Our Event
Canada Cultural Exchange Event
Date: Oct - Nov 2026
Venue: Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Art Gallery of Ontario, Clint Roenisch Gallery
Organiser: International Federation of Arts & Artists
Media coverage: 129+
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Fang Ting Ting Represents the Asian Academy of Arts in Exchanges with Canada’s Arts Community
In October 2026, Fang Ting Ting represented the Asian Academy of Arts in exchanges with members of Canada’s arts and cultural communities in Toronto. She attended the preview of Art Toronto 2026 and visited the Art Gallery of Ontario and local galleries. Conversations covered artistic practice, exhibition presentation, gallery operations and the local art market.
On 29 October, at the Art Toronto preview held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Fang met gallery owners and arts professionals alongside Canadian artist Michael Janzen, chairman of the International Federation of Arts & Artists, and Danielle Marie Nowak, English-language editor of International Arts News.
During the visit, Fang and Janzen discussed the market for works of different subjects, media and types, as well as art sales in the current economic climate. She also asked gallery owners about sales at this year’s fair, how they compared with the previous year, and their observations of Toronto’s art market. The conversations brought together artists’ experiences of making and selling work with gallery owners’ perspectives on running their businesses.
At the Corkin Gallery booth, the group spoke with founder Jane Corkin and posed for a photograph together. Founded in 1979, Corkin Gallery has presented hundreds of exhibitions across photography, painting, sculpture, installation and other media.
From left: Danielle Marie Nowak, Fang Ting Ting, Michael Janzen and Jane Corkin
At the Galerie Raphael booth, Fang, Janzen and Nowak met gallery owner Raphael Petrov and French painter Mickaël Doucet. They spoke and posed for a photograph together.
From left: Raphael Petrov, Michael Janzen, Mickaël Doucet, Danielle Marie Nowak and Fang Ting Ting
At the Canadian Fine Arts booth, Fang joined Janzen, Nowak and the gallery’s senior art advisor, Wil Kucey, to view work by Alfred Joseph Casson. A member of Canada’s Group of Seven, Casson is known for his paintings of Ontario’s towns, villages and rural landscapes, with their clear outlines, carefully structured compositions and simplified planes. He was also a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters.
Casson was Janzen’s mentor. Drawing on his own development as an artist, Janzen spoke with Fang about Casson’s practice and his place in Canadian painting history. His account connected the work on display with a personal history of artistic mentorship.
After the fair, Fang accepted Janzen’s invitation to visit the Art Gallery of Ontario with him, where they viewed the collection and works associated with the Group of Seven. One of North America’s largest art museums, the AGO holds collections of Canadian and Indigenous art, European masterworks and contemporary art. During the visit, Fang and Janzen were photographed beside a Casson painting in the museum’s permanent collection.
Fang Ting Ting and Michael Janzen at the Art Gallery of Ontario
While in Toronto, Fang also visited Clint Roenisch Gallery with Janzen to see Greg Staats’s solo exhibition, Just Now Or At This Moment, Oh’n-woh. Staats is a Toronto-based Indigenous artist of Tuscarora and Mohawk heritage. Working across photography, text, installation and video, he explores relationships between language, family, land, trauma and renewal.
A photograph showing the remaining framework of a building caught Fang’s attention. She and her companions stopped to discuss the work. The surviving structure brought to mind questions of disappearance and what remains, connecting with her own experiences and recent work. At the exhibition, Janzen also introduced Fang to Carlos Galdamez, owner of Acadia Art and Rare Books, and they spoke together.
From left: Carlos Galdamez, Danielle Marie Nowak, Fang Ting Ting and Michael Janzen.
The exchanges ranged from the historical work of the Group of Seven to contemporary Indigenous art, alongside discussions of art fair sales, demand for different kinds of work and gallery operations. Viewing original works and speaking with artists, gallery owners and cultural professionals gave Fang a fuller understanding of Canadian painting traditions, local contemporary practice and changes in the art market under current economic conditions. These conversations, grounded in the work of making, exhibiting and selling art, also offered practical points of reference for her curatorial work, exhibition organisation and international arts exchanges at the Asian Academy of Arts.