glam to b-movie sets, fantasy films and comic book landscapes. It is equally conceivable that this world might have been conceived by Moebius or a 5 year old queen. The use of these easily accessible, familiar materials supports the feminist tradition of using that which has historically been considered to be ‘domestic,’ ‘feminine,’ outside the cannon of a traditionally male-dominated art world, in order to empower and to include women. The artist has made a space about making space, and one might argue that this is its deepest utopian aspiration.
Diana Lynn VanderMeulen is a Canadian multi-media artist, using collage as a medium for exploration into atmospheric installation. Her work invites the onlooker to participate in a journey through an alternate reality, wavering between environmental and magical dream state.
Akin Collective is a Toronto-based arts organization providing affordable studio space as well as arts-based programming. Akin has developed rental space that maintains a friendly and inspiring atmosphere where people can work on creative endeavours and entrepreneurial undertakings of all kinds. In total there are about 100 Akin members working at locations in Parkdale and Bloordale Village. Akin's programming involves art crits, open studio events, gallery tours, as well as various curatorial projects.
