Reciprocal Relations: Growing Pains

Growing Pains

September 12-18, 2023 

Pix Film Gallery

1411 Dufferin St. Unit C, Toronto, ON, M6H 4C7

Gallery Hours:

Weekdays: 11:00am - 2:00pm  4:00pm - 7:00pm

Weekend: 11:00am - 2:00pm  3:00pm - 8:00pm

Curated by Mackai Sharp

Companionship is never a one way street. Growing Pains is having no closure. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to you. It’s the deepest crevasse you’ve had to pull yourself out from. Growing Pains is seeing them in public. Growing Pains is that music you used to listen to. It’s all encompassing. There is before, and there is after.

Growing Pains is a multimedia exhibition consisting of found footage and unfinished works from the archive of Mackai Sharp, accompanied with a soundscape and a series of images displayed amongst a grouping of physical objects. With works from the archive of the CFMDC.

Including films:

Across by Cara Morton (Canada, 3 min, 1997, 16mm to digital)

Parhelion by Dan Browne (Canada, 2.5 min, 2016, Super 8 to digital)

The garden of earthly delights by Stan Brakhage (USA, 3 min, 1981, 16mm to digital)

About the Curator:

Mackai Sharp is a Queer Maōri-Canadian filmmaker, creative director, and multimedia artist. Raised on Vancouver Island (on unceded K’omoks territory), Mackai has been filmmaking and creating since he was eight years old, often fostering and researching his own arts education as no formal programs would accept him to study due to his early age.
 Mackai likes to confront his problems head on, using his preferred digital mediums as a space to tear apart existential ideas of self, community, interpersonal relationships, and lived experiences. With these pieces, he makes work that tells a story he couldn’t put into words.
 His work has been shown across North America, Europe, and Asia. Adjacent to filmmaking, Mackai is a published photographer working in both creative and journalistic photography. His intentions are to continue making art, films and friends, exploring new mediums, and expanding his practice abroad.

Part of Reciprocal Relations. Produced with support from Canada Council for the Arts.