Your 2023 Mentors

Ed Pien

Website || Artist Statement

Ed Pien emigrated from Taiwan with his family to London, Ontario as a child. He has studied at H. B. Beal Secondary School and received an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Western University. In 1984 he completed his MFA a York University. He presently lives and works in Toronto. In his nearly four-decade career, Pien has shown extensively, both nationally and internationally, in venues that include the Drawing Centre, NYC: the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Canadian Culture Centre in Paris; The Goethe Institute in Berlin; The Vancouver Art Gallery; The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; The Art Gallery of Ontario; Musée des beaux arts, Montreal; Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal; Songzhuang Art Centre, Beijing; as well as at the National Art Gallery of Canada. He has participated in the 2000 and 2002 Montreal Biennales; the 18th Edition of the Sydney Biennale, "Oh Canada", at MASS MoCA. Pien also presented new work at the 5th Edition of the Moscow Biennale and at the Beijing Biennale. In 2017 he participated in the Curitiba Biennial in Brazil and in 2020, the Bienal Internacional de Asunción, Paraguay. He currently has a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario that showcases his ongoing project that explores the notion of time with a small group of Cuban Elders.

Johannes Zits

Website ||

Toronto based artist Johannes Zits’ multi-disciplinary practice focuses on the many meanings engendered by a body, both human and non-human and extending the notion of the performer to include nature itself. Since graduating from York University in 1984, Zits has presented work across Canada and internationally, including performances for the 8th Encuentro, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Le festival international du film sur l’art, Montreal; and performance variations on the “Island”: M:ST Festival, Calgary; Yuz Museum, Shanghai; and Havana, Cuba. He facilitated an Intensive Performance Art Workshop at Artscape Gibraltar Point as well as curated the first editions of S.P.A.N.E., Screening of Performance Art in the Natural Environment. He was part of a curatorial team for Duration And Dialogue. In 2019 the Copenhagen Contemporary Museum commissioned Zits to realize a score for their permanent collection. In 2020 he performed at the International Biennial of Asuncion, Paraguay. He was the 2020 artist-in-residence at Western University’s McIntosh Gallery, London, Ontario. In 2023 he worked on a tree project with a dance theatre group in the U.K and also collaborated with a dancer in Havana, Cuba, celebrating a giant banyan tree.

Artist Statement

For the past fifteen years, I have been working with and documenting trees around the world. These trees are unique or have historical or cultural significance within communities. They have storied lives and some have borne witness to horrific tragedies, like the A-bomb Survivor, named Castle Guard, an Eucalyptus tree in Hiroshima. Others mark the gradual development of communities as important gathering places or major landmarks, such as the Meeting Tree thriving in London, Ontario which marked a safe place for those using the Underground Railroad to escape enslavement. In my practice, I am exploring and celebrating the sentience of trees as I believe they have agency and continuously respond to their environment in order to adapt to their living conditions. My perspective aligns with cultures that see humanity as being interconnected with nature and view all matter as having consciousness.

In addition to my commitment to working within the natural environment, I have facilitated the Intensive Performance Art Workshop at Artscape Gibraltar Point (2011-2015) and initiated the curatorial project "Screening of Performance Art in the Natural Environment" (S.P.A.N.E.). In 2021, I was invited by the Dunlop Art Gallery to curate four online screenings Water, Earth, Air and Fire under the umbrella of S.P.A.N.E.