On Exiting
A Community Discussion About Withdrawals, Off-Ramps and Forced Departures
Thursday, April 23, 2026
Gallery TPW
6PM-8:30PM
With presentations by Aisle 4, Luis Jacob and Gendai
This roundtable discussion and community workshop is aimed at defining and disentangling different forms of exiting—including finding off ramps out of the art world, withdrawing participation, and the more nefarious forms of forced exits, often accompanied by Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), from arts organizations—that we are witnessing taking place amongst artists, cultural workers and curators working in Toronto. These forms of leaving, refusal and forced departure are especially impacting those who are working from anti-racist, decolonial, queer, trans and feminist frameworks, and who speak out against the genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli state, who often pay the price for this work through acts of censorship and dismissal.
Members of collectives Aisle 4 and Gendai will discuss the troubling rise in non-disclosure agreements in the cultural sector, and off-ramps out of arts institutions, respectively, followed by substantial time for community discussion. A key outcome for the event is the building of a timeline of events, physically on paper, of exits, withdrawals, and departures in the Toronto art world, and the collective organizing that has emerged in response to these troubling trends. Luis Jacob will act as a respondent, helping to summarize key themes and outcomes and direct us towards next steps.
This first event, On Exiting, will be followed by two more — On Refusal (a community workshop to identify goals, strategies, and campaign timelines, scheduled for May 20) and On Creative Striking (a workshop to start mobilizing these strategies, on June 24) — which will direct the conversation towards concrete strategies for coalition-building and action.
—
On Exiting is a part of You Can Always Just Leave, a research project into forms of feminist refusal led by Gabrielle Moser, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) with organizing support from EMILIA-AMALIA, Dana Prieto and Liz Ikiriko.
If you have questions about this event, or access needs, please contact danaprieto@gmail.com.
Participant Bios
Aisle 4 is a curatorial collective based in Tkaronto/Toronto working in social practice and public art. Formed in 2013, they commission artist projects in the public realm that respond to specific communities, geographies, and/or social issues. Silencing in the Arts is an ongoing research project that traces the extent and impact of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in the Canadian arts sector. The project aims to shed light on the culture of silence that permeates the artworld, and the cycles of abuse, professional misconduct, and censorship that are perpetuated as a result.
Gendai is a collective based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Throughout its twenty-five-year history, Gendai has supported experimental curatorial and organizational practices, whilst creating space for East Asian artists and artists of colour. As Gendai’s newest stewards, Marsya Maharani and Petrina Ng are dedicated to building a more equitable art sector through collective research with BIPOC artists and arts workers. Using gossip as a methodology to trace the contours of institutional power, Gendai builds relationships with emerging and mid-career arts practitioners of colour to learn about current workplace dynamics in the sector. By offering peer mentorship and access to Gendai’s platform, resources, and network, they invite collaborators to support each other in pursuing non-institutional futures and imagine “off-ramps” from the linear expressway of traditional, capitalist, and institutional career progression in the arts. Gendai also participates in Guidance Council, a bi-monthly casual drop-in organized by Alexandra Hong and Peter Rahul for racialized arts workers to share stories and solicit advice from each other. Gendai has published their research in the Gossip issue of C Magazine, titled “We Should Talk: Obvious Truths About Working in the Arts.”
Based in Toronto, Luis Jacob is an artist whose work destabilizes conventions of viewing, and invites collisions of meaning. Jacob has achieved an international reputation, with his work exhibited at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg (2025); Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston (2022); Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, and the Toronto Biennial of Art (2019); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2018); Museion, Bolzano, Italy (2017); La Biennale de Montréal (2016); Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (2015); Taipei Biennial 2012; Generali Foundation, Vienna (2011); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); Hamburg Kunstverein and the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (both 2008); and Documenta12, Kassel (2007). In 2016 he curated the exhibition “Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto” at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, with a catalogue co-published with Black Dog Press in 2020.