ARTIFACTS was formed in 1983 by Pam Patterson and Leena Raudvee to produce collaborative works which combine the sensibilities and concerns of art and theatre. Over the years this practice has become interdisciplinary performance art. While concentrating on performance, ARTIFACTS has also created sound and video works and visual exhibitions. Recent works include The Voyage Out for Buddies in Bad Times - Hysteria : A Festival of Women, and Passing (2001), 7A11D International Performance Art Festival both in Toronto. Other works include: Detale (detail), presented for Roundup, 89; Attending II, staged as part of the series Access to the Process at A Space Gallery; Attending the Interior, performed at The Banff Centre, and Suburban Mirage, staged in the Danceworks series at Winchester St. Theatre, Toronto. Earlier works included performances in theatres, the street, and at the Theatre Centre and the Partisan Gallery.
ARTIFACTS produces collaborative works which combine the sensibilities and concerns of art and theatre in interdisciplinary performance art. It explores our culture, looking at the myths, assumptions, and fantasies, and placing them in a new context. The core of our work is informed by feminism, and women's issues and concerns. Performance art well suits this process, and while the performances may contain many personal and specific images and text, our intention is to investigate how women have been/are being formed, and to reveal our attempts to negotiate this formation. The tension is between the personal and the formal, which raises questions for us as to the nature of feminist art practices and women's roles in society.
Leena Raudvee is a Toronto-based visual and performance artist. Her drawings, mixed media work and performances have appeared over the last 20 years in Ontario galleries. As co-director of Artifacts, a performance art company, she performed for the International Performance Festival in Fall, 2000. She has also been involved in curatorial projects for venues such as A Space Gallery and The Women's Cultural Building.
Pam Patterson is a curator, writer, teacher, artist and performer. With a PhD in Feminist Arts Education, she teaches for the Toronto School of Art and the Gallery School at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her teaching and artistic practise focus on mixed-media (drawing, print making, collage, etc.), installation and performance. Her written reviews and articles have appeared in Parachute, FUSE, Fibrearts and numerous other periodicals. Her curatorial projects have been presented in a variety of venues from A Celebration of Women in the Arts at The Banff Centre, to Body as(ready to be re-) made for the Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts.
