Being Scene Curated Exhibition 2025: Tending to What Remains

Nature’s Algorithm by Jawa El Khash

24th annual Being Scene – Curated Exhibition
Tending to What Remains
Presented by Workman Arts

September 4 – October 5, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 4, 6 – 8pm
Public Program: Plant walk and Zine making with Bishara Elmi (TBD)
32 Lisgar Street, 2nd Floor, Toronto

Public Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday, 1 – 6pm | Extended hours on Nuit Blanche

The Being Scene exhibition began over 20 years ago on the grounds of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Since then, Being Scene has exhibited hundreds of artworks by Workman Arts member artists as well as artists with lived experience who have, at some point in their recovery, received services from CAMH. In 2018, Workman Arts introduced a smaller curated portion as part of the overall exhibit.

This year’s exhibition is curated by Manar Abo Touk and is titled Tending to What Remains.

Tending to What Remains is a multidisciplinary group exhibition that reimagines the gallery as a living garden: a shared ecosystem of care. Set within Workman Art’s Being Scene 2025, it explores how artists with lived experiences of displacement, intergenerational grief, or mental health struggles turn to organic and everyday materials such as herbs, cotton, hair, wax, paper, and sound, to reflect on trauma, recovery, and community resilience.

Guided by diasporic, feminist, and ecological ways of knowing, Tending to What Remains gathers the work of Xece/Khadija Baker, Anna Williams, Shannon Taylor-Jones, Nadine Hajjaj, and Jawa El Khash. Together, their works create a contemplative space that explores themes of memory activism, collective tending, and the everyday rituals that sustain us.

Join the Conversation

Many onsite events will include deep discussions with artists and persons with lived experience who will engage in illuminating and insightful conversations about the challenges that face our community and the art sector in Canada from a mental health perspective. Join the Conversation on social media using the hashtag #BEINGSCENE.

Exhibition Accessibility

Workman Arts is committed to values of inclusivity and accessibility for all guests, staff, volunteers and artists. We are listening and learning from our community to help us address barriers and open up opportunities for anyone interested to engage with the Being Scene exhibition and related events. All exhibition venues are wheelchair accessible with accessible washrooms.

We do our best to accommodate any interpretation, transportation assistance, navigation assistance, or any other accessibility needs by request. If you require any accessibility support in order to attend any of these events, please get in touch with Olivia Deresti at olivia_deresti@workmanarts.com.

Contact Workman Arts
1025 Queen Street West, #2400
Toronto Ontario M6J 1H4
416-583-4339
info@workmanarts.com

For more information, visit our website.

Presented with the generous support of: