{"id":41265,"date":"2018-08-04T15:29:10","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T19:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=41265"},"modified":"2018-08-04T15:36:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T19:36:37","slug":"jose-luis-torres-question-dadaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=41265","title":{"rendered":"Jos\u00e9 Luis Torres: Question d\u2019adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If my mother\u2019s basement exploded, it would look like Torres\u2019s new exhibition at the Koffler Gallery. Hoarding seems to be a common pattern among immigrant mothers, especially Asian ones. Everything and anything might be useful someday so why throw anything out? It took my father 20 trips to the garbage disposal in our old Toyota to clean out that basement, seemingly disposing of our history, past, and memories. But what good is a memorabilia if it\u2019s stored away, instead of remembered about?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/5hLK0RYQ-1.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-41257\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/5hLK0RYQ-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Jos\u00e9 Luis Torres, Question d&#8217;adaptation (Koffler Gallery installation detail), 2018. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n<p>As per the title <em>Question d\u2019adaptation<\/em>, we are invited to not only think about our experiences of adaptation, but actively experience adaptation at the exhibition. We are made to crouch down, climb, and walk through openings that are too small. The act of straightening your spine to witness what\u2019s upon the other side is a significant one, forcing us to quickly adapt to different perspectives and surroundings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zNldyVRQ.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-41262\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/zNldyVRQ.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Jos\u00e9 Luis Torres, Question d&#8217;adaptation (Koffler Gallery installation detail), 2018. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n<p>We constantly have to adjust ourselves in this space, like a chameleon. The red hallway at the back of the exhibition turns us into a shade of red and prompts us to squeeze through a small opening in order to reach the other side. The blind attached to one of the entrances are almost shut, having to rub against the wall in order to pass without disturbing the blinds. The askew wooden structure across from the red hallway not only turns us into a hue of yellow, but also leads us back to the wall of old mirrors by the entrance, where we are confronted with distorted versions of ourselves. Mirror before entering and after &#8211; to show us the transformations we went through.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/rsz_1rsz_tjc2mueq.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-41277\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/rsz_1rsz_tjc2mueq.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"266\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Jos\u00e9 Luis Torres, Question d&#8217;adaptation (Koffler Gallery installation detail), 2018. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n<p>Countering the dislocating and distorting effects of the crude, bona fide indoor playground, are maps. Among the first items to be seen is a world map, with Canada in the centre of the map. Through the the wooden passageway underneath the explosion of furnitures, is another map, featuring just Canada this time. We\u2019ve migrated.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/rsz_c5xh_znw.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-41270\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/rsz_c5xh_znw.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"272\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/9tkerBuQ.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-41258\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/9tkerBuQ.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"260\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Jos\u00e9 Luis Torres, Question d&#8217;adaptation (Koffler Gallery installation detail), 2018. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n<p>Just like the exhibition, maybe our immigrant mothers were attempting to resist the pressures of assimilation and hold onto the past pieces of their identity. Passageways become increasingly inconvenient to comfortably pass through, and the amount of \u2018stuff\u2019 carried through the spaces become less and less, until we have seemingly come back to the same place, but it all looks different now, and so do we.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/NHSXnCRA.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-41261\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/NHSXnCRA.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Jos\u00e9 Luis Torres, Question d&#8217;adaptation (Koffler Gallery installation detail), 2018. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid<\/p>\n<p>Sunny Kim<\/p>\n<p>Images are courtesy of Koffler Gallery<\/p>\n<p>*Exhibition information:\u00a0June 21 \u2013 August 26, 2018, Koffler Gallery, Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street, Toronto. Gallery hours:\u00a0Tues \u2013 Fri 12 \u2013 6 pm, Sat &amp; Sun 11 am \u2013 5 pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>by Sunny Kim<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Passageways become increasingly inconvenient, and the amount of \u2018stuff\u2019 carried through the spaces become less, until we have seemingly come back to the same place, but it all looks different now, and so do we.<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=41265\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-sunny-kim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41265"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41278,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41265\/revisions\/41278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}