Exhibition Featuring Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn and Andrea Carlson Now on View at The Goldfarb Gallery
Toronto’s Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery Announces Spring/Summer 2025 Program with Exhibitions by Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn and Andrea Carlson
The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery in Toronto is proud to launch its Spring/Summer 2025 season with the opening of two major exhibitions by internationally acclaimed artists: Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn and Andrea Carlson. The inaugural celebration takes place on Thursday, May 22, with the exhibitions on view from May 23 through August 2, 2025. The shows explore themes of memory, identity, colonial histories, Indigenous knowledge, and speculative futures through sculpture, video, mixed media, and installation.
Andrea Carlson: “A Painting is a Coin”
Curated by Clara Halpern, Andrea Carlson’s solo exhibition, A Painting is a Coin, presents an expansive body of work that straddles historical memory and cultural reclamation. Carlson, an artist of Ojibwe descent, utilizes a multidisciplinary approach that includes painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and printmaking to interrogate narratives around land, ancestry, cinema, and Indigenous Futurism.
Well known for her large-scale, multi-paneled works on paper characterized by intricate detail and vibrant symbolism, Carlson’s art probes colonial structures and offers re-imaginings of Indigenous presence and persistence. A Painting is a Coin features two of her striking multi-panel works on paper, a newly commissioned sculpture, and an ambitious multi-screen video collaboration with interdisciplinary artist and researcher Rozalinda Borcilă.
In this exhibition, Carlson weaves cosmological storytelling with political critique, constructing frameworks that resist singular interpretations and reflect a matrix of lived, inherited, and speculative experiences. The exhibition invites viewers into a meditative exploration of value, resilience, and the visual languages that emerge from layered histories and identities.
Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn: “When Water Embraces Empty Space”
Presented for the first time in Canada, Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s exhibition When Water Embraces Empty Space invites audiences to reflect on the legacy of colonial looting, diasporic memory, and the act of cultural reconstitution. Curated by Jenifer Papararo, this exhibition centers around a singular yet multifaceted artifact: the Luf canoe, a traditional watercraft originating from the island of Luf in Papua New Guinea and taken in the late 19th century by a German trader.
Nguyễn’s multi-channel video installation animates the spectral history of this canoe, bringing to life the voices of three descendants of the original craftspeople. Through poetic storytelling, song, animation, and documentary footage, the work reimagines the physical and spiritual journey of this expropriated object, transforming it into a powerful metaphor for displacement, connection, and cultural restitution.
When Water Embraces Empty Space is a collaboration between international institutions, commissioned by Haus for Media Arts Oldenburg in Germany in partnership with The Showroom in London and The Goldfarb Gallery in Toronto. The exhibition is supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
About the Goldfarb Gallery
The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery at Toronto Metropolitan University is dedicated to showcasing contemporary art practices from Canada and around the globe. The gallery provides a space for critical dialogue, creative expression, and community engagement through its commitment to presenting innovative and thought-provoking exhibitions.
Visit the Exhibitions
Andrea Carlson’s A Painting is a Coin and Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s When Water Embraces Empty Space will be on view from May 23 through August 2, 2025. These exhibitions offer unique opportunities to experience immersive installations that speak across cultures, histories, and futures.
For more information, visit the gallery’s official website at thegoldfarbgallery.ca.
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