New Art Project Examines Humanity and Art-as-Experience

ZED.TO is an art project that is examining how people relate to one another while exploring the boundaries of art and theatre. It’s run by a small group called the Mission Business and looks like they’re going to create something downright nifty.

ZED.TO – an immersive biotech adventure from Trevor Haldenby on Vimeo.

This project is an exploration of format. We are curious about what happens when artists and strategic thinkers move outside of their own specific realms to collaborate in story making and story telling. Toronto is currently in a financial artistic crisis. Looking at the report on municipal per capita investment in the arts that just came out this week, Toronto is at the bottom of list of Canadian cities dollar investment in the arts. It’s not a secret that cities flourish when a government invests in culture. The return on investment is high when you invest in the arts. As a result of this lack of funding, the art we are creating is void of risk. The Mission Business, a new collective on the Toronto arts scene, is inevitably caught in a cycle that won’t allow us to gain from writing grants because our project doesn’t fit into any category box, and no one knows our work to be proven successfully. So we are expected to go round and round in a cycle that wants us to prove ourselves before we are supported by larger funding bodies, but we get caught because we can’t put anything up without that support. The problem here is the same as the art-making. No one wants to take a risk. For me, creating an experience that is inherently risky in format and content as well as collaboration, makes sense in a period where we are being forced to do what is considered safe. How are we expected to create change if we do the same thing over and over expecting different results? Isn’t that the definition of insanity?

To get their project running they are looking for financing through IndieGoGo, find out more at ZED.TO on IndieGogo

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