Corn Roast with Ron Benner and Art Bus Tour at Industrial Arts

Ron Benner, Jeff Thomas, Corn = Life: The Power of Naming, 2024, photographic/garden installation view, Steelcase Art Projects, Markham, ON. Photo credit: Camille Qinru Xie.

Corn Roast

Monday, September 30, 2024, 11am – 1pm
248 Steelcase Rd. E, Markham (Free onsite parking)

Join us for an unforgettable community gathering and Corn Roast at Ron Benner and Jeff Thomas’ photographic and garden installation. As part of this year’s observance of Truth and Reconciliation Day, this gathering serves as an opportunity for reflection and connection through art, culture, and food.

Throughout the summer, Benner and Thomas’s vibrant garden has blossomed with an array of flowers and edible plants, creating a stunning backdrop for this special event. As part of the experience, Benner will host a lively Corn Roast, featuring his famous Maiz Barbacoa corn-roasting wagon. Originally designed for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche in 2006, this iconic roving installation combines food, sculpture, and cultural storytelling, which features captivating images of corn roasters from around the globe and displays the names of corn in over 50 languages. You’ll enjoy delicious roasted corn, topped with butter, salt, Mexican chili powder, and fresh lime.

All are welcome, and the event is free! Come enjoy the food, meet new friends, and immerse yourself in a celebration of art, community, and reconciliation.

Note: The program is outdoors, rain or shine; please dress accordingly.

Hop on the Art Bus

October 19, 2024, 12pm – 5:30pm
Limited space
Free with registration

This tour offers a final chance to enjoy Benner and Thomas’s live installation before the season ends.

Experience three engaging GTA exhibitions that explore agriculture and botany. Start with Botannica Tirannica at the Koffler Gallery, followed by Corn = Life: The Power of Naming at Industrial Arts, and end with Art Farm at Doris McCarthy Gallery.

Ron Benner, Jeff Thomas, Corn = Life: The Power of Naming, 2024, photographic/garden installation view, Steelcase Art Projects, Markham, ON. Photo credit: Camille Qinru Xie.

Industrial Arts Sculpture Garden 2024 presents a unique fusion of two artists’ visions – Corn = Life: The Power of Naming interweaves living native plants with evocative historical imagery. Curated by Yuluo Wei and presented by Steelcase Art Projects, this artwork is a tribute to Indigenous peoples’ agricultural and cultural heritage.

At its heart lies a striking white-purple trellis, an homage to the 1613 Two Row Treaty – a foundational agreement between Dutch settlers and Thomas’ Haudenosaunee ancestors. Benner plants a rich tapestry of culturally significant native American plants and corn, including varieties Peruvian Purple Maize, Mandan Bride, Assiniboian Flint, and Iroquoian Rainbow, which grow to embrace the structure. These are accompanied by tomatoes, chilli peppers, marigolds, sunflowers and many others, creating a rich flora that honours its Indigenous origins.

Jeff Thomas’s photographs connect deeply with Ron Benner’s garden and serve as personal and collective contemplation on the environmental and societal ramifications of broken promises. The Two Row Treaty symbolizes mutual recognition and autonomy. Reflecting this spirit, both artists contribute to the garden with a sense of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence.

This dynamic and contemplative space invites viewers to be part of a living document. May it inspire new pathways towards a harmonious coexistence.

Ron Benner, Jeff Thomas, Corn = Life: The Power of Naming, 2024, photographic/garden installation view, Steelcase Art Projects, Markham, ON. Photo credit: Camille Qinru Xie.

About the Artists

Ron Benner is an internationally recognized Canadian artist whose long standing practice investigates the history and political economy of food cultures. Benner originally studied agriculture engineering at the University of Guelph in 1969/70. Finding himself ethically opposed to industrial agriculture and bioengineering, he began to travel and research the politics of food. Benner’s mixed media installation works, including commissions of photographic-garden installations, have been shown in solo and group exhibitions at Museum London, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Western University, Wilfrid Laurier University, and many other galleries, museums and cultural institutions in Canada and internationally. His work is included in numerous public collections both in Canada and internationally, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He has recently been appointed artist in residence in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, 2020-2021, Benner resides in London, Ontario, on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lúnaapéewak and Chonnonton Nations.

Jeff Thomas is an urban-based Iroquois, self-taught photo-based story teller, writer, public speaker and curator, living in Ottawa, Ontario, and has works in major collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Thomas’s most recent solo exhibitions were in University of Southern Illinois, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Wanuskewin Heritage Park (Saskatoon), and Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto). Thomas has also been in many group shows, including The Family Camera, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989, Art Gallery of Ontario; Land/Slide: Possible Futures, Markham, Ontario; SAKAHAN, National Gallery of Canada; UNMASKING: Arthur Renwick, Adrian Stimson, Jeff Thomas, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France. He was awarded the Canada Council’s Duke and Duchess of York Award in Photography (1998), Royal Canadian Academy of Art (2008), The Karsh Award in photography (2008), the REVAL Indigenous Art Award (2017), and the Canada Council Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (2019).

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Ontario Arts Council.

The artists thank the following for their assistance in the production of this installation: Olivia Mossuto, Jamelie Hassan, Zein Saadani-Gordon, John Riley, and Ross Bell.

Steelcase Art Projects
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steelcaseartprojects@gmail.com

Industrial Arts
Markham, Ontario

Accessibility:
The public art space is accessible.

Industrial Arts is a 5-acre site in Markham comprising multiple industrial units hosting tenants involved in light manufacturing processes.

Steelcase Art Projects is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to transform Industrial Arts into a site for artistic experimentation through collaborations, commissions and projects. Working with tenants and the surrounding community, it is connecting business to the arts through unconventional collaborations in the industrial realm.