Alternative Energies, an exhibition featuring work by 13 thirteen undergraduate and graduate students in visual arts at York, will be on view downtown at Toronto’s Sheraton Centre Hotel as part of the Toronto Audio Video Entertainment Show (TAVES) Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, 2014.

Participating York artists are Amanda Boulos, Marnie Brandejs, Elaine Chan-Dow, Mary Dyja, Miles Forrester, Scott Harber, Rebecca Houston, Ella Morton, Christos Pantieras, Simon Solis, Phoebe Todd-Parrish, Betty Zhang and Kat Zinguer. The show is curated by MA art history graduate student Jen Macdonald.

Artists’ statement: Alternative Energies contemplates energies as amorphous beings and osmotic potentials with weighted implications. Energy production and consumption are frequently criticized for environmental damage, furthering the inaccessibility of natural resources for low-income populations around the world, and cultural destruction. To continue the search for alternative energy sources, we will create, harness, destroy and/or bathe in the energy of previously untapped resources; chewed or unchewed wires, old-timey photos, sea creatures, sunburned skin etc. We are tired of overworking pressurized dinosaur fossils – they need a break too! We are interested in energies resulting from friction, alchemy, expansion, or the birth of new universes after a microwave casts demons from tin foil.