Thom Sokoloski
Thom Sokoloski is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. He trained as a dancer,
worked at LaMama ETC in NYC and Paris, attended L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq and formed the
Paris Theatre Project. Returning to Canada he was behind Autumn Leaf Performance,
The Theatre Centre and the Native Theatre School. A ten year collaboration with composer
R. Murray Schafer followed, directing RA at the Science Centre and Hermes Trismegistos
inside Union Station. He produced Michael Nyman, the Master Musicians of Jajouka,
Ahmed Hassan's 14 Remembered, an international tour of Claude Vivier's Kopernikus,
his own Kafka in Love in the Hart House swimming pool and Interactive 05 for the
Toronto Art Fair.
Now focused on large public installations, Thom recently created a work
for the Fallsview Casino and completed a residency at Montreal's La Société des arts
technologiques with the support of the National Capital Commission, to realize the
prototype for The Balloons, his web-based interactive work of 100 26-foot wrapped balloon
structures for the Rideau Canal.
[ contact ]
Confinement of the Intellect, 2006
Multimedia site specific installation and performance
[ selected photographs ]
[ video ]
Trinity-Bellwoods Park (Queen Street West and Strachan Avenue).
This experimental installation and performance work focused on some of the complex issues surrounding
mental health from a historical as well as contemporary perspective. The work explored the historical
relationships between architecture, landscape and outsider humanity as a quarantined legitimized hub
of radical nonconformity in a conformist society, and where in fact, it is the general public that is
marginalized.
Sixty-eight pup tents in reference to the Patient's Right Act, Bill 68 - Brian's Law, occupied the grounds, each
containing artifacts and memorabilia to tell the story of a former patient or a figure known for their
struggles with madness. Entering the tents, visitors found intimacy with these stories in an environment imbued
with a haunting quality reminiscent of ancient ruins. The artist also identified three subsequent
areas of epiphany where sudden manifestations, as in a Dada-esque cabaret of Happenings took place, soliciting
contemplation, if not rupture of place and memory.
YOU ARE HERE [audio project by Lewis Kaye]
For the audio file for this site, please right-click the link below
and select "save target as (pc) /
download linked file (mac)".
Trinity Bellwoods Park: A walk to the pit from Strachan Gates (9.8 MB)
You Are Here instructions
1) Download each track to your personal computer
and add them to your favoured MP3 player software (e.g. iTunes, WinAmp, etc.) library.
2) Create a playlist specifically for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche,
and download this playlist to your portable MP3 player.
***Please note that while you can play the tracks on a normal stereo speaker system,
You Are Here is a binaural audio project specifically designed for personal stereos.
For full effect, each track should be listened to with headphones.
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